A way to force GNU 'make' to always echo ?

Sergei Steshenko · 11-29-2012, 01:06 AM

Hello,

as from time to time I'm debugging build failures, I need to see which commands with all their arguments are executed by 'make'.

Some Makefles are written smartly, e.g. they have, for example, a 'V' variable, and if it is set to TRUE on 'make' command line, command lines are printed.

I am aware of 'remake' and I am widely using it, but it still it doesn't show me command lines from constructs like

Code:

define foo
commands_here
endef

when 'foo' is called as

Code:

@$(foo)

- per GNU 'make' documentation '@' suppresses echoing.

So, my question is: is there a way to temporarily "remove" all '@' in order to make all commands executed by 'make'.

I went through GNU 'make' documentation and did some web search, but didn't find an answer. In fact, since some Makefiles are smartly built with the above mentioned 'V' variable, I think there is no way.

But I want to make sure. If one knows a manpage on the web which prove me wrong, just give a link to it.

Thanks in advance.

pan64 · 11-29-2012, 02:48 AM

see here: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/man...ptions-Summary
--debug=<something>

Sergei Steshenko · 11-29-2012, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

see here: http://www.gnu.org/software/make/man...ptions-Summary
--debug=<something>

I looked at the options. I gave a specific case when it does not work, that's why I asked. It doesn't even work with 'remake' which is a Makefile debugger. Only removing '@' showed me the command lines being executed.

pan64 · 11-29-2012, 06:30 AM

sorry guy, it looks like gmake has no such option. usually -v is used to do that (verbose, and it will print all commands), but unfortunately it does not work with gmake. You can try -n to display what should be executed, but it will not execute anything, just print the commands.

Sergei Steshenko · 11-29-2012, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

sorry guy, it looks like gmake has no such option. usually -v is used to do that (verbose, and it will print all commands), but unfortunately it does not work with gmake. You can try -n to display what should be executed, but it will not execute anything, just print the commands.

From 'man make':

Code:

       --debug[=FLAGS]
            Print debugging information in addition to normal processing.  If the FLAGS are omitted, then the behavior is the same as if -d was specified.  FLAGS may be a for
            all debugging output (same as using -d), b for basic debugging, v for more verbose basic debugging, i for showing implicit rules, j for details on  invocation  of
            commands, and m for debugging while remaking makefiles.

- I tried 'j', it worked on "regular" stuff, but not on what GNU documentation calls "canned recipes" (the "define ..." stuff).

eullerborges · 05-04-2020, 07:26 AM

Posting here as none of the answers worked for me.

What you're looking for is most probably '--trace':

Quote:

‘--trace’

Show tracing information for make execution. Prints the entire recipe to be executed, even for recipes that are normally silent (due to .SILENT or ‘@’). Also prints the makefile name and line number where the recipe was defined, and information on why the target is being rebuilt.

Using '--trace --debug=v' works particularly well giving you an insight into what rule is being run and what are the commands run inside the rules, printing even otherwise silent rules.

NevemTeve · 05-04-2020, 09:06 AM

I usually use this command between `./configure` and `make all`

Code:

find . -name Makefile | while read M; do
    sed -i "$(printf 's;^\t@;\t;')" "$M"
done