Automation and Make

Instructor’s Guide

Legend

Make is a popular tool for automating the building of software - compiling source code into executable programs.

Though Make is nearly 40 years old, and there are many other build tools available, its fundamental concepts are common across build tools.

Today, researchers working with legacy codes in C or FORTRAN, which are very common in high-performance computing, will, very likely encounter Make.

Researchers are also finding Make of use in implementing reproducible research workflows, automating data analysis and visualisation (using Python or R) and combining tables and plots with text to produce reports and papers for publication.

Overall

The overall lesson can be done in a 2 hour slot.

Solutions for challenges are used in subsequent topics.

A number of example Makefiles, including sample solutions to challenges, are in code/samples and are identified below.

Setting up Make

Recommend instructors and students use nano as the text editor for this lesson because

• it runs in all three major operating systems,
• it runs inside the shell (switching windows can be confusing to students), and
• it has shortcut help at the bottom of the window.

Please point out to students during setup that they can and should use another text editor if they’re already familiar with it.

Instructors and students should use two shell windows: one for running nano, and one for running Make.

Check that all attendees have Make installed and that it runs correctly, before beginning the session.

Code and data files

Python scripts to be invoked by Make are in code/wordcount.py and code/plotcount.py.

Data files are in data/books.

You can either create a simple Git repository for students to clone which contains:

• wordcount.py
• plotcount.py
• books/

Or, ask students to download make-lesson.tar.gz from this repository.

To recreate make-lesson.tar.gz, run:

$ make make-lesson.tar.gz

Beware of spaces!

The single most commonly occurring problem will be students using spaces instead of TABs when intending actions.

Introduction

Makefiles

02-makefile/Makefile contains an example of the Makefile, immediately before the challenge is attempted.

Write two new rules - challenge

• Allow 10 minutes.
• 02-makefile-challenge/Makefile contains a solution.

Automatic variables

03-variables/Makefile contains an example of the Makefile, immediately before the challenge is attempted.

Rewrite .dat rules to use automatic variables - challenge

• Allow 5 minutes.
• 03-variables-challenge/Makefile contains a solution.

Dependencies on data and code

04-dependencies/Makefile contains an example of the Makefile on completion of the topic.

Pattern rules

04-patterns/Makefile contains an example of the Makefile on completion of the topic.

Variables

Use variables - challenge

• Allow 10 minutes.
• 06-variables-challenge/Makefile contains a solution.

06-variables/Makefile and 06-variables/config.mk contains an example of the Makefiles on completion of the topic.

Functions

07-functions/Makefile and 07-functions/config.mk contains an example of the Makefiles on completion of the topic.

Conclusion

Extend the Makefile to create JPEGs - challenge

• Allow 15 minutes.
• 08-conclusion-challenge/Makefile and 08-conclusion-challenge/config.mk contain a solution.