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zimk - zirias' make

This is a small build system for software written in C, based only on GNU make. It provides compatibility with POSIX systems as well as Windows out of the box. See the provided minimal example for how to use it in your project.

How to invoke a build

simply type make. This will build all with default configurations for release.

Configure your build

1. BUILDCFG

zimk supports different build configurations that are created in different output directories. The configurations debug and release are always available. The project's main Makefile can specify additional configurations.

Example for a debug build:

    make BUILDCFG=debug

2. CROSS_COMPILE

If you specify a value for CROSS_COMPILE, it is prepended to any invocation of a toolchain tool (like the C or C++ compiler). This way, it's easy to do cross builds when you have the appropriate cross toolchain installed.

Example cross-compiling for windows 64bit with MinGW64 on a *nix host:

    make CROSS_COMPILE=x86_64-w64-mingw32-

3. CC, CXX, CPP, AR, STRIP, MOC

These variables set the basic toolchain tools to use:

  • CC -- the C compiler, defaults to cc
  • CXX -- the C++ compiler, defaults to c++
  • CPP -- the C preprocessor, defaults to cpp
  • AR -- the static lib archiver, defaults to ar
  • STRIP -- the stripping tool, defaults to strip
  • MOC -- the Qt meta object compiler, defaults to moc

Example for building with clang:

    make CC=clang CXX=clang++

4. CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, DEFINES, INCLUDES, LDFLAGS

These are additional flags to pass to the toolchain tools:

  • CFLAGS -- passed during C compilation step
  • CXXFLAGS -- passed during C++ compilation step
  • DEFINES -- passed during both C and C++ compilation, for additional preprocessor defines.
  • INCLUDES -- passed during both C and C++ compilation, for additional include paths
  • LDFLAGS -- passed during linking step

Example for building optimized for size:

    make CFLAGS=-Os CXXFLAGS=-Os

5. runtime directories

zimk supports a standard set of runtime directories with the following default values for a *nix buid:

    prefix ?= /usr/local
    exec_prefix ?= $(prefix)
    bindir ?= $(exec_prefix)/bin
    sbindir ?= $(exec_prefix)/sbin
    libexecdir ?= $(exec_prefix)/libexec
    datarootdir ?= $(prefix)/share
    sysconfdir ?= $(prefix)/etc
    sharedstatedir ?= $(prefix)/com
    localstatedir ?= $(prefix)/var
    runstatedir ?= $(localstatedir)/run
    includedir ?= $(prefix)/include
    docrootdir ?= $(datarootdir)/doc
    libdir ?= $(exec_prefix)/lib
    localedir ?= $(datarootdir)/locale

When building for windows, they are all set to the current directory by default. You can override them from the make commandline as well.

6. additional configuration variables

A project's makefile can specify other configuration variables of two different types. Single configuration variables are those that only allow one value, if you specify a value at the command line, it overrides the default. This is for example the case with CC, CXX, prefix, etc. List configuration variables are appended to, when you specify them on the commandline. Examples for this type of variables are CFLAGS, DEFINES, etc.

7. managing configurations

zimk provides the special targets config, changeconfig and showconfig for managing configurations. It's possible to save a set of configuration variables independently for each BUILDCFG.

The config target is for saving configuration values. For example, if always want to create debug builds with some additional define, use

    make BUILDCFG=debug DEFINES=-DMYDEBUGDEFINE config

If you want to modify your configuration without repeating all variables again, you can use the changeconfig target. The following command will change the current configuration to use size-optimized builds:

    make CFGLAGS=-Os changeconfig

This can also be used to switch to another BUILDCFG without changing any other configuration variables:

    make BUILDCFG=release changeconfig

The showconfig target finally dumps all relevant configuration variables in their processed form, that is, including all default values.

Default targets

Targets always available in zimk are

  • all -- build the default set
  • strip -- strip debugging symbols
  • clean -- delete all compiled object files and other intermediaries
  • distclean -- remove all output directories and saved configurations
  • install -- install the project, respecting DESTDIR
  • install-strip -- install the project stripped
  • config, changeconfig, showconfig -- see above

How to use zimk in your own project

(TODO)

For now, you can refer to the minimal example here and of course the source itself.

A real world usage example can be found in my ongoing project pocas.