Make & Makefiles

Run default target

make

Run specific target

make build

Run multiple targets

make clean build test

Show available targets

make help

Basic Makefile structure

# Variables
CC=gcc
CFLAGS=-Wall -O2

# Default target
all: program

# Build target
program: main.o utils.o
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o program main.o utils.o

# Compile source
main.o: main.c
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c main.c

utils.o: utils.c
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c utils.c

# Clean up
clean:
	rm -f *.o program

# Phony targets
.PHONY: all clean

Common patterns

# Variables
SRC_DIR=src
BUILD_DIR=build

# Pattern rule
$(BUILD_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.c
	mkdir -p $(BUILD_DIR)
	$(CC) -c $< -o $@

# Automatic variables
# $@ - target name
# $< - first prerequisite
# $^ - all prerequisites

Node.js Makefile

.PHONY: install build test clean

install:
	npm install

build:
	npm run build

test:
	npm test

clean:
	rm -rf node_modules dist

dev:
	npm run dev

deploy: build
	./deploy.sh

Docker Makefile

IMAGE_NAME=myapp
TAG=latest

.PHONY: build run stop clean

build:
	docker build -t $(IMAGE_NAME):$(TAG) .

run:
	docker run -d -p 8080:80 $(IMAGE_NAME):$(TAG)

stop:
	docker stop $$(docker ps -q --filter ancestor=$(IMAGE_NAME):$(TAG))

clean:
	docker rmi $(IMAGE_NAME):$(TAG)

logs:
	docker logs -f $$(docker ps -q --filter ancestor=$(IMAGE_NAME):$(TAG))

Conditional logic

ifeq ($(ENV),production)
	CFLAGS=-O2
else
	CFLAGS=-g
endif

Include other Makefiles

include config.mk

Silent mode

make -s

Dry run (show commands)

make -n

Force rebuild

make -B

Parallel execution

make -j4

Help target pattern

.PHONY: help
help:
	@grep -E '^[a-zA-Z_-]+:.*?## .*$$' $(MAKEFILE_LIST) | \
	sort | \
	awk 'BEGIN {FS = ":.*?## "}; {printf "\033[36m%-30s\033[0m %s\n", $$1, $$2}'

build: ## Build the project
	npm run build

test: ## Run tests
	npm test