make does not say 'up to date'

ananthbv · 09-28-2004, 01:15 AM

hi all,
i have a makefile which in turn runs several other makefiles. 'make' runs fine but does not say 'up to date' when i run the same makefile without making any changes to the relevant files. what could be the reason(s)?

Hko · 09-28-2004, 06:01 AM

Could you post your Makefile(s) please.
Without it, we can't do anything but guess...

One easy guess would be though:
Have you specified any dependencies like the red part below?

Code:

prog: main.c
<tab>   gcc -c -o prog main.c

ananthbv · 09-28-2004, 06:59 AM

no Hko, there is no

Code:

prog: main.c

and thats a humongous makefile, containing a lot of sub-makefiles, but these are the essential details.
these are the sub-makefiles:

Code:

a.mk aa.mk ... ae.mk
b.mk ...
c.mk  ...
d.mk  ...
e.mk  ...
f.mk  ...
g.mk  ...
h.mk  ...
i.mk  ...
j.mk  ...
.
.
.
z.mk   ...   ze.mk

each of these makefiles contain something like this. pls assume that all the symbols in $(...) have been predefined.

Code:

#  a.mk

COBOL_OBJECTS=\
                   $(SOME_DIR)/cob1.o \
                   $(SOME_DIR)/cob2.o

PASCAL_OBJECTS=\
                   $(ANOTHER_DIR)/pas1.o \
                   $(ANOTHER_DIR)/pas2.o

a: $(COBOL_OBJECTS) $(PASCAL_OBJECTS)
         $(COB) -Z $(COBOL_OBJECTS) $(PASCAL_OBJECTS) -o $(LIB_DIR)/liba.sl

.cbl.o: 
         $(COBOL) $(COBOPTS) -c $< -o $@

.p.o:
         $(PASCAL) $(PASOPTS) ...

clean:
         <rm commands>

thats about the sub-makefiles. the actual 'makefile' is like this

Code:

# final makefile

all: MAKE_SOME
           make -f a.mk  a
           make -f b.mk  b
           make -f c.mk  c
           make -f d.mk  d
           make -f e.mk  e
           .
           .
           .
           make -f z.mk  z

MAKE_SOME:
           make -f aa.mk  aa
           make -f ab.mk  ab
           make -f ac.mk  ac
           make -f ad.mk  ad
           make -f az.mk  ae

clean:
           make -f a.mk  clean
           make -f b.mk  clean
           make -f c.mk  clean
           make -f d.mk  clean
           make -f e.mk  clean
           .
           .
           .
           make -f z.mk  clean

# and so on

is this enough description? thanks for any help.