OS detecting makefile

Question

I routinely work on several different computers and several different operating systems, which are Mac OS X, Linux, or Solaris. For the project I'm working on, I pull my code from a remote git repository.

I like to be able to work on my projects regardless of which terminal I'm at. So far, I've found ways to get around the OS changes by changing the makefile every time I switch computers. However, this is tedious and causes a bunch of headaches.

How can I modify my makefile so that it detects which OS I'm using and modifies syntax accordingly?

Here is the makefile:

 cc = gcc -g
CC = g++ -g
yacc=$(YACC)
lex=$(FLEX)

all: assembler

assembler: y.tab.o lex.yy.o
        $(CC) -o assembler y.tab.o lex.yy.o -ll -l y

assembler.o: assembler.c
        $(cc) -o assembler.o assembler.c

y.tab.o: assem.y
        $(yacc) -d assem.y
        $(CC) -c y.tab.c

lex.yy.o: assem.l
        $(lex) assem.l
        $(cc) -c lex.yy.c

clean:
        rm -f lex.yy.c y.tab.c y.tab.h assembler *.o *.tmp *.debug *.acts

Answer 1

That's the job that GNU's automake/autoconf are designed to solve. You might want to investigate them.

Alternatively you can set environment variables on your different platforms and make you Makefile conditional against them.

Answer 2

The uname command (http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/uname.1.html) with no parameters should tell you the operating system name. I'd use that, then make conditionals based on the return value.

Example

UNAME := $(shell uname)

ifeq ($(UNAME), Linux)
# do something Linux-y
endif
ifeq ($(UNAME), Solaris)
# do something Solaris-y
endif

Answer 3

The git makefile contains numerous examples of how to manage without autoconf/automake, yet still work on a multitude of unixy platforms.

Answer 4

Note that Makefiles are extremely sensitive to spacing. Here's an example of a Makefile that runs an extra command on OSX and which works on OSX and Linux. Overall, though, autoconf/automake is the way to go for anything at all non-trivial.

UNAME := $(shell uname -s)
CPP = g++
CPPFLAGS = -pthread -ansi -Wall -Werror -pedantic -O0 -g3 -I /nexopia/include
LDFLAGS = -pthread -L/nexopia/lib -lboost_system

HEADERS = data_structures.h http_client.h load.h lock.h search.h server.h thread.h utility.h
OBJECTS = http_client.o load.o lock.o search.o server.o thread.o utility.o vor.o

all: vor

clean:
    rm -f $(OBJECTS) vor

vor: $(OBJECTS)
    $(CPP) $(LDFLAGS) -o vor $(OBJECTS)
ifeq ($(UNAME),Darwin)
    # Set the boost library location
    install_name_tool -change libboost_system.dylib /nexopia/lib/libboost_system.dylib vor
endif

%.o: %.cpp $(HEADERS) Makefile
    $(CPP) $(CPPFLAGS) -c $