OS detecting makefile

Question

I routinely work on several different computers and several different operating systems, which are Mac OS X, Linux, or Solaris. For the project I'm working on, I pull my code from a remote git repository.

I like to be able to work on my projects regardless of which terminal I'm at. So far, I've found ways to get around the OS changes by changing the makefile every time I switch computers. However, this is tedious and causes a bunch of headaches.

How can I modify my makefile so that it detects which OS I'm using and modifies syntax accordingly?

Here is the makefile:

cc = gcc -g
CC = g++ -g
yacc=$(YACC)
lex=$(FLEX)

all: assembler

assembler: y.tab.o lex.yy.o
        $(CC) -o assembler y.tab.o lex.yy.o -ll -l y

assembler.o: assembler.c
        $(cc) -o assembler.o assembler.c

y.tab.o: assem.y
        $(yacc) -d assem.y
        $(CC) -c y.tab.c

lex.yy.o: assem.l
        $(lex) assem.l
        $(cc) -c lex.yy.c

clean:
        rm -f lex.yy.c y.tab.c y.tab.h assembler *.o *.tmp *.debug *.acts

Answer 1

The git makefile contains numerous examples of how to manage without autoconf/automake, yet still work on a multitude of unixy platforms.

Answer 2

Another way to do this is by using a "configure" script. If you are already using one with your makefile, you can use a combination of uname and sed to get things to work out. First, in your script, do:

UNAME=uname

Then, in order to put this in your Makefile, start out with Makefile.in which should have something like

UNAME=@@UNAME@@

in it.

Use the following sed command in your configure script after the UNAME=uname bit.

sed -e "s|@@UNAME@@|$UNAME|" < Makefile.in > Makefile

Now your makefile should have UNAME defined as desired. If/elif/else statements are all that's left!

Answer 3

I was recently experimenting in order to answer this question I was asking myself. Here are my conclusions:

Since in Windows, you can't be sure that the uname command is available, you can use gcc -dumpmachine. This will display the compiler target.

There may be also a problem when using uname if you want to do some cross-compilation.

Here's a example list of possible output of gcc -dumpmachine:

• mingw32
• i686-pc-cygwin
• x86_64-redhat-linux

You can check the result in the makefile like this:

SYS := $(shell gcc -dumpmachine)
ifneq (, $(findstring linux, $(SYS)))
 # Do Linux things
else ifneq(, $(findstring mingw, $(SYS)))
 # Do MinGW things
else ifneq(, $(findstring cygwin, $(SYS)))
 # Do Cygwin things
else
 # Do things for others
endif

It worked well for me, but I'm not sure it's a reliable way of getting the system type. At least it's reliable about MinGW and that's all I need since it does not require to have the uname command or MSYS package in Windows.

To sum up, uname gives you the system on which you're compiling, and gcc -dumpmachine gives you the system for which you are compiling.

Answer 4

Detect the operating system using two simple tricks:

• First the environment variable OS
• Then the uname command

ifeq ($(OS),Windows_NT)     # is Windows_NT on XP, 2000, 7, Vista, 10...
    detected_OS := Windows
else
    detected_OS := $(shell uname)  # same as "uname -s"
endif

Or a more safe way, if not on Windows and uname unavailable:

ifeq ($(OS),Windows_NT) 
    detected_OS := Windows
else
    detected_OS := $(shell sh -c 'uname 2>/dev/null || echo Unknown')
endif

Ken Jackson proposes an interesting alternative if you want to distinguish Cygwin/MinGW/MSYS/Windows. See his answer that looks like that:

ifeq '$(findstring ;,$(PATH))' ';'
    detected_OS := Windows
else
    detected_OS := $(shell uname 2>/dev/null || echo Unknown)
    detected_OS := $(patsubst CYGWIN%,Cygwin,$(detected_OS))
    detected_OS := $(patsubst MSYS%,MSYS,$(detected_OS))
    detected_OS := $(patsubst MINGW%,MSYS,$(detected_OS))
endif

Then you can select the relevant stuff depending on detected_OS:

ifeq ($(detected_OS),Windows)
    CFLAGS += -D WIN32
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),Darwin)        # Mac OS X
    CFLAGS += -D OSX
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),Linux)
    CFLAGS   +=   -D LINUX
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),GNU)           # Debian GNU Hurd
    CFLAGS   +=   -D GNU_HURD
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),GNU/kFreeBSD)  # Debian kFreeBSD
    CFLAGS   +=   -D GNU_kFreeBSD
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),FreeBSD)
    CFLAGS   +=   -D FreeBSD
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),NetBSD)
    CFLAGS   +=   -D NetBSD
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),DragonFly)
    CFLAGS   +=   -D DragonFly
endif
ifeq ($(detected_OS),Haiku)
    CFLAGS   +=   -D Haiku
endif

Notes:

• Command uname is same as uname -s because option -s (--kernel-name) is the default. See why uname -s is better than uname -o.

• The use of OS (instead of uname) simplifies the identification algorithm. You can still use solely uname, but you have to deal with if/else blocks to check all MinGW, Cygwin, etc. variations.

• The environment variable OS is always set to "Windows_NT" on different Windows versions (see %OS% environment variable on Wikipedia).

• An alternative of OS is the environment variable MSVC (it checks the presence of MS Visual Studio, see example using Visual C++).

---

Below I provide a complete example using make and gcc to build a shared library: *.so or *.dll depending on the platform. The example is as simplest as possible to be more understandable.

To install make and gcc on Windows see Cygwin or MinGW.

My example is based on five files

 ├── lib
 │   └── Makefile
 │   └── hello.h
 │   └── hello.c
 └── app
     └── Makefile
     └── main.c

Reminder: Makefile is indented using tabulation. Caution when copy-pasting below sample files.

The two Makefile files

1. lib/Makefile

ifeq ($(OS),Windows_NT)
    uname_S := Windows
else
    uname_S := $(shell uname -s)
endif

ifeq ($(uname_S), Windows)
    target = hello.dll
endif
ifeq ($(uname_S), Linux)
    target = libhello.so
endif
#ifeq ($(uname_S), .....) #See https://stackoverflow.com/a/27776822/938111
#    target = .....
#endif

%.o: %.c
    gcc  -c $<  -fPIC  -o $@
    # -c $<  => $< is first file after ':' => Compile hello.c
    # -fPIC  => Position-Independent Code (required for shared lib)
    # -o $@  => $@ is the target => Output file (-o) is hello.o

$(target): hello.o
    gcc  $^  -shared  -o $@
    # $^      => $^ expand to all prerequisites (after ':') => hello.o
    # -shared => Generate shared library
    # -o $@   => Output file (-o) is $@ (libhello.so or hello.dll)

2. app/Makefile

ifeq ($(OS),Windows_NT)
    uname_S := Windows
else
    uname_S := $(shell uname -s)
endif

ifeq ($(uname_S), Windows)
    target = app.exe
endif
ifeq ($(uname_S), Linux)
    target = app
endif
#ifeq ($(uname_S), .....) #See https://stackoverflow.com/a/27776822/938111
#    target = .....
#endif

%.o: %.c
    gcc  -c $< -I ../lib  -o $@
    # -c $<     => compile (-c) $< (first file after :) = main.c
    # -I ../lib => search headers (*.h) in directory ../lib
    # -o $@     => output file (-o) is $@ (target) = main.o

$(target): main.o
    gcc  $^  -L../lib  -lhello  -o $@
    # $^       => $^ (all files after the :) = main.o (here only one file)
    # -L../lib => look for libraries in directory ../lib
    # -lhello  => use shared library hello (libhello.so or hello.dll)
    # -o $@    => output file (-o) is $@ (target) = "app.exe" or "app"

To learn more, read Automatic Variables documentation as pointed out by cfi.

The source code

- lib/hello.h

#ifndef HELLO_H_
#define HELLO_H_

const char* hello();

#endif

- lib/hello.c

#include "hello.h"

const char* hello()
{
    return "hello";
}

- app/main.c

#include "hello.h" //hello()
#include <stdio.h> //puts()

int main()
{
    const char* str = hello();
    puts(str);
}

The build

Fix the copy-paste of Makefile (replace leading spaces by one tabulation).

> sed  's/^  */\t/'  -i  */Makefile

The make command is the same on both platforms. The given output is on Unix-like OSes:

> make -C lib
make: Entering directory '/tmp/lib'
gcc  -c hello.c  -fPIC  -o hello.o
# -c hello.c  => hello.c is first file after ':' => Compile hello.c
# -fPIC       => Position-Independent Code (required for shared lib)
# -o hello.o  => hello.o is the target => Output file (-o) is hello.o
gcc  hello.o  -shared  -o libhello.so
# hello.o        => hello.o is the first after ':' => Link hello.o
# -shared        => Generate shared library
# -o libhello.so => Output file (-o) is libhello.so (libhello.so or hello.dll)
make: Leaving directory '/tmp/lib'

> make -C app
make: Entering directory '/tmp/app'
gcc  -c main.c -I ../lib  -o main.o
# -c main.c => compile (-c) main.c (first file after :) = main.cpp
# -I ../lib => search headers (*.h) in directory ../lib
# -o main.o => output file (-o) is main.o (target) = main.o
gcc  main.o  -L../lib  -lhello  -o app
# main.o   => main.o (all files after the :) = main.o (here only one file)
# -L../lib => look for libraries in directory ../lib
# -lhello  => use shared library hello (libhello.so or hello.dll)
# -o app   => output file (-o) is app.exe (target) = "app.exe" or "app"
make: Leaving directory '/tmp/app'

The run

The application requires to know where is the shared library.

On Windows, a simple solution is to copy the library where the application is:

> cp -v lib/hello.dll app
`lib/hello.dll' -> `app/hello.dll'

On Unix-like OSes, you can use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable:

> export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=lib

Run the command on Windows:

> app/app.exe
hello

Run the command on Unix-like OSes:

> app/app
hello

Answer 5

I ran into this problem today and I needed it on Solaris so here is a POSIX standard way to do (something very close to) this.

#Detect OS
UNAME = `uname`

# Build based on OS name
DetectOS:
    -@make $(UNAME)


# OS is Linux, use GCC
Linux: program.c
    @SHELL_VARIABLE="-D_LINUX_STUFF_HERE_"
    rm -f program
    gcc $(SHELL_VARIABLE) -o program program.c

# OS is Solaris, use c99
SunOS: program.c
    @SHELL_VARIABLE="-D_SOLARIS_STUFF_HERE_"
    rm -f program
    c99 $(SHELL_VARIABLE) -o program program.c

Answer 6

Here's a simple solution that checks if you are in a Windows or posix-like (Linux/Unix/Cygwin/Mac) environment:

ifeq ($(shell echo "check_quotes"),"check_quotes")
   WINDOWS := yes
else
   WINDOWS := no
endif

It takes advantage of the fact that echo exists on both posix-like and Windows environments, and that in Windows the shell does not filter the quotes.