Hello all,

I've been a linux developer for a good while but the environment I've moved to recently means that I have been forced to use emacs on a fairly large C project. I'm finally starting to see what all the fuss is about - its exteremely powerful and I have a nice feeling that wherever I go, knowledge of this setup will be useful to me.

I have one outstanding question though: I am happy about M-x compile to start gcc but I want to point it at a makefile, rather than enter a single make target - is there a way to tell emacs about my makefile?

I should add that I have a fairly clean install of GNU emacs and would rather avoid having to install other macros - though I'm open to suggestions.

NB - although there are dozens of emacs tutorials out there, none of them have answered this question and almost all just mention the basic M-x compile command.

Thanks for any insight,
cam

Not quite sure how your emacs is set-up.

If I do Alt-x compile it prompts me for a compile-command,
which is preset to be make -k?

If it weren't I could overwrite it with exactly that. The only
downside: I need to be in the source-dir with the Makefile
and source.


Cheers,
Tink

When I work on a project where all source files are in subdirectory relative to the Makefile, I pass the following
to make when compiling from Emacs so that make can find the Makefile:
HTH

Like Tinkster already said, after "M-x compile" you can change the command in the mini-buffer. Like: make -f /path/to/your/Makefile-custom


I've put the added line in my $HOME/.emacs file:This enables me (after restarting emacs) to use "C-x M-m" as a shortcut for "M-x compile".

Great - this is the one. I add -C /path/to/dir-with-Makefile and everything is fine.

Next question (!) how do I set this up be my default compile argument?

Thanks a lot for the responses.

cam

Glad I could help! If you want to change the default compile command from
to
you can add the following to your .emacs-file: