I'm just starting to experiment with writing, editing, and compiling programs.

I have c source code and a simple Makefile in a subdirectory of my home directory.

When trying to compile inside of Vim, I noticed it only will look at Makefile in my home (~) directory.

How can I have VIM execute a make in another directory or subdirectory?

Also, do I always need a Makefile to compile using VIM? My program is very short and simple. Is there any other way to do a gcc compilation in VIM, or should I just accept the fact that every time I write code and want to compile it in VIM, I need a Makefile...?

Thanks for any help.

This is more a vim question and you might get better ideas asking on a vim mailing list and/or forum. That said... you may want to try :cd <some_other_directory> before running :make. Alternatively, if you have simple compilation needs and don't need a Makefile, you can try executing a shell command from vim, :!gcc yourfile.c