gccmakedep(1) create dependencies in makefiles using 'gcc -M'

SYNOPSIS

gccmakedep [ -sseparator ] [ -fmakefile ] [ -a ] [ -- options -- ] sourcefile ...

DESCRIPTION

The gccmakedep program calls 'gcc -M' to output makefile rules describing the dependencies of each sourcefile, so that make(1) knows which object files must be recompiled when a dependency has changed.

By default, gccmakedep places its output in the file named makefile if it exists, otherwise Makefile. An alternate makefile may be specified with the -f option. It first searches the makefile for a line beginning with

# DO NOT DELETE

or one provided with the -s option, as a delimiter for the dependency output. If it finds it, it will delete everything following this up to the end of the makefile and put the output after this line. If it doesn't find it, the program will append the string to the makefile and place the output after that.

EXAMPLE

Normally, gccmakedep will be used in a makefile target so that typing 'make depend' will bring the dependencies up to date for the makefile. For example,
    SRCS = file1.c file2.c ...
    CFLAGS = -O -DHACK -I../foobar -xyz
    depend:
            gccmakedep -- $(CFLAGS) -- $(SRCS)

OPTIONS

The program will ignore any option that it does not understand, so you may use the same arguments that you would for gcc(1), including -D and -U options to define and undefine symbols and -I to set the include path.
-a
Append the dependencies to the file instead of replacing existing dependencies.
-fmakefile
Filename. This allows you to specify an alternate makefile in which gccmakedep can place its output. Specifying "-" as the file name (that is, -f-) sends the output to standard output instead of modifying an existing file.
-sstring
Starting string delimiter. This option permits you to specify a different string for gccmakedep to look for in the makefile. The default is "# DO NOT DELETE".
-- options --
If gccmakedep encounters a double hyphen (--) in the argument list, then any unrecognized arguments following it will be silently ignored. A second double hyphen terminates this special treatment. In this way, gccmakedep can be made to safely ignore esoteric compiler arguments that might normally be found in a CFLAGS make macro (see the EXAMPLE section above). -D, -I, and -U options appearing between the pair of double hyphens are still processed normally.

AUTHOR

The version of the gccmakedep included in this X.Org Foundation release was originally written by the XFree86 Project based on code supplied by Hongjiu Lu.

Colin Watson wrote this manual page, originally for the Debian Project, based partly on the manual page for makedepend(1).