Patched GNU Make 4.1 sources to add improved error reporting, tracing, target listing, graph visualization, and profiling. It also contains debugger. See the remake-3-82 branch for a patched GNU Make 3.82.
Although there's a full debugger here, most of the time I can get by using no options since normal output is a little more verbose and detailed. When that isn't enough, I use the --trace or -x option, e.g:
remake -x <other make options>
But if you want the full debugger, use --debugger or -X:
remake -X <other make options>
To enter the debugger from inside a Makefile, use the built-in function $(debugger). For example here is a Makefile:
all:
$(debugger 'arg not used')
echo Nothing here, move along
When GNU Make is inside the all target, it will make a call to the debugger. The string after debugger is not used, but seems to be needed to get parsing right.
If there is project that you want a list of "interesting" Makefile targets, try:
remake --tasks
If the project has commented its Makefile using remake-friendly comments you may get output like this:
ChangeLog # create ChangeLog fom git log via git2cl
build # Do what it takes to build software locally
check # Run all tests
clean # Remove OS- and platform-specific derived files.
dist # Create source and binary distribution
distclean # Remove all derived files. Like "clean" on steroids.
install # Install package
test # Same as check
To get a list of all targets, interesting or not, use --targets instead of --tasks.
To build:
$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure
$ make update
$ make && make check && sudo make install
To profile and get a graph of targets encountered used the --profile
option. For example:
remake --profile # target...
remake outputs callgrind profile format data which can be used with kcachegrind or other tools that work with this format.
See also https://github.com/rocky/remake/wiki and https://github.com/rocky/remake/blob/master/profile/README.md