How to use bear with make to auto-create the json compilation database?

Question

I'm using vim with YouCompleteMe (YCM) plugin for C programming. YCM needs a json file to show code completion suggestions or a manually crafted .ycm_extra_conf.py file.
Build systems like cmake and ninja provide a switch to generate the json file while building but there is no such option for make. bear is a utility to generate the JSON compilation database.
How can I integrate bear with my Makefile? Should I call make all in which bear is an external utility or should I instead call bear make? I'm a little confused by its guide.

For example, here is the a basic example of GTK+. I can compile the code using gcc `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0` -o example-0 example-0.c `pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0` .
How can I automate the process of 1- compiling and 2- creating the json file if I want to use make as my build system? What should be in my Makefile?

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to feed bear every command you use to build from source. For example, you require configure script to be run before make , first do bear ./configure then bear make. Make sure the source folder used to build is not processed earlier with some script (like configure) because it may affect the json file contents.

Answer 2

If you aren't able to install Bear or compiledb easily, maybe a web app is an option.

I've built a simple web app to generate compile_commands.json, all you need to have is the output of make, e.g., make --print-directory -n. The web app is https://texttoolkit.com/compilation-database-generator.