Author tcarland@gmail.com
Version 24.07.22
tcamake is a Gnu automake build environment for code projects. It is not its own 'make' implementation. It simply wraps the use of Gnu 'automake' providing preset platform specific dependencies and environments.
The goal is to provide a clean and consistent method of managing large projects with sub-project dependencies in a common set of configurations which allows for logical Makefiles.
The system has been used reliably for years and serves as an excuse to avoid the GNU autoconf toolset when possible. While certainly not as powerful as autoconf, the Makefile template hierarchy lends itself nicely as a simple build system mechanism, even when used in conjunction with Gnu autotools. It is capable and even useful for managing a build environment for very large projects and multiple platforms.
tcamake provides an include hierarchy that defines all of the dependencies of the projects within the build system.
The build environment layout is specific to a directory structure starting
with a root directory that is referred to as the Project directory or
TCAMAKE_PROJECT. This can be for a single project or group of projects as
needed. The term Project is used to define an encompassing environment
that may contain many sub-projects and can be also thought of as a workspace.
An instance of the tcamake build environment should exist at the project workspace level or otherwise have TCAMAKE_HOME set accordingly.
A given workspace project may consist of many sub-projects or repositories with dependencies. Each of these projects can refer to the build system via TCAMAKE_HOME and any given project Makefile should always include ${TCAMAKE_HOME}/tcamake_include. The include must occur after setting various custom options or build overrides such as OPT_FLAGS, CFLAGS or CXXFLAGS, INCLUDES, LIBS, etc.
The following example demonstrates a typical Makefile layout.
# requirements
NEED_SOCKET = 1
NEED_ZLIB = 1
NEED_RDKAFKA = 1
# Custom flags
ifdef TCAMAKE_DEBUG
OPT_FLAGS= -g
endif
CCSHARED+= -Wl,-soname,$@
CXXFLAGS= -std=c++11
INCLUDES= -Iinclude
LIBS=
# objects
BIN= mybin
OBJS= src/mysrc.o
ALL_OBJS= $(OBJS)
ALL_BINS= $(BIN)
# Include tcamake after all custom defines
# ---------------
ifeq($(TCAMAKE_HOME),)
export TCAMAKE_HOME := $(shell realpath ../tcamake)
endif
include $(TCAMAKE_HOME)/tcamake_include
# ---------------
all: mybin test
mybin: $(OBJS)
$(make-cxxbin-rule)
@echo
.PHONY: test
test:
clean:
$(RM) $(ALL_OBJS) \
*.d *.D *.o src/*.d src/*.D src/*.bd src/*.o
@echo
distclean: clean
$(RM) $(ALL_BINS)
@echo
install:
ifdef TCAMAKE_PREFIX
@echo "Installing $BIN"
$(CP) $BIN $TCAMAKE_PREFIX/bin
endifTemplates for these Makefiles are provided in the templates sub-directory and can be modified as needed.
The Makefile hierarchy includes the following files:
-
tcamake_include
This is the Makefile include file to be included by a Makefile. It pulls in both the dependencies and the platform environment via the 'depends' and 'environment' files respectively and is the entrypoint. -
tcamake.Makefile
This is the primary include file of the tcamake framework. This gets included by tcamake_include which is the entrypoint as described above. -
tcamake_env
This is included automatically for each project to initiate the platform's desired compiler flags and other platform specific macros. This file should NOT need to be modified other than to add new platform environment profiles. -
tcamake_depends
The file for defining all project dependencies. This is the only file that should need updating. Since these dependencies generate our compile-time INCLUDE and LIB variables, order can be important.
As a general rule, the order should sort projects with the most dependencies before projects with the least dependencies. -
tcamake_autodepend
An internal file for defining build commands and is the last file to be included by tcamke_depends. This file should NOT need to be modified.