Using the Makefile with make

Once you have created your Makefile and your corresponding source files, you are ready to use make. If you have named your Makefile either Makefile or makefile, make will recognize it. If you do not wish to call your Makefile one of these names, you can use make -f mymakefile. The order in which dependencies are listed is important. If you simply type make and then return, make will attempt to create or update the first dependency listed.

You can also specify one of the other targets listed in the Makefile, and only that target (and its corresponding source files) would be made. For example, if we typed make, the output of make would look as follows:

% make
        cc -c data.c
        cc -c main.c
        cc -c io.c
        cc data.o main.o io.o -o project1
%

When making its targets, make first checks the source files and attempts to create or update the source files. That is why data.o, main.o and io.o were created before attempting to create the target: project1.

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