Create directories using make file

Question

I\'m a very new to makefiles and i want to create directories using makefile. My project directory is like this

+--Project  
   +--output  
   +--source  
           


        

Answer 1

I've just come up with a fairly reasonable solution that lets you define the files to build and have directories be automatically created. First, define a variable ALL_TARGET_FILES that holds the file name of every file that your makefile will be build. Then use the following code:

define depend_on_dir
$(1): | $(dir $(1))

ifndef $(dir $(1))_DIRECTORY_RULE_IS_DEFINED
$(dir $(1)):
    mkdir -p $$@

$(dir $(1))_DIRECTORY_RULE_IS_DEFINED := 1
endif
endef

$(foreach file,$(ALL_TARGET_FILES),$(eval $(call depend_on_dir,$(file))))

Here's how it works. I define a function depend_on_dir which takes a file name and generates a rule that makes the file depend on the directory that contains it and then defines a rule to create that directory if necessary. Then I use foreach to call this function on each file name and eval the result.

Note that you'll need a version of GNU make that supports eval, which I think is versions 3.81 and higher.