create an automake target that is a hard link to another target - autoconf

I have a system that creates 5 executables. All executables are really the same program, but they are all hard links to the same file. I don't know how to do this cleanly with automake. Is there a way? I have no problem actually making the files---but they don't get installed properly. I'm kind of dumbfounded on how to set this up.
Thanks.

Define install-exec-hook and uninstall-hook. See extending in the automake manual.

Related

GNSS-SDR on Windows?

I know the answer might be negative, but is there any way to run Gnss-Sdr on Windows Instead of Linux/Mac OS?
I Use it on Linux Already But I have just wondered if it can be done.
only related answers please.
It's possible. I'm just doing this. The problem is that some code fragments are written under Linux. The build system and library search methods are also under it. For the first time, I had to cut TCP data transfer and heavily correct some CMake files. I build it with the help MSYS2 under MinGW. The biggest problem is linking files. At this stage, I build most of the individual components. It was also required to manually build all the libraries. With my little experience in porting programs from system to system, it was hard

Makefile explanation. Understanding someone else's Makefile

I am relatively new to programming on Linux.
I understand that Makefiles are used to ease the compiling process when compiling several files.
Rather than writing "g++ main.cpp x.cpp y.cpp -o executable" everytime you need to compile and run your program, you can throw it into a Makefile and run make in that directory.
I am trying to get a RPi and Arduino to communicate with each other using the nRF24L01 radios using tmrh20's library here. I have been successful using tmrh20's Makefile to build the the executable needed (on the RPi). I would like to, however, use tmrh20's library to build my own executables.
I have watched several tutorial videos on Makefiles but still cannot seem to piece together what is happening in tmrh20's.
The Makefile (1) in question is here. I believe it is somehow referencing a second Makefile (2) (for filenames?) here. (Why is this necessary?)
If it helps anyone understand (it took me a while) I had to build using SPIDEV (the instructions here) the Makefile (3) in the RF24 directory which produced several object files which I think are relevant to Makefile (1)&(2).
How do I find out what files I need to make my own Makefile, from tmrh20's Makefile (if that makes sense?) He seems to use variables in his Makefile that are not defined? Or are perhaps defined elsewhere?
Apologies for my poor explanation.
The canonical sequence is not just make and make install. There is an initial ./configure step (such a file is here) that sets up everything and generates several files used in the make steps.
You only need to run this configure script successfully only once, unless you want to change build parameters. I say "successfully" because the first execution will usually complain that you are missing libraries or header files. But ince ./configure runs without errors, make and make install should run without errors.
PS: I didn't try to compile it, but since the project has a rather comprehensive configure it is likely complete and you shouldn't need to tweak makefiles if your follow the usual procedure.
The reason for splitting the Makefiles in the way you've mentioned and linked to here is to separate the definition of the variables from the implementation. This way you could have multiple base Makefiles that define their PROGRAM variable differently, but all do the same thing based on the value of that variable.
In my own personal opinion, I see some value here - but there very many ways to skin this proverbial cat.
Having learned GNU Make the hard way, I can only recommend you do the same. There's a slight steep curve at the beginning, but once you get the main concepts down following other peoples Makefiles gets pretty easy.
Good luck: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/index.html

Porting VisualStudio (2008) Project to Linux

I'm trying to port a wide Visual Studio (2008) Project to Linux System.
Do somebody know if it exist a way to easly "transform" the .vcproj file into a makefile?
Easiest would be to just learn how to write your own Makefile. It's quite simple.
But other than that you could try http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/28908/Tool-for-Converting-VC-2005-Project-to-Linux-Makef
Maybe this can help you, but you need to handle whit you outputs in the original code
Make-It-so
http://code.google.com/p/make-it-so/
or
sln2mak
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/28908/Tool-for-Converting-VC-2005-Project-to-Linux-Makef
i hope this can help you
You can use Winemaker, which is part of WINE: something all major distributions already include.
On Fedora, which use yum, you can, as root, run yum install /usr/bin/winemaker to install it. This will probably also work on other yum based operating system, but you may have to provide another path, if winemaker is packaged to install in /usr/bin (which I doubt will be the case).
Once you have converted the project, consider using Autotools instead -- it's, in my experience, by far the simplest build tool available and is very easy to learn and use. Just don't be scared to poor documentation you will often find lying around. The only files you have to edit are configure.ac and Makefile.am files.

How to statically-link a complex program

In Linux, downloaded a program source and want it to be statically linked.
Have a huge Makefile there,
I
./configure
make
to compile.
prehpes it's a bit too general to ask, but how can I make the binary statically linked?
EDIT: the reason for this is wanting to make sure the binary will
have no dependencies (or at least as few as possible), making it possible to run on any Linux based computer, even one without Internet connection, and non-updated Linux.
Most autoconf generated configure script will allow you to make a static build:
./configure --enable-static
make
If that doesn't work, you may be able to pass linker flags in via LDFLAGS, like this:
./configure LDFLAGS=-static
Yeah, you need to edit the make file and add the -static parameter to gcc during the link.
I assume it's using gcc to compile a series of c programs, although you will have to look in the Makefile to find out.
If so, you can adjust the gcc lines in the makefile to do static linking, although depending upon the structure of the program, this may be a complex change. Take a look at man gcc to see how this is done.
I'd be interested to know why you are statically linking. Have you considered using prelinking instead?
You should be aware that there may be licence problems to doing this if all components are not GPL.
If you cannot compile a static binary, I've had good results using Statifier.

Are there good reasons not to exploit '#!/bin/make -f' at the top of a makefile to give an executable makefile?

Mostly for my amusement, I created a makefile in my $HOME/bin directory called rebuild.mk, and made it executable, and the first lines of the file read:
#!/bin/make -f
#
# Comments on what the makefile is for
...
all: ${SCRIPTS} ${LINKS} ...
...
I can now type:
rebuild.mk
and this causes make to execute.
What are the reasons for not exploiting this on a permanent basis, other than this:
The makefile is tied to a single directory, so it really isn't appropriate in my main bin directory.
Has anyone ever seen the trick exploited before?
Collecting some comments, and providing a bit more background information.
Norman Ramsey reports that this technique is used in Debian; that is interesting to know. Thank you.
I agree that typing 'make' is more idiomatic.
However, the scenario (previously unstated) is that my $HOME/bin directory already has a cross-platform main makefile in it that is the primary maintenance tool for the 500+ commands in the directory.
However, on one particular machine (only), I wanted to add a makefile for building a special set of tools. So, those tools get a special makefile, which I called rebuild.mk for this question (it has another name on my machine).
I do get to save typing 'make -f rebuild.mk' by using 'rebuild.mk' instead.
Fixing the position of the make utility is problematic across platforms.
The #!/usr/bin/env make -f technique is likely to work, though I believe the official rules of engagement are that the line must be less than 32 characters and may only have one argument to the command.
#dF comments that the technique might prevent you passing arguments to make. That is not a problem on my Solaris machine, at any rate. The three different versions of 'make' I tested (Sun, GNU, mine) all got the extra command line arguments that I type, including options ('-u' on my home-brew version) and targets 'someprogram' and macros CC='cc' WFLAGS=-v (to use a different compiler and cancel the GCC warning flags which the Sun compiler does not understand).
I would not advocate this as a general technique.
As stated, it was mostly for my amusement. I may keep it for this particular job; it is most unlikely that I'd use it in distributed work. And if I did, I'd supply and apply a 'fixin' script to fix the pathname of the interpreter; indeed, I did that already on my machine. That script is a relic from the first edition of the Camel book ('Programming Perl' by Larry Wall).
One problem with this for generally distributable Makefiles is that the location of make is not always consistent across platforms. Also, some systems might require an alternate name like gmake.
Of course one can always run the appropriate command manually, but this sort of defeats the whole purpose of making the Makefile executable.
I've seen this trick used before in the debian/rules file that is part of every Debian package.
To address the problem of make not always being in the same place (on my system for example it's in /usr/bin), you could use
#!/usr/bin/env make -f
if you're on a UNIX-like system.
Another problem is that by using the Makefile this way you cannot override variables, by doing, for example make CFLAGS=....
"make" is shorter than "./Makefile", so I don't think you're buying anything.
The reason I would not do this is that typing "make" is more idiomatic to building Makefile based projects. Imagine if every project you built you had to search for the differently named makefile someone created instead of just typing "make && make install".
You could use a shell alias for this too.
We can look at this another way: is it a good idea to design a language whose interpreter looks for a fixed filename if you don't give it one? What if python looked for Pythonfile in the absence of a script name? ;)
You don't need such a mechanism in order to have a convention based around a known name. Example: Autoconf's ./configure script.

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