codeblocks-ep/help/html/programmerHelp/make/Force-Targets.html at master · maifeeulasad/codeblocks-ep · GitHub

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>GNU `make'</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html">
<meta name="description" content="GNU `make'">
<meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.3">
<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home">
</head>
<body>
<div class="node">
<p>
Node:<a name="Force%20Targets">Force Targets</a>,
Next:<a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Empty-Targets.html#Empty%20Targets">Empty Targets</a>,
Previous:<a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Phony-Targets.html#Phony%20Targets">Phony Targets</a>,
Up:<a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Rules.html#Rules">Rules</a>
<hr><br>
</div>

<h3 class="section">Rules without Commands or Prerequisites</h3>

   <p>If a rule has no prerequisites or commands, and the target of the rule
is a nonexistent file, then <code>make</code> imagines this target to have
been updated whenever its rule is run.  This implies that all targets
depending on this one will always have their commands run.

   <p>An example will illustrate this:

<pre class="example">     clean: FORCE
             rm $(objects)
     FORCE:
     </pre>

   <p>Here the target <code>FORCE</code> satisfies the special conditions, so the
target <code>clean</code> that depends on it is forced to run its commands.
There is nothing special about the name <code>FORCE</code>, but that is one name
commonly used this way.

   <p>As you can see, using <code>FORCE</code> this way has the same results as using
<code>.PHONY: clean</code>.

   <p>Using <code>.PHONY</code> is more explicit and more efficient.  However,
other versions of <code>make</code> do not support <code>.PHONY</code>; thus
<code>FORCE</code> appears in many makefiles.  See <a href="Phony-Targets.html#Phony%20Targets">Phony Targets</a>.

   </body></html>