Table of Contents

Name

bmake - maintain program dependencies

Synopsis

bmake [-BeikNnqrstW] [-D variable] [-d flags] [-f makefile] [-I directory] [-j max_jobs] [-J private] [-m directory] [-T file] [-V variable] [variable=value] [target ...]

Description

bmake is a program designed to simplify the maintenance of other programs. Its input is a list of specifications as to the files upon which programs and other files depend. If the file `makefile' exists, it is read for this list of specifications. If it does not exist, the file `Makefile' is read. If the file `.depend' exists, it is read (see mkdep(1) ).

This manual page is intended as a reference document only. For a more thorough description of bmake and makefiles, please refer to Make - A Tutorial.

The options are as follows:

-B
Try to be backwards compatible by executing a single shell per command and by executing the commands to make the sources of a dependency line in sequence.

-D variable
Define variable to be 1, in the global context.

-d flags
Turn on debugging, and specify which portions of bmake are to print debugging information. Flags is one or more of the following:

A
Print all possible debugging information; equivalent to specifying all of the debugging flags.

a
Print debugging information about archive searching and caching.

c
Print debugging information about conditional evaluation.

d
Print debugging information about directory searching and caching.

g1
Print the input graph before making anything.

g2
Print the input graph after making everything, or before exiting on error.

j
Print debugging information about running multiple shells.

m
Print debugging information about making targets, including modification dates.

s
Print debugging information about suffix-transformation rules.

t
Print debugging information about target list maintenance.

v
Print debugging information about variable assignment.

x
Run shell commands with -x so the actual commands are printed as they are executed.

-e
Specify that environment variables override macro assignments within makefiles.

-f makefile
Specify a makefile to read instead of the default `makefile' and If makefile is `-', standard input is read. Multiple makefile's may be specified, and are read in the order specified.

-I directory
Specify a directory in which to search for makefiles and included makefiles. The system makefile directory (or directories, see the -m option) is automatically included as part of this list.

-i
Ignore non-zero exit of shell commands in the makefile. Equivalent to specifying `-' before each command line in the makefile.

-J private
This option should not be specified by the user.

When the j option is in use in a recursive build, this option is passed by a make to child makes to allow all the make processes in the build to cooperate to avoid overloading the system.

-j max_jobs
Specify the maximum number of jobs that bmake may have running at any one time. Turns compatibility mode off, unless the B flag is also specified.

-k
Continue processing after errors are encountered, but only on those targets that do not depend on the target whose creation caused the error.

-m directory
Specify a directory in which to search for sys.mk and makefiles included via the <...> style. Multiple directories can be added to form a search path. This path will override the default system include path: /usr/share/mk. Furthermore the system include path will be appended to the search path used for ..."-style inclusions (see the -I option).

-n
Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not actually execute them unless the target depends on the .MAKE special source (see below).

-N
Display the commands which would have been executed, but do not actually execute any of them; useful for debugging top-level makefiles without descending into subdirectories.

-q
Do not execute any commands, but exit 0 if the specified targets are up-to-date and 1, otherwise.

-r
Do not use the built-in rules specified in the system makefile.

-s
Do not echo any commands as they are executed. Equivalent to specifying `@' before each command line in the makefile.

-T tracefile
When used with the -j flag, append a trace record to tracefile for each job started and completed.

-t
Rather than re-building a target as specified in the makefile, create it or update its modification time to make it appear upto-date.

-V variable
Print bmake's idea of the value of variable, in the global context. Do not build any targets. Multiple instances of this option may be specified; the variables will be printed one per line, with a blank line for each null or undefined variable.

-W
Treat any warnings during makefile parsing as errors.

variable=value
Set the value of the variable variable to value.

There are seven different types of lines in a makefile: file dependency specifications, shell commands, variable assignments, include statements, conditional directives, for loops, and comments.

In general, lines may be continued from one line to the next by ending them with a backslash (`\'). The trailing newline character and initial whitespace on the following line are compressed into a single space.

File Dependency Specifications

Dependency lines consist of one or more targets, an operator, and zero or more sources. This creates a relationship where the targets ``depend'' on the sources and are usually created from them. The exact relationship between the target and the source is determined by the operator that separates them. The three operators are as follows:

:
A target is considered out-of-date if its modification time is less than those of any of its sources. Sources for a target accumulate over dependency lines when this operator is used. The target is removed if bmake is interrupted.

!
Targets are always re-created, but not until all sources have been examined and re-created as necessary. Sources for a target accumulate over dependency lines when this operator is used. The target is removed if bmake is interrupted.

::
If no sources are specified, the target is always re-created. Otherwise, a target is considered out-of-date if any of its sources has been modified more recently than the target. Sources for a target do not accumulate over dependency lines when this operator is used. The target will not be removed if bmake is interrupted.

Targets and sources may contain the shell wildcard values `?', `*', `[]' and `{}'. The values `?', `*' and `[]' may only be used as part of the final component of the target or source, and must be used to describe existing files. The value `{}' need not necessarily be used to describe existing files. Expansion is in directory order, not alphabetically as done in the shell.

Shell Commands

Each target may have associated with it a series of shell commands, normally used to create the target. Each of the commands in this script must be preceded by a tab. While any target may appear on a dependency line, only one of these dependencies may be followed by a creation script, unless the `::' operator is used.

If the first or first two characters of the command line are `@' and/or `-', the command is treated specially. A `@' causes the command not to be echoed before it is executed. A `-' causes any non-zero exit status of the command line to be ignored.

Variable Assignments

Variables in make are much like variables in the shell, and, by tradition, consist of all upper-case letters. The five operators that can be used to assign values to variables are as follows:

=
Assign the value to the variable. Any previous value is overridden.

+=
Append the value to the current value of the variable.

?=
Assign the value to the variable if it is not already defined.

:=
Assign with expansion, i.e. expand the value before assigning it to the variable. Normally, expansion is not done until the variable is referenced.

!=
Expand the value and pass it to the shell for execution and assign the result to the variable. Any newlines in the result are replaced with spaces.

Any white-space before the assigned value is removed; if the value is being appended, a single space is inserted between the previous contents of the variable and the appended value.

Variables are expanded by surrounding the variable name with either curly braces (`{}') or parentheses (`()') and preceding it with a dollar sign (`$'). If the variable name contains only a single letter, the surrounding braces or parentheses are not required. This shorter form is not recommended.

Variable substitution occurs at two distinct times, depending on where the variable is being used. Variables in dependency lines are expanded as the line is read. Variables in shell commands are expanded when the shell command is executed.

The four different classes of variables (in order of increasing precedence) are:

Environment variables
Variables defined as part of bmake's environment.

Global variables
Variables defined in the makefile or in included makefiles.

Command line variables
Variables defined as part of the command line.

Local variables
Variables that are defined specific to a certain target. The seven local variables are as follows:

.ALLSRC
The list of all sources for this target; also known as `>'.

.ARCHIVE
The name of the archive file.

.IMPSRC
The name/path of the source from which the target is to be transformed (the ``implied'' source); also known as `<'.

.MEMBER
The name of the archive member.

.OODATE
The list of sources for this target that were deemed out-of-date; also known as `?'.

.PREFIX
The file prefix of the file, containing only the file portion, no suffix or preceding directory components; also known as `*'.

.TARGET
The name of the target; also known as `@'.

The shorter forms `@', `?', `<', `>', and `*' are permitted for backward compatibility with historical makefiles and are not recommended. The six variables `@F', `@D', `<F', `<D', `*F', and `*D' are permitted for compatibility with AT&T System V UNIX makefiles and are not recommended.

Four of the local variables may be used in sources on dependency lines because they expand to the proper value for each target on the line. These variables are `.TARGET', `.PREFIX', `.ARCHIVE', and `.MEMBER'.

In addition, bmake sets or knows about the following variables:

$
A single dollar sign `$', i.e. `$$' expands to a single dollar sign. (argv[0])

.ALLTARGETS
The list of all targets encountered in the Makefile. If evaluated during Makefile parsing, lists only those targets encountered thus far.

.CURDIR
A path to the directory where bmake was executed.

.MAKE
The name that bmake was executed with.

MAKEFLAGS
The environment variable `MAKEFLAGS' may contain anything that may be specified on bmake's command line. Anything specified on bmake's command line is appended to the `MAKEFLAGS' variable which is then entered into the environment for all programs which bmake executes.

.MAKEOVERRIDES
This variable is used to record the names of variables assigned to on the command line, so that they may be exported as part of `MAKEFLAGS'. This behaviour can be disabled by assigning an empty value to `.MAKEOVERRIDES' within a makefile. Extra variables can be exported from a makefile by appending their names to `.MAKEOVERRIDES'. `MAKEFLAGS' is re-exported whenever `.MAKEOVERRIDES' is modified.

MAKE_PRINT_VAR_ON_ERROR
When bmake stops due to an error, it prints its name and the value of `.CURDIR' as well as the value of any variables named in `MAKE_PRINT_VAR_ON_ERROR'.

.newline
This variable is simply assigned a newline character as its value. This allows expansions using the :@ modifier to put a newline between iterations of the loop rather than a space. For example, the printing of `MAKE_PRINT_VAR_ON_ERROR' could be done as ${MAKE_PRINT_VAR_ON_ERROR:@v@$v='${$v}'${.newline}@}.

.OBJDIR
A path to the directory where the targets are built.

.PARSEDIR
A path to the directory of the current `Makefile' being parsed.

.PARSEFILE
The basename of the current `Makefile' being parsed. This variable and `.PARSEDIR' are both set only while the `Makefiles' are being parsed.

.PATH
a variable that represents the list of directories that bmake will search for files. The search list should be updated using the target `.PATH' rather than the variable.

PWD
Alternate path to the current directory. bmake normally sets `.CURDIR' to the canonical path given by getcwd(3) . However, if the environment variable `PWD' is set and gives a path to the current directory, then bmake sets `.CURDIR' to the value of `PWD' instead. This behaviour is disabled if `MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX' is set. `PWD' is set to the value of `.OBJDIR' for all programs which bmake executes.

Variable expansion may be modified to select or modify each word of the variable (where a ``word'' is white-space delimited sequence of characters). The general format of a variable expansion is as follows:

{variable[:modifier[:...]]}

Each modifier begins with a colon and one of the following special characters. The colon may be escaped with a backslash (`\').

E
Replaces each word in the variable with its suffix.

H
Replaces each word in the variable with everything but the last component.

Mpattern
Select only those words that match the rest of the modifier. The standard shell wildcard characters (`*', `?', and `[]') may be used. The wildcard characters may be escaped with a backslash (`\').

Npattern
This is identical to `M', but selects all words which do not match the rest of the modifier.

O
Order every word in variable alphabetically.

Q
Quotes every shell meta-character in the variable, so that it can be passed safely through recursive invocations of bmake.

R
Replaces each word in the variable with everything but its suffix.

tl
Converts variable to lower-case letters.

tu
Converts variable to upper-case letters.

S/old_string/new_string/[1g]
Modify the first occurrence of old_string in the variable's value, replacing it with new_string. If a `g' is appended to the last slash of the pattern, all occurrences in each word are replaced. If a `1' is appended to the last slash of the pattern, only the first word is affected. If old_string begins with a caret (`^'), old_string is anchored at the beginning of each word. If old_string ends with a dollar sign (`$'), it is anchored at the end of each word. Inside new_string, an ampersand (`&') is replaced by old_string (without any `^' or `$'). Any character may be used as a delimiter for the parts of the modifier string. The anchoring, ampersand and delimiter characters may be escaped with a backslash (`\').

Variable expansion occurs in the normal fashion inside both old_string and new_string with the single exception that a backslash is used to prevent the expansion of a dollar sign (`$'), not a preceding dollar sign as is usual.

C/pattern/replacement/[1g]
The C modifier is just like the S modifier except that the old and new strings, instead of being simple strings, are a regular expression (see regex(3) ) and an ed(1) -style replacement string. Normally, the first occurrence of the pattern in each word of the value is changed. The `1' modifier causes the substitution to apply to at most one word; the `g' modifier causes the substitution to apply to as many instances of the search pattern as occur in the word or words it is found in. Note that `1' and `g' are orthogonal; the former specifies whether multiple words are potentially affected, the latter whether multiple substitutions can potentially occur within each affected word.

T
Replaces each word in the variable with its last component.

u
Remove adjacent duplicate words (like uniq(1) ).

? true_string : false_string
If the variable evaluates to true, return as its value the true_string, otherwise return the false_string.

old_string=new_string
This is the AT&T System V UNIX style variable substitution. It must be the last modifier specified. If old_string or new_string do not contain the pattern matching character % then it is assumed that they are anchored at the end of each word, so only suffixes or entire words may be replaced. Otherwise % is the substring of old_string to be replaced in new_string.

@ temp @ string @
This is the loop expansion mechanism from the OSF Development Environment (ODE) make. Unlike .for loops expansion occurs at the time of reference. Assign temp to each word in the variable and evaluate string. The ODE convention is that temp should start and end with a period. For example.
${LINKS:@.LINK.@${LN} ${TARGET} ${.LINK.}@}

U newval
If the variable is undefined newval is the value. If the variable is defined, the existing value is returned. This is another ODE make feature. It is handy for setting per-target CFLAGS for instance: ${_${.TARGET:T}_CFLAGS:U${DEF_CFLAGS}} If a value is only required if the variable is undefined, use: ${VAR:D:Unewval}

D newval
If the variable is defined newval is the value.

L
The name of the variable is the value.

P
The path of the node which has the same name as the variable is the value. If no such node exists or its path is null, then the name of the variable is used.

! cmd !
The output of running cmd is the value.

sh
If the variable is non-empty it is run as a command and the output becomes the new value.

:= str
The variable is assigned the value str after substitution. This modifier and its variations are useful in obscure situations such as wanting to apply modifiers to .for loop iteration variables which won't work due to the way .for loops are implemented. These assignment modifiers always expand to nothing, so if appearing in a rule line by themselves should be preceded with something to keep bmake happy. As in:

use_foo: .USE
.for i in ${.TARGET} ${.TARGET:R}.gz @: ${t::=$i}
@echo t:R:T=${t:R:T}
.endfor

The double : helps avoid false matches with the AT&T System V UNIX style = modifier and since substitution always occurs the := form is vaguely appropriate.

:?= str
As for := but only if the variable does not already have a value.

:+= str
Append str to the variable.

:!= cmd
Assign the output of cmd to the variable.

Include Statements, Conditionals and for Loops

Makefile inclusion, conditional structures and for loops reminiscent of the C programming language are provided in bmake. All such structures are identified by a line beginning with a single dot (`.') character. Files are included with either .include <file> or .include file". Variables between the angle brackets or double quotes are expanded to form the file name. If angle brackets are used, the included makefile is expected to be in the system makefile directory. If double quotes are used, the including makefile's directory and any directories specified using the -I option are searched before the system makefile directory. For compatibility with other versions of bmake `include file ...' is also accepted. If the include statement is written as .-include or as .sinclude then errors locating and/or opening include files are ignored.

Conditional expressions are also preceded by a single dot as the first character of a line. The possible conditionals are as follows:

.undef variable
Un-define the specified global variable. Only global variables may be un-defined.

.if [!]expression [operator expression ...]
Test the value of an expression.

.ifdef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
Test the value of a variable.

.ifndef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
Test the value of a variable.

.ifmake [!]target [operator target ...]
Test the target being built.

.ifnmake [!]target [operator target ...]
Test the target being built.

.else
Reverse the sense of the last conditional.

.elif [!]expression [operator expression ...]
A combination of `.else' followed by `.if'.

.elifdef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
A combination of `.else' followed by `.ifdef'.

.elifndef [!]variable [operator variable ...]
A combination of `.else' followed by `.ifndef'.

.elifmake [!]target [operator target ...]
A combination of `.else' followed by `.ifmake'.

.elifnmake [!]target [operator target ...]
A combination of `.else' followed by `.ifnmake'.

.endif
End the body of the conditional.

The operator may be any one of the following:

||
Logical OR.

&&
Logical AND; of higher precedence than ``||''.

As in C, bmake will only evaluate a conditional as far as is necessary to determine its value. Parentheses may be used to change the order of evaluation. The boolean operator `!' may be used to logically negate an entire conditional. It is of higher precedence than `&&'.

The value of expression may be any of the following:

defined Takes a variable name as an argument and evaluates to true if the variable has been defined.

make
Takes a target name as an argument and evaluates to true if the target was specified as part of bmake's command line or was declared the default target (either implicitly or explicitly, see .MAIN) before the line containing the conditional.

empty
Takes a variable, with possible modifiers, and evaluates to true if the expansion of the variable would result in an empty string.

exists
Takes a file name as an argument and evaluates to true if the file exists. The file is searched for on the system search path (see .PATH).

target
Takes a target name as an argument and evaluates to true if the target has been defined.

commands
Takes a target name as an argument and evaluates to true if the target has been defined and has commands associated with it.

Expression may also be an arithmetic or string comparison. Variable expansion is performed on both sides of the comparison, after which the integral values are compared. A value is interpreted as hexadecimal if it is preceded by 0x, otherwise it is decimal; octal numbers are not supported. The standard C relational operators are all supported. If after variable expansion, either the left or right hand side of a `==' or `!=' operator is not an integral value, then string comparison is performed between the expanded variables. If no relational operator is given, it is assumed that the expanded variable is being compared against 0.

When bmake is evaluating one of these conditional expression, and it encounters a word it doesn't recognize, either the ``make'' or ``defined'' expression is applied to it, depending on the form of the conditional. If the form is `.ifdef' or `.ifndef', the ``defined'' expression is applied. Similarly, if the form is `.ifmake' or `.ifnmake, the ``make''' expression is applied.

If the conditional evaluates to true the parsing of the makefile continues as before. If it evaluates to false, the following lines are skipped. In both cases this continues until a `.else' or `.endif' is found.

For loops are typically used to apply a set of rules to a list of files. The syntax of a for loop is:

.for variable [variable ...] in expression
<make-rules> .endfor

After the for expression is evaluated, it is split into words. On each iteration of the loop, one word is taken and assigned to each variable, in order, and these variables are substituted into the make-rules inside the body of the for loop. The number of words must come out even; that is, if there are three iteration variables, the number of words provided must be a multiple of three.

Comments

Comments begin with a hash (`#') character, anywhere but in a shell command line, and continue to the end of the line.

Special Sources

.IGNORE
Ignore any errors from the commands associated with this target, exactly as if they all were preceded by a dash (`-').

.MADE
Mark all sources of this target as being up-to-date.

.MAKE
Execute the commands associated with this target even if the -n or -t options were specified. Normally used to mark recursive bmake's.

.NOTMAIN
Normally bmake selects the first target it encounters as the default target to be built if no target was specified. This source prevents this target from being selected.

.OPTIONAL
If a target is marked with this attribute and bmake can't figure out how to create it, it will ignore this fact and assume the file isn't needed or already exists.

.PRECIOUS
When bmake is interrupted, it removes any partially made targets. This source prevents the target from being removed.

.SILENT
Do not echo any of the commands associated with this target, exactly as if they all were preceded by an at sign (`@').

.USE
Turn the target into bmake's version of a macro. When the target is used as a source for another target, the other target acquires the commands, sources, and attributes (except for .USE) of the source. If the target already has commands, the .USE target's commands are appended to them.

.USEBEFORE
Exactly like .USE, but prepend the .USEBEFORE target commands to the target.

.WAIT
If special .WAIT source is appears in a dependency line, the sources that precede it are made before the sources that succeed it in the line. Loops are not being detected and targets that form loops will be silently ignored.

Special Targets

Special targets may not be included with other targets, i.e. they must be the only target specified.

.BEGIN
Any command lines attached to this target are executed before anything else is done.

.DEFAULT
This is sort of a .USE rule for any target (that was used only as a source) that bmake can't figure out any other way to create. Only the shell script is used. The .IMPSRC variable of a target that inherits .DEFAULT's commands is set to the target's own name.

.END
Any command lines attached to this target are executed after everything else is done.

.IGNORE
Mark each of the sources with the .IGNORE attribute. If no sources are specified, this is the equivalent of specifying the -i option.

.INTERRUPT
If bmake is interrupted, the commands for this target will be executed.

.MAIN
If no target is specified when bmake is invoked, this target will be built.

.MAKEFLAGS
This target provides a way to specify flags for bmake when the makefile is used. The flags are as if typed to the shell, though the -f option will have no effect.

.NOPATH
Apply the .NOPATH attribute to any specified sources. Targets with this attribute are not searched for in the directories specified by .PATH.

.NOTPARALLEL
Disable parallel mode.

.NO_PARALLEL
Same as above, for compatibility with other pmake variants.

.ORDER
The named targets are made in sequence.

.PATH
The sources are directories which are to be searched for files not found in the current directory. If no sources are specified, any previously specified directories are deleted. If the source is the special .DOTLAST target, then the current working directory is searched last.

.PHONY
Apply the .PHONY attribute to any specified sources. Targets with this attribute do not correspond to actual files; they are always considered to be out of date, and will not be created with the -t option.

.PRECIOUS
Apply the .PRECIOUS attribute to any specified sources. If no sources are specified, the .PRECIOUS attribute is applied to every target in the file.

.SILENT
Apply the .SILENT attribute to any specified sources. If no sources are specified, the .SILENT attribute is applied to every command in the file.

.SUFFIXES
Each source specifies a suffix to bmake. If no sources are specified, any previous specified suffixes are deleted.

Environment

bmake utilizes the following environment variables, if they exist: MACHINE, MACHINE_ARCH, MAKE, MAKEFLAGS, MAKEOBJDIR, MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX, and PWD.

If MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX is set, then bmake will chdir(2) to ${MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX}${.CURDIR} if it exists. Otherwise if MAKEOBJDIR and the named directory exists bmake will chdir(2) to it. These actions are taken before any makefiles are read which is why they need to be set in the environment.

Files

.depend
list of dependencies
Makefile
list of dependencies
makefile
list of dependencies
sys.mk
system makefile /usr/share/mk system makefile directory

See Also

mkdep(1)

History

bmake is derived from NetBSD's make(1) . It uses autoconf to facilitate portability to other platforms.


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