Re: preprocessor output target

[Mike Mueller]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 09:19:31AM -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
> If you are using gcc then you can add -save-temps to CFLAGS, e.g.
> 
> rm init.o && make CFLAGS="-save-temps -g -O2"
> 
> Assuming that everything else in the build dir was up-to-date at that
> point, this will rebuild just init.o but it will leave init.i and init.s
> as a side effect.  The .s assembler output is handy if you want to
> inspect the code generated by the compiler -- however if that's your
> intent it's usually easier to read if you omit -g (and add
> -fverbose-asm.)
> 
> I find that this method is also handy when debugging.  Say that there's
> a static function in foo.c that the compiler has inlined (or some other
> condition that generally makes life in the debugger more difficult.) 
> You can simply rebuild foo.o without optimization, leaving everything
> else the same from the previous build.
> 
> Note however that if you wish to override a variable on the make command
> in order to add an option, you have to specify the full contents of the
> current value (which for CFLAGS is typically -g -O2 if using gcc and you
> didn't explicitly specify a CFLAGS when configuring.)  If you just do
> "make CFLAGS=-save-temps" then you lose all the settings that the build
> system might have added, which could be significant.  In those cases
> where CFLAGS is nontrivial I first look at the generated Makefile to see
> what the substituted value is, and then to that I add or remove whatever
> flags I'm interested in.  I wish there was a way to invoke make with a
> += override instead of a = override but this does not exist AFAIK.

I use this technique as well, for a C++ app I'm working on.  The way I
get around this limitation is this: Our makefiles set up CXXFLAGS with
some extensive modifications, but they don't touch CPPFLAGS.  It seems
as if the Makefiles are passing both CXXFLAGS and CPPFLAGS to g++, so
I'm able to do:

  make CPPFLAGS=-save-temps

...and get exactly what I want.  I don't think there's an analogue for
CFLAGS, but this might help C++ guys.

As an aside, the += capability would still be very nice to see.

Mike