Automation and Make

Make is a tool which can run commands to read files, process these files in some way, and write out the processed files. For example, in software development, Make is used to compile source code into executable programs or libraries, but Make can also be used to:

run analysis scripts on raw data files to get data files that summarize the raw data;
run visualisation scripts on data files to produce plots; and to
parse and combine text files and plots to create papers.

Make is called a build tool - it builds data files, plots, papers, programs or libraries. It can also update existing files if desired.

Make tracks the dependencies between the files it creates and the files used to create these. If one of the original files (e.g. a data file) is changed, then Make knows to recreate, or update, the files that depend upon this file (e.g. a plot).

There are now many build tools available, all of which are based on the same concepts as Make.

Prerequisites

In this lesson we use make from the Unix Shell. Some previous experience with using the shell to list directories, create, copy, remove and list files and directories, and run simple scripts is necessary.

Getting ready

You need to download some files to follow this lesson:

Download make-lesson.tar.gz.
Move make-lesson.tar.gz into a directory which you can access via your bash shell.
Open a bash shell window.
Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the file.
Unpack make-lesson.tar.gz:

$ tar -xvf make-lesson.tar.gz

Change into the make-lesson directory:

$ cd make-lesson

Automation and Make

Prerequisites

Getting ready

Topics

Other Resources