All GNU programs should have the following targets in their Makefiles:
install
target rule so that it does not
modify anything in the directory where the program was built, provided
`make all' has just been done. This is convenient for building the
program under one user name and installing it under another.
The commands should create all the directories in which files are to be
installed, if they don't already exist. This includes the directories
specified as the values of the variables prefix
and
exec_prefix
, as well as all subdirectories that are needed.
One way to do this is by means of an installdirs
target
as described below.
Use `-' before any command for installing a man page, so that
make
will ignore any errors. This is in case there are systems
that don't have the Unix man page documentation system installed.
The way to install Info files is to copy them into `\$(infodir)'
with \$(INSTALL_DATA)
(see section Variables for Specifying Commands), and then run
the install-info
program if it is present. install-info
is a script that edits the Info `dir' file to add or update the
menu entry for the given Info file; it will be part of the Texinfo package.
Here is a sample rule to install an Info file:
$(infodir)/foo.info: foo.info # There may be a newer info file in . than in srcdir. -if test -f foo.info; then d=.; \ else d=$(srcdir); fi; \ $(INSTALL_DATA) $$d/foo.info $@; \ # Run install-info only if it exists. # Use `if' instead of just prepending `-' to the # line so we notice real errors from install-info. # We use `$(SHELL) -c' because some shells do not # fail gracefully when there is an unknown command. if $(SHELL) -c 'install-info --version' \ >/dev/null 2>&1; then \ install-info --infodir=$(infodir) $$d/foo.info; \ else true; fi
distclean
, plus more: C source files produced by
Bison, tags tables, Info files, and so on.
The reason we say "almost everything" is that `make
maintainer-clean' should not delete `configure' even if
`configure' can be remade using a rule in the Makefile. More
generally, `make maintainer-clean' should not delete anything that
needs to exist in order to run `configure' and then begin to build
the program. This is the only exception; maintainer-clean
should
delete everything else that can be rebuilt.
The `maintainer-clean' is intended to be used by a maintainer of
the package, not by ordinary users. You may need special tools to
reconstruct some of the files that `make maintainer-clean' deletes.
Since these files are normally included in the distribution, we don't
take care to make them easy to reconstruct. If you find you need to
unpack the full distribution again, don't blame us.
To help make users aware of this, the commands for
maintainer-clean
should start with these two:
@echo "This command is intended for maintainers \ to use;" @echo "it deletes files that may require special \ tools to rebuild."
info: foo.info foo.info: foo.texi chap1.texi chap2.texi $(MAKEINFO) $(srcdir)/foo.texiYou must define the variable
MAKEINFO
in the Makefile. It should
run the makeinfo
program, which is part of the Texinfo
distribution.
dvi: foo.dvi foo.dvi: foo.texi chap1.texi chap2.texi $(TEXI2DVI) $(srcdir)/foo.texiYou must define the variable
TEXI2DVI
in the Makefile. It should
run the program texi2dvi
, which is part of the Texinfo
distribution. Alternatively, write just the dependencies, and allow GNU
Make to provide the command.
ln
or cp
to install the proper files in it, and
then tar
that subdirectory.
The dist
target should explicitly depend on all non-source files
that are in the distribution, to make sure they are up to date in the
distribution.
See section `Making Releases' in GNU Coding Standards.
The following targets are suggested as conventional names, for programs in which they are useful.
installcheck
installdirs
# Make sure all installation directories # (e.g. $(bindir)) actually exist by # making them if necessary. installdirs: mkinstalldirs $(srcdir)/mkinstalldirs $(bindir) $(datadir) \ $(libdir) $(infodir) \ $(mandir)This rule should not modify the directories where compilation is done. It should do nothing but create installation directories.