"make clean" doesn't clean dependencies with Automake?

Question

I have a C++ project which uses Autoconf and Automake. I decided that there are too many source files in my src directory, and moved some files to a subdirectory. Then, I modified the Makefile.am and changed these files from source.cpp to subdir/source.cpp. I knew this approach should work, as I did this before for some new files (but then I didn't rename anything). Now I ran the following, as usual:

autoreconf
./configure
make clean
make

I got an error message of something like this:

No rule to make target "source.cpp" needed for "source.o"

I didn't understand what went wrong. I checked my Makefile, but it seemed to be right. So I cloned my git repository to a new place, and tried a make there, and it worked. No problem, thought I, and did a git clean -xf on my original directory. After this, compilation still didn't work. Now I did a diff on the two directory stuctures (after another git clean -xf, and found that there remained a .deps directory. After deleting that, it compiled.

The moral of the story is the following:

make clean doesn't delete dependencies.
git clean -xf doesn't delete dependencies (probably because of the hidden directory).

Is there any way to make make clean (or possibly git clean) remove this directory automatically? Sure I can do it manually, but it is very annoying that there are dependency files left after a clean.

Running `autoreconf` after editing `Makefile.am`, or removing `AM_MAINTAINER_MODE` from `configure.ac`, might solve your problem. — ptomato, Jul 08 '12 at 13:33

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 09 '12 at 18:24

14

Is there any way to make make clean (or possibly git clean) remove this directory automatically?

Use make distclean instead of make clean which will remove .deps.

answered Jul 09 '12 at 18:24

ldav1s

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This is especially useful if you're using automake and don't want to manually edit your Makefile. – SailorCire Feb 11 '16 at 18:17
I think this should be the answer – Peter Hull Sep 05 '17 at 12:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '12 at 20:55

1

make clean just does whatever the clean target in your makefile is. If you want to remove the .deps directory, add

clean::
        rm -rf .deps

to the Makefile.

If you want git clean to do this for you, just add the -d flag: git clean -fxd will also clean out untracked subdirectories.

answered Jul 07 '12 at 20:55

Chris Dodd

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The git clean -d solution worked. The one with the Makefile doesn't seem so straightforward to me though. Since I use Automake, I don't think I can just simply redefine rules. Maybe there is a way, but since the dependency files were created by the automatically generated Makefile, I think there should be a way to remove them without hacking. – petersohn Jul 08 '12 at 06:02

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 26 '16 at 20:58

0

If you're willing to run git clean -xf, you should be willing to run git clean -xfd.

From git help clean:

-d Remove untracted directories in addition to untracted files.

answered May 26 '16 at 20:58

lmat - Reinstate Monica

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"make clean" doesn't clean dependencies with Automake?

3 Answers3