User's Guide - tmake

Introduction

tmake is an easy-to-use tool from Trolltech to create and maintain makefiles for software projects. It can be a painful task to manage makefiles manually, especially if you develop for more than one platform or use more than one compiler. tmake automates and streamlines this process and lets you spend your valuable time on writing code, not makefiles.

Our main motivation for developing tmake was that we spent far too much time maintaining makefiles for Qt, our cross-platform GUI toolkit. Qt supports around 15 flavors of Unix, Microsoft Windows, and around 15 different C++ compilers. We looked at GNU autoconf, but it was Unix-specific and not flexible enough in our opinion. Our makefile system also had to deal with Qt meta object compiler (moc) issues. The moc program extracts meta information from C++ files and generates a C++ file with data tables etc. It takes extra work to add makefile rules for the moc and wanted to automate this task.

tmake is written in Perl and requires that you have installed perl version 5 or newer. Basic use of tmake requires no perl knowledge, but if you know perl you can extend tmake and write your own makefile templates.

Windows users: The tmake distribution for Win32 includes tmake.exe (built by the perl2exe utility) and you do not need to download and install perl unless you want to modify the tmake source code or run other perl scripts. You can download perl for Win32 (Windows NT and 95) from www.activestate.com

tmake is free software and you may use, copy, modify and distribute tmake and its documentation for any purpose and without any fee. See the LICENSE file for details.

Feedback is highly appreciated. Contact the author, Haavard Nord (info@trolltech.com), if you have ideas, patches etc. for tmake.

Installation

Make sure you have perl version 5 or later installed (optional for Windows users).
Unpack the tmake tar.gz archive for Unix or the tmake .zip file for Windows.
Set the TMAKEPATH environment variable to the directories containing the template files (see below).
Add the tmake/bin directory to your PATH.

Here are some examples:

Unix Bourne shell:

    TMAKEPATH=/local/tmake/lib/linux-g++
    PATH=$PATH:/local/tmake/bin
    export TMAKEPATH PATH

Unix C shell:

    setenv TMAKEPATH /local/tmake/lib/linux-g++
    setenv PATH $PATH:/local/tmake/bin

Microsoft Windows:

    set TMAKEPATH=c:\tmake\lib\win32-msvc
    set PATH=%PATH%;c:\tmake\bin

The template directory name has the form platform-compiler and contains a platform configuration file (tmake.conf) and tmake template files.

Supported platforms: AIX, Data General, FreeBSD, HPUX, SGI Irix, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OSF1/DEC, SCO, Solaris, SunOS, Ultrix, Unixware and Win32.

You can find your platform-compiler combination in the tmake/lib.

Unix users: tmake requires that perl is in /usr/bin. If your version of perl is elsewehere, either change the first line of tmake or make a small shell script which invokes tmake with the correct perl.

Getting Started

Let's assume you have a small Qt application consisting of one C++ header file and two source files. First you need to create a tmake project file, e.g. hello.pro:

  HEADERS   =  hello.h
  SOURCES   =  hello.cpp main.cpp
  TARGET    =  hello

Then run tmake to create a Makefile:

  tmake hello.pro -o Makefile

And finally:

  make

This builds the hello program. Remember to set the TMAKEPATH environment variable before you run tmake.

See Makefile for Linux/g++.
See Makefile for Win32/msvc (Microsoft Visual C++).

Makefile Templates

The tmake distribution includes three makefile templates and one configuration file for each platform/compiler combination. The TMAKEPATH environment variable tells tmake where to find these files:

app.t Creates a makefile for building applications.

lib.t Creates a makefile for building libraries.

subdirs.t Creates a makefile for building targets in subdirectories.

tmake.conf This configuration file contains compiler options and lists tools and libraries.

The hello.pro project file above does not have a TEMPLATE or a CONFIG variable. The default template is app (the .t extension is optional) and the default configuration is qt warn_on release. This project file produces exactly the same result as the hello.pro above:

  TEMPLATE =  app
  CONFIG   =  qt warn_on release
  HEADERS  =  hello.h
  SOURCES  =  hello.cpp main.cpp
  TARGET   =  hello

Makefile Configuration

The CONFIG variable is recognized by both the app.t and lib.t templates and specifies what compiler options to use and which extra libraries to link in. These options control the compilation flags:

release Compile with optimization enabled, ignored if "debug" is specified.

debug Compile with debug options enabled.

warn_on The compiler should emit more warnings than normally, ignored if "warn_off" is specified.

warn_off The compiler should emit no warnings or as few as possible.

These options defines the application/library type:

qt The target is a Qt application/library and requires Qt header files/library.

opengl The target requires the OpenGL (or Mesa) headers/libraries.

thread The target is a multi-threaded application or library.

x11 The target is a X11 application or library.

windows The target is a Win32 window application (app.t only).

console The target is a Win32 console application (app.t only).

dll The target is a shared object/DLL.

staticlib The target is a static library (lib.t only).

As an example, if the hello application uses both Qt and OpenGL and you want to compile it for debugging, your CONFIG line should read:

  CONFIG = qt opengl debug

The most common tmake options and project variables are described here. See the tmake reference manual for details.

The Application Template

The application template, app.t, lets you compile and link executable programs or shared objects (DLLs). This template recognizes several variables.

HEADERS Header files.

SOURCES Source files.

TARGET Name of executable (adds .exe if on Windows).

DESTDIR Where to put the target.

DEFINES Tell compiler to define C preprocessor macros (-D option).

INCLUDEPATH Sets the include file search path for the compiler (-I option).

DEPENDPATH Sets the dependency search path for tmake.

DEF_FILE Win32 only: Link with a .def file.

RC_FILE Win32 only: Use a .rc file (compile to temporary .res).

RES_FILE Win32 only: Link with a .res file.

The Library Template

The library template, lib.t, lets you compile and create static or shared libraries.

The lib.t template supports the same project variables as app.t, but also VERSION. VERSION is the version number of the target library, e.g. 1.40. The version is important for shared libraries.

The Subdirs Template

The subdirs template, subdirs.t, lets you invoke make in subdirectories.

The SUBDIRS variable contains the name of all subdirectories to be processed.

Special Templates for Microsoft Visual C++

If you have Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0, you can use two special templates to generate a MSVC++ IDE project (.dsp file). After you have generated e.g. hello.dsp, choose "File"->"Open Workspace" and select the hello.dsp file. Visual C++ will then create a workspace (.dsw file) for you.

vcapp.t Creates an application project file (Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 only).

vclib.t Creates a library project file (Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 only).

Run tmake to create a hello.dsp file (use -t to override the default template):

  tmake -t vcapp -o hello.dsp hello.pro

Project File Syntax

The tmake project file has a very simple syntax. You may set project variables, append to project variables, remove from project variable and substitute project variables. To set a project variable:

    HEADERS = gui.h xml.h url.h

If you cannot fit everything on one line, use '\' to split it up:

    HEADERS = gui.h \
	      xml.h \
	      url.h

Project variables contains lists of items (such as header files, compiler options etc.) and use whitespace to separate the items. This means that tmake cannot deal with items containing whitespace. The INCLUDEPATH variable is an exception. If INCLUDEPATH contains one or more semicolons (;), tmake uses the semicolon to separate the include directories, hence you can have include directories containing whitespace (this is quite common on Windows).

Here is an example:

    INCLUDEPATH = C:\Program Files\DBLib\Include;C:\qt\include

tmake supports project variable expension. Use $$ to expand any project variable:

    ALLFILES = $$HEADERS $$SOURCES

Most often you assign some value to a project variable, but you can also add to, remove from or replace parts of a project variable.

    A   = abc
    X   = xyz
    A  += def			# A = abc def
    X  *= xyz			# X = xyz
    B   = $$A			# B = abc def
    B  -= abc			# B = def
    X  /= s/y/Y/		# X = xYz

The *= operation adds the value if the variable does not already contain it. The /= operation performs regular expression substitution.

You can also set variables from the command line when running the tmake program. For instance, if you want to generate a makefile with debug information:

    tmake "CONFIG+=debug" hello.pro

Use the unix: or win32: (conditional) qualifier if you want a platform-specific variable:

    SOURCES	   =   common.cpp   # common for all platforms
    unix:SOURCES   +=  unix.cpp	    # additional sources for Unix
    win32:SOURCES  +=  win32.cpp    # additional sources for Windows
    unix:LIBS	   +=  -lm	    # on Unix we need the math lib

If none of the platforms match, tmake looks for the variable in CONFIG variable:

    debug:SOURCES  +=  dbgstuff.cpp # additional source for debugging

Finally, you can set platform and compiler-dependent variables:

    linux-g++:TMAKE_CFLAGS = -fno-rtti

You may define your own project variables to be used by custom templates. A project variable is stored in %project, which is an associative Perl array. Access it like this: $project{"var"} or via the function Project("var"). For example, after reading "hello.pro", $project{"SOURCES"} contains "hello.cpp main.cpp".

Running tmake

Usage:

  tmake [options] project files or project settings

Options:

  -e expr    Evaluate the Perl expression.  Ignores the template file.
  -nodepend  Don't generate dependency information.
  -o file    Write output to file instead of stdout.
  -t file    Specify a template file.
  -unix      Force tmake into Unix mode.
  -v         Verbose/debugging on.
  -win32     Force tmake into Win32 mode.

The -t option overrides any TEMPLATE variable in the project file.

The default project file extension is ".pro". The default template file extension is ".t". If you do not specify these extension tmake will automatically add them for you.

Example of basic use:

    tmake hello -o Makefile

Example of how to create a makefile with debugging information:

    tmake hello "CONFIG+=debug" -o Makefile

Exmaple of how to specify a TMAKEPATH:

    tmake "TMAKEPATH=/local/tmake/lib/hpux-g++" hello.pro -o Makefile

Example of how to evaluate a perl expression (print names of headers and source files):

    tmake hello -e 'Expand("HEADERS","SOURCES")'

Note that project settings on the command line must come after the project file, otherwise they will be overridden by the settings in the project file.

The progen Utility

The progen utility creates project files for you. It can be used like this:

  progen -n hello -o hello.pro

If no .cpp or .h files are specified on the command line, progen searches for .cpp and .h (except moc_*.cpp) in the current directory and below.

Usage:

  progen [options] [C/C++ header files and source files]

Options:

  -lower   Lower-case letters in filenames (useful on Windows).
  -n name  Specify a project name (TARGET).
  -o file  Write output to file instead of stdout.
  -t file  Specify a template file.

Advanced Topics

In most cases you will be happy with using tmake as described above, but sometimes you need to add special compiler options or even add new makefile rules. This chapter describes how to customize your makefiles.

Conditional Project Settings

If you need a special compiler option etc., you can add platform-dependent settings in your project file:

  
  solaris-cc:TMAKE_CC     = /opt/bin/CC_5.0
  solaris-cc:TMAKE_CFLAGS = -pts
  unix:TMAKE_LIBS         = -lXext
  win32:INCLUDEPATH       = c:\myinclude
  win32-borland:DEFINES   = NO_BOOL

You can prefix a project variable with unix: or win32: to make it specific for either Unix or Windows. You can also prefix a variable with platform-compiler

Your Own Templates

If you know Perl programming, there is virtually no limitation to what you can do with tmake. First you need to know how tmake works.

Template Processing

When you run tmake, it first reads the tmake.conf file. This configuration file has the same syntax as the project file. tmake then reads the project file and sets the project variables it finds, e.g. HEADERS, SOURCES etc. All variables and values are stored in a global associative Perl hash array called project. For example, $project{"SOURCES"} contains "hello.cpp main.cpp" after processing hello.pro. When both the tmake.conf and the project files have been read, tmake starts reading the template file line by line and executes any Perl code it finds in the template.

Anything after #$ until newline is evaluated as perl code. The perl code is substituted with the contents of the $text variable.
Block of perl code: #${ until #$}.
Comments; #! until newline is stripped.
Anything else is copied directly from the template to the output.

Example:

    #! This is a comment which will be removed.
    This text will appear in the output.
    #$ $text = "The header file(s) are: " . $project{"HEADERS"};
    # This text also appears in the output.
    #${
       $a = 12;
       $b = 13;
       $text = $a * $b;
    #$}
    That's all.

Output:

    This text will appear in the output.
    The header file(s) are: hello.h
    # This text also appears in the output.
    156
    That's all.

Using tmake With Lex and Yacc

The standard tmake templates knows how to process C and C++ files, but sometimes you need to process additional files and link them into your project. A typical example is to process lex and yacc files when you're building a parser.

Parser template:

  #!
  #! parser.t: This is a custom template for building a parser
  #!
  #$ IncludeTemplate("app.t");

  ####### Lex/yacc programs and options

  LEX	    =	flex
  YACC    =	#$ $text = ($is_unix ? "yacc -d" : "byacc -d");

  ####### Lex/yacc files

  LEXIN   =	#$ Expand("LEXINPUT");
  LEXOUT  =	lex.yy.c
  YACCIN  =	#$ Expand("YACCINPUT");
  YACCOUT =	y.tab.c
  YACCHDR =	y.tab.h
  PARSER  =	#$ Expand("PARSER");

  ####### Process lex/yacc files

  $(LEXOUT): $(LEXIN)
          $(LEX) $(LEXIN)

  $(PARSER): $(YACCIN) $(LEXOUT)
          $(YACC) $(YACCIN)
          #$ $text = ($is_unix ? "-rm -f " : "-del ") . '$(PARSER)';
          #$ $text = ($is_unix ? "-mv " : "-ren ") . '$(YACCOUT) $(PARSER)';

The parser template adds some extra rules to the application template in order to build the lex and yacc portions of the project. This template is portable across Unix and Windows since it generates different commands depending on the $is_unix variable.

To learn more about the Expand() function and other Perl functions which tmake provides, consult the reference manual.

Example project file:

  TEMPLATE  = parser.t
  CONFIG    = console release
  LEXINPUT  = lexer.l
  YACCINPUT = grammar.y
  PARSER    = parser.cpp
  SOURCES   = $$PARSER    \
              node.cpp    \
              asmgen.cpp
  TARGET    = parser

Here we use macro expansion $$PARSER to avoid writing parser.cpp two places.

Counting the Number of Code Lines

tmake is generic since it is based on Perl. You can create your own templates for other purposes than producing makefiles. Here is an example template that counts the number of code lines in our project.

Template wc.t:

  #! Template that count number of C++ lines.
  The number of C++ code lines for #$ $text=$project_name;
  #${
    $files = $project{"HEADERS"} . " " . $project{"SOURCES"};
    $text = `wc -l $files`;
  #$}

Run it:

  tmake -t wc hello

Output:

  The number of C++ code lines for hello.pro
       25    hello.h
       98    hello.cpp
       38    main.cpp
      161    total

This will only work if the wc program is installed on your system.

	app.t		Creates a makefile for building applications.
	lib.t		Creates a makefile for building libraries.
	subdirs.t		Creates a makefile for building targets in subdirectories.
	tmake.conf		This configuration file contains compiler options and lists tools and libraries.

	release		Compile with optimization enabled, ignored if "debug" is specified.
	debug		Compile with debug options enabled.
	warn_on		The compiler should emit more warnings than normally, ignored if "warn_off" is specified.
	warn_off		The compiler should emit no warnings or as few as possible.

	qt		The target is a Qt application/library and requires Qt header files/library.
	opengl		The target requires the OpenGL (or Mesa) headers/libraries.
	thread		The target is a multi-threaded application or library.
	x11		The target is a X11 application or library.
	windows		The target is a Win32 window application (app.t only).
	console		The target is a Win32 console application (app.t only).
	dll		The target is a shared object/DLL.
	staticlib		The target is a static library (lib.t only).

	HEADERS		Header files.
	SOURCES		Source files.
	TARGET		Name of executable (adds .exe if on Windows).
	DESTDIR		Where to put the target.
	DEFINES		Tell compiler to define C preprocessor macros (-D option).
	INCLUDEPATH		Sets the include file search path for the compiler (-I option).
	DEPENDPATH		Sets the dependency search path for tmake.
	DEF_FILE		Win32 only: Link with a .def file.
	RC_FILE		Win32 only: Use a .rc file (compile to temporary .res).
	RES_FILE		Win32 only: Link with a .res file.

	vcapp.t		Creates an application project file (Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 only).
	vclib.t		Creates a library project file (Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 only).