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+.TH MAKE 1L "22 August 1989" "GNU" "LOCAL USER COMMANDS"
+.SH NAME
+make \- GNU make utility to maintain groups of programs
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.B "make "
+[
+.B \-f
+makefile ] [ option ] ...
+target ...
+.SH WARNING
+This man paage is an extract of the documentation of
+.I GNU make .
+It is updated only occasionally, because the GNU project does not use nroff.
+For complete, current documentation, refer to the Info file
+.B make
+or the DVI file
+.B make.dvi
+which are made from the Texinfo source file
+.BR make.texinfo .
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.LP
+The purpose of the
+.I make
+utility is to determine automatically which
+pieces of a large program need to be recompiled, and issue the commands to
+recompile them.
+This manual describes the GNU implementation of
+.IR make ,
+which was written by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath.
+Our examples show C programs, since they are most common, but you can use
+.I make
+with any programming language whose compiler can be run with a
+shell command.
+In fact,
+.I make
+is not limited to programs.
+You can use it to describe any task where some files must be
+updated automatically from others whenever the others change.
+.LP
+To prepare to use
+.IR make ,
+you must write a file called the
+.I makefile
+that describes the relationships among files in your program, and the
+states the commands for updating each file.
+In a program, typically the executable file is updated from object
+files, which are in turn made by compiling source files.
+.LP
+Once a suitable makefile exists, each time you change some source files,
+this simple shell command:
+.sp 1
+.RS
+.B make
+.RE
+.sp 1
+suffices to perform all necessary recompilations.
+The
+.I make
+program uses the makefile data base and the last-modification times
+of the files to decide which of the files need to be updated.
+For each of those files, it issues the commands recorded in the data base.
+.LP
+.I make
+executes commands in the
+.I makefile
+to update
+one or more target
+.IR names ,
+where
+.I name
+is typically a program.
+If no
+.B \-f
+option is present,
+.I make
+will look for the makefiles
+.IR GNUmakefile ,
+.IR makefile ,
+and
+.IR Makefile ,
+in that order.
+.LP
+Normally you should call your makefile either
+.I makefile
+or
+.IR Makefile .
+(We recommend
+.I Makefile
+because it appears prominently near the beginning of a directory
+listing, right near other important files such as
+.IR  README .)
+The first name checked,
+.IR GNUmakefile ,
+is not recommended for most makefiles.
+You should use this name if you have a makefile that is specific to GNU
+.IR make ,
+and will not be understood by other versions of
+.IR make .
+If
+.I makefile
+is `\-', the standard input is read.
+.LP
+.I make
+updates a target if it depends on prerequisite files
+that have been modified since the target was last modified,
+or if the target does not exist.
+.SH OPTIONS
+.sp 1
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-b
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-m
+These options are ignored for compatibility with other versions of 
+.IR make .
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-C " dir
+Change to directory
+.I dir
+before reading the makefiles or doing anything else.
+If multiple
+.B \-C
+options are specified, each is interpreted relative to the
+previous one:
+.BR "\-C " /
+.BR "\-C " etc
+is equivalent to
+.BR "\-C " /etc.
+This is typically used with recursive invocations of
+.IR make .
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-d
+Print debugging information in addition to normal processing.
+The debugging information says which files are being considered for
+remaking, which file-times are being compared and with what results,
+which files actually need to be remade, which implicit rules are
+considered and which are applied---everything interesting about how
+.I make
+decides what to do.
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-f " file
+Use
+.I file as a makefile.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-i
+Ignore all errors in commands executed to remake files.
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-I " dir
+Specifies a directory
+.I dir
+to search for included makefiles.
+If several
+.B \-I
+options are used to specify several directories, the directories are
+searched in the order specified.
+Unlike the arguments to other flags of 
+.IR make ,
+directories given with
+. \-I
+flags may come directly after the flag:
+.BI \-I dir
+is allowed, as well as
+.BI "\-I " dir.
+This syntax is allowed for compatibility with the C
+preprocessor's
+.B \-I
+flag.
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-j " jobs
+Specifies the number of jobs (commands) to run simultaneously.
+If there is more than one
+.B \-j
+option, the last one is effective.
+If the
+.B \-j
+option is given without an argument,
+.IR make
+will not limit the number of jobs that can run simultaneously.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-k
+Continue as much as possible after an error.
+While the target that failed, and those that depend on it, cannot
+be remade, the other dependencies of these targets can be processed
+all the same.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-l
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-l " load
+Specifies that no new jobs (commands) should be started if there are
+others jobs running and the load average is at least
+.I load
+(a floating-point number).
+With no argument, removes a previous load limit.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-n
+Print the commands that would be executed, but do not execute them.
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-o " file
+Do not remake the file
+.I file
+even if it is older than its dependencies, and do not remake anything
+on account of changes in
+.IR file .
+Essentially the file is treated as very old and its rules are ignored.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-p
+Print the data base (rules and variable values) that results from
+reading the makefiles; then execute as usual or as otherwise
+specified.
+This also prints the version information given by the
+.B \-v
+switch (see below).
+To print the data base without trying to remake any files, use
+.B make
+.B \-p
+.BI \-f /dev/null.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-q
+``Question mode''.
+Do not run any commands, or print anything; just return an exit status
+that is zero if the specified targets are already up to date, nonzero
+otherwise.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-r
+Eliminate use of the built-in implicit rules.
+Also clear out the default list of suffixes for suffix rules.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-s
+Silent operation; do not print the commands as they are executed.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-S
+Cancel the effect of the
+.B \-k
+option.
+This is never necessary except in a recursive 
+.I make
+where
+.B \-k
+might be inherited from the top-level 
+.I make
+via MAKEFLAGS or if you set
+.B \-k
+in MAKEFLAGS in your environment.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-t
+Touch files (mark them up to date without really changing them)
+instead of running their commands.
+This is used to pretend that the commands were done, in order to fool
+future invocations of
+.IR make .
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-v
+Print the version of the 
+.I make
+program plus a copyright, a list of authors and a notice that there
+is no warranty.
+After this information is printed, processing continues normally.
+To get this information without doing anything else, use
+.B make
+.B \-v
+.BI \-f /dev/null.
+.TP 0.5i
+.B \-w
+Print a message containing the working directory before and after
+before and after other processing.
+This may be useful for tracking down errors from complicated nests of
+recursive
+.I make
+commands.
+.TP 0.5i
+.BI "\-W " file
+Pretend that the target
+.I file
+has just been modified.
+When used with the
+.B \-n
+flag, this shows you what would happen if you were to modify that file.
+Without
+.BR \-n ,
+it is almost the same as running a
+.I touch
+command on the given file before running
+.IR make ,
+except that the modification time is changed only in the imagination of 
+.IR make .
+.SH "SEE ALSO"
+.PD 0
+.TP 2.0i
+/usr/local/doc/gnumake.dvi
+.I
+The GNU Make Manual
+.PD
+.SH BUGS
+See the chapter `Problems and Bugs' in
+.I "The GNU Make Manual" .
+.SH AUTHOR
+This manual page contributed by Dennis Morse of Stanford University.
+It has been reworked by Roland McGrath.