How to efficiently “make” with Vim

Question

What I am trying to do seems a very basic stuff, but I can\'t find anything about it. I am working on a project built as usual:

project
|-- bin
|-- inc
`-- s         


        

Answer 1

Another approach can be used if you have a single makefile on project root directory:

project
|-- bin
|-- inc
|-- src
| Makefile

With your project path in variable like b:projectDir it is possible to use an "autocommand" to change to that directory before start executing :makeor :lmake:

augroup changeMakeDir
    au!
    autocmd QuickfixCmdPre *make
                \ if exists("b:projectDir") &&
                                    \ b:projectDir != expand("%:p:h") |
                    \ exe 'cd ' . b:projectDir |
                \ endif
augroup END

---

Projectroot plugin can be used to set b:projectDir; it also provides the commands to change the current directory to the project root directory:

augroup changeMakeDir
    au!
    autocmd QuickfixCmdPre make ProjectRootCD
augroup END