'make clean' not working

Question

so I made a makefile for a c program. For some reason my 'clean' is not working. Here's a little bit of my makefile:

CC=gcc
FLAGS=-c -Wall -I.
CLEANC=rm -rf *.o

move.o: move.c
     $(CC) $(FLAGS) move.c
/*Lot more codes like this^^^*/

clean:
    $(CLEANC)

When I run 'make clean' in command prompt, I'm shown the following:

rm -rf *.o
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, rm -rf *.o, ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
makefile:116: recipe for target 'clean' failed
make: *** [clean] Error 2

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I've tried changing CLEANC to

rm -f *.o
rm *.o 
rm *o
rm -f *.o test.exe //test.exe is executable

but it still gave me the same error no matter what I tried. I could really use the help. Thanks in advance.

Cannot reproduce this. Your Makefile works perfectly with GNU Make 3.81 and GNU Make 4.2.1. — Renaud Pacalet, Dec 10 '17 at 07:20
What OS? What happens when you try `rm -f *.o` on the command line? — Beta, Dec 11 '17 at 03:14
It's giving me the same error. I am using Windows 10 with MinGW and MSYS installed. 'make' and 'make compile' works perfectly but for some reason 'make clean' always gives me that same error. — ioaop, Dec 11 '17 at 20:12

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '17 at 09:34

9

Judging from the CreateProcess appearing in your error output I assume you are running make under Windows.

This means that there is no rm command, you should use del instead and -rf flags should also be adjusted accordingly.

answered Dec 11 '17 at 09:34

igagis

1,959
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I think the equivalent for Windows is `del /Q /S *.o` , presuming the object files end up as `.o` (i.e., mingw GCC) and not `.obj` (visual studio) – lockcmpxchg8b Dec 11 '17 at 10:49
Thank you! Both answers worked! I assumed that `rm` command would work since `make` worked perfectly fine. – ioaop Dec 11 '17 at 20:24
If you still want to use `rm` command in windows, I recommend you to take a look at cygwin (just google for it) – igagis Dec 11 '17 at 23:05
why can I not use rm, although rm is available in the console (powershell)? – JFFIGK Aug 05 '18 at 16:45
1

@JFFIGK because `mingw32-make` uses `cmd` instead of `powershell` – igagis Aug 06 '18 at 08:00
Now, instead of `cygwin` I would recommend `msys2` – igagis Dec 10 '19 at 23:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 03 '21 at 14:49

0

OBJS   = $(addprefix $(OBJ_DIR)/,$(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(notdir $(SRCS))))
DELOBJS = $(addprefix .\obj\,$(patsubst %.c,%.o,$(notdir $(SRCS))))

.PHONY: clean
clean:
    del xxx 
    del $(DELOBJS)

del does not work because Windows uses \ to distinguish file paths,so you have to take OBJS with \path, that is, DELOBJS I wrote

edited Jun 03 '21 at 14:49

Doj

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answered Jun 03 '21 at 02:34

Mr.Qiuzs

1

'make clean' not working

2 Answers2

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