Makefile Template

Simple Makefile template to build C/C++ application, static or shared library easily.

Description :

Architecture :

In order to use this Makefile, your project need to respect a specific (but yet classical) architecture described as follow :

ProjectFolder
├── Makefile
├── bin/
├── include/
└── src/

Here :

• src folder contains source files (*.c/*.cpp) of the project.
• include folder contains header files (*.h/*.hpp) of the project.
• bin folder will contains object files (*.o) generated during compilation

The final executable (or library) is generated in ProjectFolder, next to the Makefile. Of course, this location and other settings can be customize directly in the Makefile to fit perfectly your need.

Customization :

The file is composed of mainly 3 parts :

• Project Settings : All the modification concerning your project are to me made here. More information below.
• General Settings : No modification are needed there (99% of the time). These are settings to make the compilation possible and pretty.
• Build Step : Compilation steps to build the project. No modification needed.

About Project Settings :

The following paramater are specific to the project and need to be changed accordingly.

• TARGET_TYPE : Type of your module. EXECUTABLE, STATIC_LIB or SHARED_LIB.
• TARGET_NAME : Name of the executable/library ⁽¹⁾.
• SRC_EXTENSION : Extension of source files to compile in src folder (eg : cpp, c, ...).
• CXX : Compiler to use.
• CXXFLAGS : Compilation options such as -Wall or -O3. By default, -c is added (and mandatory).
• LOGFILE : Path to the compilation logfile. By default, the file is generated at the root of the project.

⁽¹⁾ : For static and shared library, full name of the library is automatically generated based on TARGET_NAME variable. Example : TARGET_NAME = ComplexAR

• STATIC_LIB : libComplexAR.a
• SHARED_LIB : libComplexAR.so

Modules :

To simplify use/configuration of external module/library in your project, you can use INCLUDE_DIR_MODULE_XXX, LIB_DIR_MODULE_XXX and LIB_MODULE_XXX (replace XXX with the name of the library). This allow to have separate declaration for each library.

For instance, if you have an external module ComplexMod

INCLUDE_DIR_MODULE_COMPLEXMOD = /path/to/ComplexMod/include
LIB_DIR_MODULE_COMPLEXMOD = /path/to/ComplexMod/lib
LIB_MODULE_COMPLEXMOD = -lComplexMod

After defining each module, you just have to call them in INCLUDE_FLAGS and LDFLAGS that are used during compilation.

INCLUDE_FLAGS= -I $(INCLUDE_DIR) -I $(INCLUDE_DIR_MODULE_COMPLEXMOD)
LDFLAGS= -L $(LIB_DIR_COMPLEXMOD) $(LIB_MODULE_COMPLEXEMOD)

Note : INCLUDE_FLAGS contains -I $(INCLUDE_DIR) by default in order to use header defined in include folder.

Usage

Command avaiblable are :

• make : Build the project in release mode.
• make debug : Build the project in debug mode.
• make clean : Delete all object files inside bin folder, the executable/library and the logfile. Can be used if you want to recompilation the whole project.

Note : Logfile is deleted before each compilation.