gvim :make command does not work

Question

Hi all, I am under a Unix environment, working in C++. I'm opening gvim from a directory in which a makefile called "Makefile" exists. When I try to use ":make" from within vim, I get:

shell returned 2 (1 of 1): make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

Answer 1

G'day,

Obvious question, does the Makefile in the current directory work when you enter make on the command line?

Trying to seperate out the make in gvim land from the make env. on the command line.

Also, has makeprg been set to something unexpected? What do you get when you enter:

:set makeprg?

BTW The trailing question mark is necessary.

Edit:

• Do you get different behaviour if you enter:

  :cd the/dir/i/need/to be/in

and then enter

:make

• Is gvim aliased to anything?

HTH

cheers,

Answer 2

Do you have autochdir enabled? That may change to another directory.

Check with :pwd to see if the current directory is what you expect.

Try running :!ls to see if the Makefile exists.

Answer 3

Can you check the following options?

:set shell?
:set shelltype?

Finally, check the contents of your shell login file. For example, if your shell is bash, check ~/.bashrc. Does this file contain something like the following?

cd ~

Or:

cd /home/${USERNAME}

where ${USERNAME} is (obviously) your username.