- The size and structure of GHC's makefiles makes it quite easy to scream - out loud - in pain - during the process of tracking down problems in the - make system or when attempting to alter it. GHC's Building - Guide has valuable information on the - makefile architecture. - -
- The fptools/ toplevel and the various project directories
- contain not only a Makefile each, but there are
- subdirectories of name mk/ at various levels that contain
- rules, targets, and so on specific to a project - or, in the case of the
- toplevel, the default rules for the whole system. Each mk/
- directory contains a file boilerplate.mk that ties the
- various other makefiles together. Files called target.mk,
- paths.mk, and suffix.mk contain make targets,
- definitions of variables containing paths, and suffix rules,
- respectively.
-
- One particularly nasty trick used in this hierarchy of makefiles is the
- way in which the variable $(TOP) is used. AFAIK,
- $(TOP) always points to a directory containing an
- mk/ subdirectory; however, it not necessarily points to the
- toplevel fptools/ directory. For example, within the GHC
- subtree, $(TOP) points to fptools/ghc/.
- However, some of the makefiles in fptools/ghc/mk/ will then
- temporarily redefine $(TOP) to point a level
- higher (i.e., to fptools/) while they are including the
- toplevel boilerplate. After that $(TOP) is redefined to
- whatever value it had before including makefiles from higher up in the
- hierarchy.
-
-
- -Last modified: Wed Aug 22 16:46:33 GMT Daylight Time 2001 - - - -