Abstract

Make is a program that is widely used to maintain and update programs and libraries on UNIX* systems. This paper introduces the Fourth Generation Make which embodies major semantic and syntactic enhancements to the standard make program. The enhancements include support for source files distributed among many directories, an efficient shell interface that allows concurrent execution of update commands, dynamic dependency generation, dependencies on conditional compilation symbols and a powerful new meta language for constructing default rules. A complete rewrite of the standard make code has resulted in a unified software construction program that also provides improved functionality and performance. Improved performance includes an average five to ten times decrease in makfile size and an average two to five times decrease in execution time. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the features and operation of the standard make. 1 INTRODUCTION Since it first appeared in 1976 ...

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