makefile (redirected from Make (software))

A file of commands that are executed by a compiler's "make" utility or function. The makefile lists the program modules that are part of the project and associated libraries that must be linked in. It also includes special directives that enable certain modules to be compiled differently if required. Unless otherwise specified, generally only the source modules that have changed are actually recompiled.

---

makefile - A script which tells the Unix program "make" how to build a particular computer program or set of programs. A makefile contains variable assignments and rules of the form target: inputs commands which say if any of the files in "inputs" has been modified more recently than file "target" (or if the target does not exist) then execute "commands", which will normally bulid "target" from "inputs". If make is run with no arguments, it looks for a makefile called "Makefile" or "makefile".