How to Run make

A makefile that says how to recompile a program can be used in more than one way. The simplest use is to recompile every file that is out of date. Usually, makefiles are written so that if you run make with no arguments, it does just that.

But you might want to update only some of the files; you might want to use a different compiler or different compiler options; you might want just to find out which files are out of date without changing them.

By giving arguments when you run make, you can do any of these things and many others.

The exit status of make is always one of three values:

0

The exit status is zero if make is successful.

2

The exit status is two if make encounters any errors. It will print messages describing the particular errors.

1

The exit status is one if you use the ‘-q’ flag and make determines that some target is not already up to date. See Instead of Executing Recipes.

• Makefile Arguments		How to specify which makefile to use.
• Goals		How to use goal arguments to specify which parts of the makefile to use.
• Instead of Execution		How to use mode flags to specify what kind of thing to do with the recipes in the makefile other than simply execute them.
• Avoiding Compilation		How to avoid recompiling certain files.
• Overriding		How to override a variable to specify an alternate compiler and other things.
• Testing		How to proceed past some errors, to test compilation.
• Options Summary		Summary of Options