makedepend.1

.\" $Xorg: mkdepend.man,v 1.5 2001/02/09 02:03:16 xorgcvs Exp $
.\" Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1998 The Open Group
.\"
.\" Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
.\" documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that
.\" the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
.\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
.\" documentation.
.\"
.\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
.\" all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
.\"
.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
.\" IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
.\" FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL
.\" THE OPEN GROUP BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
.\" WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF
.\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
.\" SOFTWARE.
.\"
.\" Except as contained in this notice, the name of The Open Group shall not
.\" be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other
.\" dealing in this Software without prior written authorization from The
.\" Open Group.
.\"
.\" $XFree86: xc/config/makedepend/mkdepend.man,v 1.6 2001/12/17 20:52:22 dawes Exp $
.\"
.TH MAKEDEPEND 1 __xorgversion__
.UC 4
.SH NAME
makedepend \- create dependencies in makefiles
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B makedepend
[
.BI \-D name\fB=\fPdef
] [
.BI \-D name
] [
.BI \-I includedir
] [
.B \-a
] [
.B \-b
] [
.B \-c
] [
.B \-e
] [
.BI \-f makefile
] [
.B \-h
] [
.BI \-include \ file
] [
.B \-m
] [
.BI \-o objsuffix
] [
.BI \-p objprefix
] [
.BI \-s string
] [
.B \-v
] [
.BI \-w width
] [
\-\^\-
.I otheroptions
\-\^\-
]
.I sourcefile
\&.\|.\|.
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B makedepend
program reads each
.I sourcefile
in sequence and parses it like a C-preprocessor,
processing all
.I #include,
.I #define,
.I #undef,
.I #ifdef,
.I #ifndef,
.I #endif,
.I #if,
.I #elif
and
.I #else
directives so that it can correctly tell which
.I #include,
directives would be used in a compilation.
Any
.I #include,
directives can reference files having other
.I #include
directives, and parsing will occur in these files as well.
.PP
Every file that a
.I sourcefile
includes,
directly or indirectly,
is what
.B makedepend
calls a \fIdependency.\fP
These dependencies are then written to a
.I makefile
in such a way that
.B make(1)
will know which object files must be recompiled when a dependency has changed.
.PP
By default,
.B makedepend
places its output in the file named
.I makefile
if it exists, otherwise
.I Makefile.
An alternate makefile may be specified with the
.B \-f
option.
It first searches the makefile for
the line
.sp
\&    # GENERATED DEPENDENCIES. DO NOT DELETE.
.sp
or one provided with the
.B \-s
option,
as a delimiter for the dependency output.
If it finds it, it will delete all rules
following this to the end of the makefile
and put the output after this line (the -a
option changes this behavior).
If it doesn't find it, the program
will append the string to the end of the makefile
and place the output following that.
For each
.I sourcefile
appearing on the command line,
.B makedepend
puts lines in the makefile of the form
.sp
     sourcefile.o:\0dfile .\|.\|.
.sp
Where \fIsourcefile.o\fP is the name from the command
line with its suffix replaced with ``.o'',
and \fIdfile\fP is a dependency discovered in a
.I #include
directive while parsing
.I sourcefile
or one of the files it included.
.SH EXAMPLE
Normally,
.B makedepend
will be used in a makefile target so that typing ``make depend'' will
bring the dependencies up to date for the makefile.
For example,
.nf
    SRCS\0=\0file1.c\0file2.c\0.\|.\|.
    CFLAGS\0=\0\-O\0\-DHACK\0\-I\^.\^.\^/foobar\0\-xyz
    depend:
            makedepend\0\-\^\-\0$(CFLAGS)\0\-\^\-\0$(SRCS)
.fi
.SH OPTIONS
The program
will ignore any option that it does not understand so that you may use
the same arguments that you would for
.B cc(1).
.TP 5
.B \-D\fIname\fP=\fIdef\fP \fRor\fP \-D\fIname\fP
Define.
This places a definition for
.I name
in
.B makedepend's
symbol table.
Without
.I =def\|
the symbol becomes defined as ``1''.
.TP 5
.B \-I\fIincludedir\fP
Include directory.
This option tells
.B makedepend
to prepend
.I includedir
to its list of directories to search when it encounters
a
.I #include
directive.
By default,
.B makedepend
appends the standard include directories at the end
of the directory list. In Linux, Unix and OS/2,
.B makedepend
evaluates the
.I C_INCLUDE_PATH
environment variable for the standard includes; in
Microsoft Windows,
.B makedepend
evaluates the
.I INCLUDE
environment variable. When the option
.B \-I\-
is set,
.B makedepend
does
.I not
append the standard include directories (and thus prevents
.B makedepend
from searching the standard include directories).
.TP 5
.B \-U\fIname\fP
Undefines a symbol. This is mostly useful to remove a
predefined symbol.
.TP 5
.B \-a
Accumulates the dependencies in the output file instead of removing the
dependencies for files that are
.I not
listed on the command line of
.B makedepend.
With this option, you can call
.B makedepend
multiple times with different filename lists, and obtaining
the accumulated dependencies of all those calls.

Note that dependencies for files that are listed on the command line are
replaced in the output file. The
.B \-a
option is not a simple "append".
.TP 5
.B \-b
No backups. By default,
.B makedepend
copies the makefile to one with a .bak
extension before modifying it. When this option is set,
.B makedepend
deletes the backup file.
.TP 5
.B \-c
Includes the C/C++ source file in the list of dependencies. By default,
.B makedepend
only lists all files
.I included
by the source file on the dependency line.
.TP 5
.B \-e
Excludes
.I system includes
from the list of dependencies. System includes are files that are between
angle brackets (after the #include). These are less relevant to list as
dependecies; the system include files can be considered stable.
.B \-f\fImakefile\fP
Filename.
This allows you to specify an alternate makefile in which
.B makedepend
can place its output.
Specifying ``\-'' as the file name (i.e., \fB\-f\-\fP) sends the
output to standard output instead of modifying an existing file.
.TP 5
.B \-h
Shows brief usage information for
.B makedepend.
When verbose output is enabled (see
.B \-v
), the list of predefined variables is listed too.
.TP 5
.B \-i
Ignore include files that cannot be located. That is, do not warn about any
include files that cannot be found. Note that include files that are not found, 
are never added as a dependency to the target. This option silences the warning
about missing files.
.TP 5
.B \-include \fIfile\fP
Process file as input, and include all the resulting output
before processing the regular input file. This has the same
affect as if the specified file is an include statement that
appears before the very first line of the regular input file.
.TP 5
.B \-m
Warn about multiple inclusion.
This option causes
.B makedepend
to produce a warning if any input file includes another file more than
once.  In previous versions of
.B makedepend
this was the default behavior; the default has been changed to better
match the behavior of the C compiler, which does not consider multiple
inclusion to be an error.  This option is provided for backward
compatibility, and to aid in debugging problems related to multiple
inclusion.
.TP 5
.B \-o\fIobjsuffix\fP
Object file suffix.
Some systems may have object files whose suffix is something other
than ``.o''.
This option allows you to specify another suffix, such as
``.b'' with
.I \-o.b
or ``:obj''
with
.I \-o:obj
and so forth.
.TP 5
.B \-p\fIobjprefix\fP
Object file prefix.
The prefix is prepended to the name of the object file. This is
usually used to designate a different directory for the object file.

If the prefix pattern starts with a minus ("\-"), that prefix is
.I removed
from the object filename if it matches.

The default is the empty string.
.TP 5
.B \-s\fIstring\fP
Starting string delimiter.
This option permits you to specify
a different string for
.B makedepend
to look for in the makefile.
.TP 5
.B \-v
Verbose operation.
This option causes
.B makedepend
to emit the list of files included by each input file.
.TP 5
.B \-w\fIwidth\fP
Line width.
Normally,
.B makedepend
will ensure that every output line that it writes will be no wider than
78 characters for the sake of readability.
This option enables you to change this width.
.TP 5
.B "\-\^\- \fIoptions\fP \-\^\-"
If
.B makedepend
encounters a double hyphen (\-\^\-) in the argument list,
then any unrecognized argument following it
will be silently ignored; a second double hyphen terminates this
special treatment.
In this way,
.B makedepend
can be made to safely ignore esoteric compiler arguments that might
normally be found in a CFLAGS
.B make
macro (see the
.B EXAMPLE
section above).
All options that
.B makedepend
recognizes and appear between the pair of double hyphens
are processed normally.
.SH ALGORITHM
The approach used in this program enables it to run an order of magnitude
faster than any other ``dependency generator'' I have ever seen.
Central to this performance are two assumptions:
that all files compiled by a single
makefile will be compiled with roughly the same
.I \-I
and
.I \-D
options;
and that most files in a single directory will include largely the
same files.
.PP
Given these assumptions,
.B makedepend
expects to be called once for each makefile, with
all source files that are maintained by the
makefile appearing on the command line.
It parses each source and include
file exactly once, maintaining an internal symbol table
for each.
Thus, the first file on the command line will take an amount of time
proportional to the amount of time that a normal C preprocessor takes.
But on subsequent files, if it encounters an include file
that it has already parsed, it does not parse it again.
.PP
For example,
imagine you are compiling two files,
.I file1.c
and
.I file2.c,
they each include the header file
.I header.h,
and the file
.I header.h
in turn includes the files
.I def1.h
and
.I def2.h.
When you run the command
.sp
    makedepend\0file1.c\0file2.c
.sp
.B makedepend
will parse
.I file1.c
and consequently,
.I header.h
and then
.I def1.h
and
.I def2.h.
It then decides that the dependencies for this file are
.sp
    file1.o:\0header.h\0def1.h\0def2.h
.sp
But when the program parses
.I file2.c
and discovers that it, too, includes
.I header.h,
it does not parse the file,
but simply adds
.I header.h,
.I def1.h
and
.I def2.h
to the list of dependencies for
.I file2.o.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
cc(1), make(1)
.SH BUGS
.B makedepend
parses, but does not currently evaluate, the SVR4 #predicate(token-list)
preprocessor expression; such expressions are simply assumed to be true.
This may cause the wrong
.I #include
directives to be evaluated.
.PP
Imagine you are parsing two files,
say
.I file1.c
and
.I file2.c,
each includes the file
.I def.h.
The list of files that
.I def.h
includes might truly be different when
.I def.h
is included by
.I file1.c
than when it is included by
.I file2.c.
But once
.B makedepend
arrives at a list of dependencies for a file,
it is cast in concrete.
.SH AUTHOR
Todd Brunhoff, Tektronix, Inc. and MIT Project Athena