GNU `make'

Node:Preparing, Next:Reading, Previous:Overview, Up:Overview

### Preparing and Running Make

To prepare to use `make`, you must write a file called the makefile that describes the relationships among files in your program and provides commands for updating each file. In a program, typically, the executable file is updated from object files, which are in turn made by compiling source files.

Once a suitable makefile exists, each time you change some source files, this simple shell command:

         make

suffices to perform all necessary recompilations. The `make` program uses the makefile data base and the last-modification times of the files to decide which of the files need to be updated. For each of those files, it issues the commands recorded in the data base.

You can provide command line arguments to `make` to control which files should be recompiled, or how. See How to Run `make`.