How to launch a make from a sub dir

Question

I have one top level Makefile. The project has several subdirectories of various depths.

How can I launch make from any subdirectory, so it uses the top level Makefile, just like git finds automatically its top-level .git directory ?

Structure :

/
/a/
/b/c
/Makefile
/Readme

Scenario :

/$ make
... Works ...
/b$ make
... Cannot find makefile

I'd like the 2nd scenario to do the same as the first one.

Hint, it would ideally serve as :make rule in vi, but shouldn't be vi-specific

Update: the / is not the root dir, only the root of the project, the real intent is to mimic git

@beta the / is not the root dir, only the root of the project, sorry — Steve Schnepp, Apr 06 '13 at 00:46
So `alias make="make -f /path/to/root/of/project/Makefile"`. — Beta, Apr 06 '13 at 00:51
... And I do not want to babysit the alias each time I change project — Steve Schnepp, Apr 06 '13 at 00:52
might be of some help: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/322936/common-gnu-makefile-directory-path — gongzhitaao, Apr 06 '13 at 01:09
You should have mentioned multiple projects in the question. How about a script that crawls up the tree until it finds a `makefile`? — Beta, Apr 06 '13 at 02:00
@beta yup, that's what I did. If you write such a sample script as an answer, i'll accept it. — Steve Schnepp, Apr 06 '13 at 10:36

Sagar Sakre · Answer 1 · 2013-04-06T16:58:34.153

2

Hint by Beta would work. create a alias

alias make=`sh /home/makecrawl.sh`

where makecrawl.sh would look like

#! /bin/bash
while ! [ -f makefile ] &&  [$PWD != "/" ]
do
cd ..
done
make

edited Apr 06 '13 at 16:58

answered Apr 06 '13 at 03:21

Sagar Sakre

2,336
22
31

@steve schnepp: thanks for the warning.. while ! [ -f Makefile ] && [ $PWD != "/" ] would work – Sagar Sakre Apr 06 '13 at 16:56

Beta · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-06T13:35:42.920

1

#!/bin/bash  

HERE=$PWD

while ! [ -f Makefile ] && [ $PWD != "/" ]
do
 cd ..
done

MFILE=$PWD/Makefile

cd $HERE
make -f $MFILE

edited Apr 06 '13 at 13:35

answered Apr 06 '13 at 13:05

Beta

96,650
16
149
150

Beware of the infinite loop if Makefile is not found. Accepting it, since you made the first comments that lead to it. – Steve Schnepp Apr 06 '13 at 13:25
@SteveSchnepp: Funny, I thought of that and then forgot to put it in. Corrected. – Beta Apr 06 '13 at 13:36

How to launch a make from a sub dir

2 Answers2