RE: Diagramming a makefile?

[Rakesh Sharma]

Hi Tim,

 

Thanks for the info regarding the display tool gephi, I will try it out & will 
see how it goes.

 

My builds are not of the android variety, hence the graphs would not be of the 
hair-raising type you alluded to.

 

But there's this intermediate step of converting the make --print-database 
output into the DOT format, intelligible to the gephi tool,

which needs to be worked out.

 

Regards,

Rakesh

 

> Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:32:22 +0100
> Subject: Re: Diagramming a makefile?
> From: address@hidden
> To: address@hidden
> CC: address@hidden
> 
> You can use the --print-database format to write out makes idea of the
> targets and dependencies in the build. The output from this is quite
> easy to parse using a language like python. This will take care of
> all the issues with $(eval) etc.
> 
> You can make your script translate this information into "DOT"
> notation and then you can load it into a graph display tool like
> GEPHI.
> 
> https://gephi.org/
> 
> Gephi can handle graphs of the size you might get from e.g. an Android build.
> 
> You will then see a huge forest of dependencies, unless your build is
> very small. You will wonder what use the graph is because it will
> look like a pile of cut grass - with thousands of lines going all over
> the place.
> 
> I think there are useful lessons to learn but not the ones that might
> appear to be obvious.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Tim
> 
> 
> 
> On 14 April 2014 06:44, Rakesh Sharma <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Hello GNU makers,
> >
> > Is there any tool/utility which can diagram the DAG of the rules/targets by 
> > going thru the makefile? And I don't mean this in a generic way, that all 
> > sorts of complex $(eval-ed) rules
> > need to be diagrammed.
> >
> > What I feel is that if we have a picture of the DAG of a makefile, then we 
> > can better understand the behavior of make. And vice versa too, we can 
> > start off writing a makefile by drawing the DAG first & then convert that 
> > into a makefile (the rules portion).
> >
> > Considering that make is nearing 4 decades, it's hard to believe that such 
> > utilities are not already available.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Rakesh
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Help-make mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-make
> 
> 
> 
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