1 <page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
3 id="makefile-project-backend">
6 <link type="guide" xref="project-manager#backend"/>
8 Makefile project backend.
10 <credit type="author">
11 <name>Sébastien Granjoux</name>
12 <email>seb.sfo@free.fr</email>
16 <title>Makefile project backend plugin</title>
19 A makefile is probably the most common way to build software on all
20 kinds of platforms. A makefile contains a list or rules describing which
21 commands have to be run in order to generate a target from a list of
22 dependencies. When building a program, the target is an object file
23 and the dependencies are the source files. The target of one rule
24 can be a dependency of another one, allowing several rules to be chained
25 in order to make a final target.
29 It is a low-level, general tool, making it difficult to find all
30 source files and targets of a project.
31 So <app>Anjuta</app> has limited support for makefiles, reading only one
32 makefile in the top project directory and extracting source files
38 If the project backend is not able to find all the source files, you can
39 try to use the directory backend instead. It does not recognize any
40 targets but should get all source files.
45 Changing properties, or adding or removing targets and source files are
46 disabled with this backend, as automatically editing the makefile is not implemented.
47 It has to be changed by hand using the text editor.
48 When the makefile is saved, it is automatically reloaded though.