makefile/ rm question

[bovus]

I trying to write a makefile for a programming assignment. In my main directory I have the makefile and a folders called src. In the src directory I have two other directories with source code in both of them. I want to be able to run the one makefile in the main directory and have it remove all temp files (*~, *.o, \#*, ...) in all of the sub-directories of the main directory while keeping the sub-directories in-tact. Is there a way to do this with the 'rm' command or a makefile trick?

[Joe Beam]

you could use find and rm together with xargs...

find . -type f -name "*~" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -v
find . -type f -name "*.o" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -v
find . -type f -name "#*" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -v

[dwhitney67]

You could specify within your Makefile the directories which contain the source code. Then iterate over each of these directories to remove the unwanted files.

If you plan to use a wildcard character (i.e. the '*') in your statements, I would make a backup of everything before you proceed. It is not uncommon to hear that someone accidentally deleted their source code files as well because of a typo in their script (or Makefile).

Another alternative available to you is to create Makefiles in the source code directories. These Makefiles can be called from your top-level Makefile.

[bovus]

Another alternative available to you is to create Makefiles in the source code directories. These Makefiles can be called from your top-level Makefile.

I tried doing this (because I though it would be the easiest way). However I don't think I know how to properly do it. First I tried this:

In main makefile I have a section called "clean" which does this:

clean: src/cards/clean

(there is a clean section in src/cards/makefile that removes unwanted files)

But make give me this error:

make: *** No rule to make target `src/tests/clean', needed by `clean'. Stop.


then I modified the main makefile's clean section to be

clean: src/cards/makefile

and in src/cards/makefile under the "all" section I call the "clean" section. This did not throw an error but it also did not remove the unwanted files in the the src/cards directory

[bovus]

If you plan to use a wildcard character (i.e. the '*') in your statements, I would make a backup of everything before you proceed. It is not uncommon to hear that someone accidentally deleted their source code files as well because of a typo in their script (or Makefile).

Yea, I made sure I did that:

backup: fclean
tar -cvvf $(BACKUP_DIR)/$(PROJECT_NAME).tar . >$(BACKUP_DIR)/$(PROJECT_NAME)_backup.log
gzip -c $(BACKUP_DIR)/$(PROJECT_NAME).tar >$(BACKUP_DIR)/$(PROJECT_NAME).tar.gz
-rm -f $(BACKUP_DIR)/$(PROJECT_NAME).tar

[dwhitney67]

I tried doing this (because I though it would be the easiest way). However I don't think I know how to properly do it. First I tried this:

In main makefile I have a section called "clean" which does this:

clean: src/cards/clean

(there is a clean section in src/cards/makefile that removes unwanted files)

But make give me this error:

make: *** No rule to make target `src/tests/clean', needed by `clean'. Stop.


then I modified the main makefile's clean section to be

clean: src/cards/makefile

and in src/cards/makefile under the "all" section I call the "clean" section. This did not throw an error but it also did not remove the unwanted files in the the src/cards directory

Top-Level Makefile could look something like:


SRC_DIR = src/dir1 src/dir2

...

clean:
@for dir in $(SRC_DIR); do \
make -C $$dir $@; \
done


Your Makefile within the source-code directory (e.g. src/dir1):


SRCS = $(wildcard *.cpp)
OBJS = $(SRCS:.cpp=.o)
...

clean:
$(RM) $(OBJS)

[bovus]

thanks, I was wondering could this task also be done with the find command and piping the results to the rm command?

[dwhitney67]

thanks, I was wondering could this task also be done with the find command and piping the results to the rm command?
Yes, you can do it that way too. There are also options with the 'find' command that could delete the file w/o the need for the 'rm'.

Examples:


find srcdir -type f -name '*.o' -delete
find srcdir -type f -name '*.o' | xargs -r rm

[Joe Beam]

You could specify within your Makefile It is not uncommon to hear that someone accidentally deleted their source code files as well because of a typo in their script (or Makefile).

I know I did that once in school...had to re-write entire program in one night. It actually turned out better.

Be really careful with the # character and shell expansion!