How can I have a Makefile automatically rebuild so

Question

I have the following makefile that I use to build a program (a kernel, actually) that I'm working on. Its from scratch and I'm learning about the process, so its not perfect, but I think its powerful enough at this point for my level of experience writing makefiles.

AS  =   nasm
CC  =   gcc
LD  =   ld

TARGET      =   core
BUILD       =   build
SOURCES     =   source
INCLUDE     =   include
ASM         =   assembly

VPATH = $(SOURCES)

CFLAGS  =   -Wall -O -fstrength-reduce -fomit-frame-pointer -finline-functions \
            -nostdinc -fno-builtin -I $(INCLUDE)
ASFLAGS =   -f elf

#CFILES     =   core.c consoleio.c system.c
CFILES      =   $(foreach dir,$(SOURCES),$(notdir $(wildcard $(dir)/*.c)))
SFILES      =   assembly/start.asm

SOBJS   =   $(SFILES:.asm=.o)
COBJS   =   $(CFILES:.c=.o)
OBJS    =   $(SOBJS) $(COBJS)

build : $(TARGET).img

$(TARGET).img : $(TARGET).elf
    c:/python26/python.exe concat.py stage1 stage2 pad.bin core.elf floppy.img

$(TARGET).elf : $(OBJS)
    $(LD) -T link.ld -o $@ $^

$(SOBJS) : $(SFILES)
    $(AS) $(ASFLAGS) $< -o $@

%.o: %.c
    @echo Compiling $<...
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<

#Clean Script - Should clear out all .o files everywhere and all that.
clean:
    -del *.img
    -del *.o
    -del assembly\*.o
    -del core.elf

My main issue with this makefile is that when I modify a header file that one or more C files include, the C files aren't rebuilt. I can fix this quite easily by having all of my header files be dependencies for all of my C files, but that would effectively cause a complete rebuild of the project any time I changed/added a header file, which would not be very graceful.

What I want is for only the C files that include the header file I change to be rebuilt, and for the entire project to be linked again. I can do the linking by causing all header files to be dependencies of the target, but I cannot figure out how to make the C files be invalidated when their included header files are newer.

I've heard that GCC has some commands to make this possible (so the makefile can somehow figure out which files need to be rebuilt) but I can't for the life of me find an actual implementation example to look at. Can someone post a solution that will enable this behavior in a makefile?

EDIT: I should clarify, I'm familiar with the concept of putting the individual targets in and having each target.o require the header files. That requires me to be editing the makefile every time I include a header file somewhere, which is a bit of a pain. I'm looking for a solution that can derive the header file dependencies on its own, which I'm fairly certain I've seen in other projects.

Answer 1

This is equivalent to Chris Dodd's answer, but uses a different naming convention (and coincidentally doesn't require the sed magic. Copied from a later duplicate.

---

If you are using a GNU compiler, the compiler can assemble a list of dependencies for you. Makefile fragment:

depend: .depend

.depend: $(SOURCES)
        rm -f ./.depend
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -MM $^>>./.depend;

include .depend

There is also the tool makedepend, but I never liked it as much as gcc -MM

Answer 2

Over and above what @mipadi said, you can also explore the use of the '-M' option to generate a record of the dependencies. You might even generate those into a separate file (perhaps 'depend.mk') which you then include in the makefile. Or you can find a 'make depend' rule which edits the makefile with the correct dependencies (Google terms: "do not remove this line" and depend).

Answer 3

Simpler solution: Just use the Makefile to have the .c to .o compilation rule be dependent on the header file(s) and whatever else is relevant in your project as a dependency.

E.g., in the Makefile somewhere:

DEPENDENCIES=mydefs.h yourdefs.h Makefile GameOfThrones.S07E01.mkv

::: (your other Makefile statements like rules 
:::  for constructing executables or libraries)

# Compile any .c to the corresponding .o file:
%.o: %.c $(DEPENDENCIES)
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<