Hello guys, its me again today I'm going to show you how to write a good makefile for a c++ project that you might have.

What's a makefile

Just if you didn't knew I want to explain it, Basically a makefile its an easier way to compile our code, let me be clear It's not language exclusive you can use it on c++ just as you can use it in python, but most people use them on low level programming languages.

How is it going to help me

Lets say that you have a big project, maybe 10 or 20 classes and you main file, so what's the compile line going to look like

g++ -Wall -Wextra -std=c++17 -ggdb -Iinclude -Llib src/AssetManager.cpp src/Game.cpp src/InputManager.cpp src/SplashState.cpp src/StateMachine.cpp src/GameState.cpp src/main.cpp -o bin/main -lsfml-graphics -lsfml-audio -lsfml-window -lsfml-system -llua53 -ldl

So this is the compile line for my Skeleton engine project.

git clone https://github.com/mendoza/skeleton-engine
cd skeleton-engine
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. 
# For windows: cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
make
# For Windows: mingw32-make
./skeleton

But as you can see its pretty long...
So imagine writing that every time you need to compile (lets say that terminals don't store last commands hahaha)

What do I do then?

you create a makefile on your project's root, here is a example

touch makefile

so now your directory looks like this

.
├── bin/
├── include/
├── lib/
├── makefile
└── src/

I strongly recommend this "layout", you will place all .h or .hpp in your include directory, and your .cpp in your src directory, and precompiled libraries (.a, or .out) are going in your lib directory.

CXX       := g++
CXX_FLAGS := -Wall -Wextra -std=c++17 -ggdb

BIN     := bin
SRC     := src
INCLUDE := include
LIB     := lib
LIBRARIES   := 
EXECUTABLE  := main


all: $(BIN)/$(EXECUTABLE)

run: clean all
    clear
    @echo "🚀 Executing..."
    ./$(BIN)/$(EXECUTABLE)

$(BIN)/$(EXECUTABLE): $(SRC)/*.cpp
    @echo "🚧 Building..."
    $(CXX) $(CXX_FLAGS) -I$(INCLUDE) -L$(LIB) $^ -o $@ $(LIBRARIES)

clean:
    @echo "🧹 Clearing..."
    -rm $(BIN)/*

What's all wizary your are seeing? well lets go step by step.

• CXX Its the "program" you are using for compiling (g++ in my case)
• CXX_FLAGS Its the flags for your compiling program
• BIN this is where your binary file is going to be placed
• SRC As I told you this is where all your .cpp are going to be
• INCLUDE Of course this is all your .hpp or .h file are going to be
• LIB As I said is where your precompiled files are going to be
• LIBRARIES This are the libraries flags for g++
• EXECUTABLE Its just the name of your binary file
• all It the "recipe" your makefile will call if you just call make on your terminal
• run It compiles your code and makes it run
• $(BIN)/$(EXECUTABLE) this one just compiles the code
• clean it cleans all your binary files.

If you need any help defining any recipe for your makefile let me know! I will be glad to help you out on anything.

Now that I have everything setup what do I do?

Its really simple, look at this,

to compile your code you call this in your terminal

make

and to compile it and run it, you call this in your terminal

make run

And that's all really, go ahead and try it!

if you got any problem leave me a comment and I will help you out