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Write the Makefile commands (and any shell scripts, such as
configure) to run under sh (both the traditional Bourne
shell and the POSIX shell), not csh. Don’t use any
special features of ksh or bash, or POSIX features
not widely supported in traditional Bourne sh.
The configure script and the Makefile rules for building and
installation should not use any utilities directly except these:
awk cat cmp cp diff echo egrep expr false grep install-info ln ls mkdir mv printf pwd rm rmdir sed sleep sort tar test touch tr true |
Compression programs such as gzip can be used in the
dist rule.
Generally, stick to the widely-supported (usually POSIX-specified) options and features of these programs. For example, don’t use ‘mkdir -p’, convenient as it may be, because a few systems don’t support it at all and with others, it is not safe for parallel execution. For a list of known incompatibilities, see Portable Shell Programming: (autoconf)Portable Shell section ‘Portable Shell’ in Autoconf.
It is a good idea to avoid creating symbolic links in makefiles, since a few file systems don’t support them.
The Makefile rules for building and installation can also use compilers
and related programs, but should do so via make variables so that the
user can substitute alternatives. Here are some of the programs we
mean:
ar bison cc flex install ld ldconfig lex make makeinfo ranlib texi2dvi yacc |
Use the following make variables to run those programs:
$(AR) $(BISON) $(CC) $(FLEX) $(INSTALL) $(LD) $(LDCONFIG) $(LEX) $(MAKE) $(MAKEINFO) $(RANLIB) $(TEXI2DVI) $(YACC) |
When you use ranlib or ldconfig, you should make sure
nothing bad happens if the system does not have the program in question.
Arrange to ignore an error from that command, and print a message before
the command to tell the user that failure of this command does not mean
a problem. (The Autoconf ‘AC_PROG_RANLIB’ macro can help with
this.)
If you use symbolic links, you should implement a fallback for systems that don’t have symbolic links.
Additional utilities that can be used via Make variables are:
chgrp chmod chown mknod |
It is ok to use other utilities in Makefile portions (or scripts) intended only for particular systems where you know those utilities exist.
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