Info Catalog make: Combine By Prerequisite make: Introduction

make: Cleanup

 
 2.7 Rules for Cleaning the Directory
 ====================================
 
 Compiling a program is not the only thing you might want to write rules
 for.  Makefiles commonly tell how to do a few other things besides
 compiling a program: for example, how to delete all the object files and
 executables so that the directory is 'clean'.
 
    Here is how we could write a 'make' rule for cleaning our example
 editor:
 
      clean:
              rm edit $(objects)
 
    In practice, we might want to write the rule in a somewhat more
 complicated manner to handle unanticipated situations.  We would do
 this:
 
      .PHONY : clean
      clean :
              -rm edit $(objects)
 
 This prevents 'make' from getting confused by an actual file called
 'clean' and causes it to continue in spite of errors from 'rm'.  (See
 Phony Targets, and Errors in Recipes Errors.)
 
 A rule such as this should not be placed at the beginning of the
 makefile, because we do not want it to run by default!  Thus, in the
 example makefile, we want the rule for 'edit', which recompiles the
 editor, to remain the default goal.
 
    Since 'clean' is not a prerequisite of 'edit', this rule will not run
 at all if we give the command 'make' with no arguments.  In order to
 make the rule run, we have to type 'make clean'.  How to Run
 'make' Running.
 

Info Catalog make: Combine By Prerequisite make: Introduction