Differences between build and make?

Question

Recently, I downloaded a copy of mysql source code from their source tree. but i am not sure how can i compile the code. i do not quite understand the different processes involved in c++ software building. after i have built the code, how can i install it? or do i need to make? or how do i even know if the 'build' is successful, it printed a lot of information.

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Well, make program is used to build entire program. It controls how compiler will compile MySQL. If you are using *NIX OS, standard way of doing things is

 ./configure

which will customize makefile used by make to your system. Then goes

 make  

which will make program. In the end, if you want to install it for everyone goes

 sudo make install

I also recommend that you run

 ./configure --help 

first. It will show you options which can be used with configure. This way you won't miss some optional feature you might want to use.

Also, the wall of text you got may be important. If there are any errors or warnings during compiling, they will show up there. You may want to redirect output of make to a file so you can read it later.