Can I compile all .cpp files in src/ to .o's in obj/, then link to binary in ./?

Question

My project directory looks like this:

/project
    Makefile
    main
    /src
        main.cpp
        foo.cpp
        foo.h
        bar.cpp
        bar.h
    /obj
        main.o
        foo.o
        bar.o

What I would like my makefile to do would be to compile all .cpp files in the /src folder to .o files in the /obj folder, then link all the .o files in /obj into the output binary in the top-level folder /project.

I have next to no experience with Makefiles, and am not really sure what to search for to accomplish this.

Also, is this a "good" way to do this, or is there a more standard approach to what I'm trying to do?

Answer 1

Makefile part of the question

This is pretty easy, unless you don't need to generalize try something like the code below (but replace space indentation with tabs near g++)

SRC_DIR := .../src
OBJ_DIR := .../obj
SRC_FILES := $(wildcard $(SRC_DIR)/*.cpp)
OBJ_FILES := $(patsubst $(SRC_DIR)/%.cpp,$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o,$(SRC_FILES))
LDFLAGS := ...
CPPFLAGS := ...
CXXFLAGS := ...

main.exe: $(OBJ_FILES)
   g++ $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $^

$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.cpp
   g++ $(CPPFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<

---

Automatic dependency graph generation

A "must" feature for most make systems. With GCC in can be done in a single pass as a side effect of the compilation by adding -MMD flag to CXXFLAGS and -include $(OBJ_FILES:.o=.d) to the end of the makefile body:

CXXFLAGS += -MMD
-include $(OBJ_FILES:.o=.d)

And as guys mentioned already, always have GNU Make Manual around, it is very helpful.

Answer 2

Wildcard works for me also, but I'd like to give a side note for those using directory variables. Always use slash for folder tree (not backslash), otherwise it will fail:

BASEDIR = ../..
SRCDIR = $(BASEDIR)/src
INSTALLDIR = $(BASEDIR)/lib

MODULES = $(wildcard $(SRCDIR)/*.cpp)
OBJS = $(wildcard *.o)