where the target all-recursive is given in makefile

Question

in a makefile,i got the target all and its dependency all-recursive. i search the whole file,but i can not get the all-recursive defined. i think all-recursive must be also a target, or how can make do next？ so someone can tell me how to deal with this, i will really appreciate your help.

all: $(BUILT_SOURCES)
    $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) all-recursive

i can not get the defination of "all-recursive". if i delete this, the make program will continuously deal with the all target. is that "all-recursive" builtin ?

Answer 1

I spent hours finding them too. No, it's not a built-in feature of make; it turned out that this is a characteristic of Autotools-generated Makefile.

Those THING-recursive targets are actually defined in that very Makefile, but in a complicated way that you cannot use simple grep to find them.

It starts from RECURSIVE_TARGETS variable definition in the Makefile, which goes like this:

RECURSIVE_TARGETS = all-recursive check-recursive dvi-recursive \
    html-recursive info-recursive install-data-recursive \
    install-dvi-recursive install-exec-recursive \
    install-html-recursive install-info-recursive \
    install-pdf-recursive install-ps-recursive install-recursive \
    installcheck-recursive installdirs-recursive pdf-recursive \
    ps-recursive uninstall-recursive

Followed by a real definition of those targets somewhere below:

$(RECURSIVE_TARGETS):
    @fail= failcom='exit 1'; \
    for f in x $$MAKEFLAGS; do \
      case $$f in \
        *=* | --[!k]*);; \
        *k*) failcom='fail=yes';; \
      esac; \
    done; \
    dot_seen=no; \
    target=`echo $@ | sed s/-recursive//`; \
    list='$(SUBDIRS)'; for subdir in $$list; do \
      echo "Making $$target in $$subdir"; \
      if test "$$subdir" = "."; then \
        dot_seen=yes; \
        local_target="$$target-am"; \
      else \
        local_target="$$target"; \
      fi; \
      ($(am__cd) $$subdir && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) $$local_target) \
      || eval $$failcom; \
    done; \
    if test "$$dot_seen" = "no"; then \
      $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) "$$target-am" || exit 1; \
    fi; test -z "$$fail"

Which resolves into this:

all-recursive check-recursive dvi-recursive \
    html-recursive info-recursive install-data-recursive \
    install-dvi-recursive install-exec-recursive \
    install-html-recursive install-info-recursive \
    install-pdf-recursive install-ps-recursive install-recursive \
    installcheck-recursive installdirs-recursive pdf-recursive \
    ps-recursive uninstall-recursive:
        @fail= failcom='exit 1'; \
        for f in x $$MAKEFLAGS; do \
          case $$f in \
            *=* | --[!k]*);; \
            *k*) failcom='fail=yes';; \
          esac; \
        done; \
        dot_seen=no; \
        target=`echo $@ | sed s/-recursive//`; \
        list='$(SUBDIRS)'; for subdir in $$list; do \
          echo "Making $$target in $$subdir"; \
          if test "$$subdir" = "."; then \
            dot_seen=yes; \
            local_target="$$target-am"; \
          else \
            local_target="$$target"; \
          fi; \
          ($(am__cd) $$subdir && $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) $$local_target) \
          || eval $$failcom; \
        done; \
        if test "$$dot_seen" = "no"; then \
          $(MAKE) $(AM_MAKEFLAGS) "$$target-am" || exit 1; \
        fi; test -z "$$fail"

This target's recipe's is essentially a boilerplate code to loop through each subdirectory found in current folder and start make inside it, using the same target name but with "-recursive" stripped out.

Note that these THING-recursive targets are not meant to be called directly by user; it will be run automatically as a part of normal THING target (without "-recursive"), as a mechanism to trigger same-target building in subprojects' tree.

Addendum: The example code is taken from configured root Makefile of GNU Flash Player (version e9eb84e).

Answer 2

see if it is inclusively defined in the target $(RECURSIVE_TARGETS)