Make

Make with makefiles containing recipes allows a faster compiling time by making sure to only re-compile changed codes. Especially if you have multiple program codes to compile, it is useful to keep the object files and link using the already compiled object files.

NOTE: You must replace the spaceholder terms. Those are such terms that are put within < and >. Those brackets are not part of the syntax either.

Makefile

A makefile has the following syntax:

makefile

<target.o>: <dependency1.h>
    gcc -c <target.c>

<dependency1.o>: <dependencies>
    gcc -c <dependency1.c>

<target>: <target.o> <dependency1.o>
    gcc -o <target> <target.o> <dependency1.o>

You may save such a makefile and run make as in following:

$ make <target>

Running this command will result in an executable program that you can run via ./<target>.

NOTE: On some systems, it might be required to call the file Makefile or MAKEFILE instead of makefile