On 9 May 2008 at 7:49, pereges wrote:
> hello, i think this C program for generating make files on linux was
> written by you which I found by searching through archives :

To be honest, this program is a bit of a joke. Several major problems
were pointed out before, and none of them seem to be fixed in the code
below. To give just one example:

> void makeinstall(int argc, char **argv)
> {
> printf("install:\n");
> printf("\tcp %s /usr/local/bin\n", argv[1]);
> putchar('\n');
> }

There should be a variable (usually called PREFIX) that lets you choose
to install somewhere other than a privileged system-wide directory.
Wherever it gets installed, it should be chmod'd to set appropriate
permissions. The right tool for installing files is (duh!) install, not
cp.

I know it's overwhelming when you first start out, but the GNU autotools
really are the gold standard in automating compilation, especially for
cross-platform deployment. It's overkill for a small project, of course,
but time spent learning about autoconf and automake is an investment for
the future.

Writing correct makefiles is far from being a trivial task, so why not
take advantage of the fact that someone else has already done it to a
highly professional standard? Above all, relying on Heathfield to
reinvent the wheel badly is just a mistake.