mkdep program for SysV (Xenix/Unix)

[Ronald S H Khoo]

[ OK guys, where *do* you ask about things like makefile makers ?
  comp.unix.programmer ?  alt.sport.toe.wrestling ?  I'll try the former :-) ]

[ Now I'm going to *expect* a followup telling me what the current crop of
  mkdeps do that cc -M doesn't.  Or do people distribute makedepend
  just because some people don't have cc -M ?  Answers on a postcard to
  Craig Shergold, please, or follow up :-) ]

fields-doug at cs.yale.edu (Doug Fields) writes:

> Hi. I have alot of Makefiles that call a "makedep" or "mkdep" program, which
> I assume adds to the end a zillion dependencies [ to the end of Makefiles ]
> Anyway, I could really use [ mkdep ], or one which does
> something similar, for those Makefiles and as a general utility.

One fast and accurate way to make dependencies for makefiles is to use gcc -M.
(Doug's asking about Xenix/Sys V, so he'd need gcc.  BSD cc has -M doesn't it?)

For example, you could add something like

	depend:
		sed "/^# DELETE ME/q" Makefile > Makefile.new
		gcc $(CFLAGS) -M $(OBJS:.o=.c) >> Makefile.new
		mv Makefile.new Makefile

	# DELETE ME

to the end of your makefile.  Then "make depend" would do just that.
This works especially well when your dependencies change a lot depending
on what -I and -D flags you change in CFLAGS, just run make depend again.

Just make sure you haven't got a file called "depend" in the current
directory :-)
-- 
ronald at robobar.co.uk +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)