Make Pocket Reference

A quick reference guide for dependency-aware task running. Make was written in 1976, ships with every Unix system, and has no runtime, no package manager, and no configuration format to wrestle with. This pocket reference treats it as what it actually is in modern practice — the tool that's already on your machine, waiting to replace a dozen scripts and a README full of instructions nobody reads.

Table of Contents

1. 1 Make Is Already Installed
2. 2 The Starter Makefile
3. 3 Rules: Target, Prerequisites, Commands
4. 4 .PHONY: This Target Is Not a File
5. 5 Variables
6. 6 Automatic Variables
7. 7 Pattern Rules
8. 8 Commands and the Shell
9. 9 Functions Worth Knowing
10. 10 Conditionals
11. 11 Includes and Local Overrides
12. 12 Recursive Make
13. 13 Parallel Execution
14. 14 Patterns You Can Steal
15. 15 Quick Reference Card
16. 16 Further Reading