Makefile Explained - alteixeira20/42_minishell GitHub Wiki

Executables & Binaries:

• NAME — Output binary (minishell)
  
• LIBFT_REPO — Remote git repo to clone libft if not present
  

Project Paths:

• SRC_DIR — Root source code directory
  
• LIBFT_DIR — Cloned libft folder
  
• OBJ_DIR — Directory where .o files are stored
  

Compiler Flags:

• CFLAGS — -Wall -Wextra -Werror for strict compiling
  
• DFLAGS — -g for debugging support (Valgrind)
  

Automatic Compilation:

$(OBJ_DIR)/%.o: $(SRC_DIR)/%.c
	@mkdir -p $(@D)
	@$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(DFLAGS) -c $< -o $@

• Ensures matching folders are created for each object file
• Applies CFLAGS and DFLAGS per .c source

all / default:

• Runs make on libft if missing
• Builds minishell binary

$(NAME):

• Links all compiled objects + libft + readline
• Outputs final executable

$(LIBFT):

• Clones libft if not already present
• Compiles silently using make -C

make clean:

• Deletes object files and executable only if they exist

make fclean:

• Runs clean
• Also removes libft/ if it was cloned

Smart Printouts:
Each clean target only prints messages if work was actually done.

make norm:

• Runs Norminette on every source file
• Uses color-coded output:
  • ✅ for compliant files
  • ❌ for files with errors

make valgrind:

• Checks if minishell exists, builds it if needed
• Creates readline.supp suppression file on the fly
• Runs with --leak-check=full, suppressing false positives from readline and add_history
• Cleans up suppression file automatically

make help:

• Prints available Makefile targets
• Parses inline comments using awk

##@ Help Section
help:        ## Display this help page

• Uses tput to generate ANSI escape codes
• Makes messages more readable (green success, red errors, blue info)

Preview:

$(shell tput setaf 2)   # green
$(shell tput setaf 1)   # red
$(shell tput bold)      # bold
$(shell tput sgr0)      # reset