make just won\\\\\\\'t work

[redbird]

I\'ve never had this problem until comming to Mac OS X, so there is something that I\'m missing here. When I want to install Unix software, most of the time the procedure is the same: run ./configure, run make, run make install. The first step works fine, but the anything to do with make just won\'t go. I always complains that there are no targets specified or no rule for target specified, even though just running make without specifying a target should work. Even when I specify a target it claims that no rule exists.

I\'ve gotten some software installed (luckily, I had no problems with vim :-)), but most just won\'t go. Actually, mostly GNU software won\'t make. I\'ve been getting along without my GNU software, but I\'m starting to use OS X more for doing e-mail and really need to have GNU Privacy Guard (plus I plan to write some services to make accessing it nice in OS X, and maybe even a front end if I figure out Objective C and Cocoa all of the way), so I\'ve been motivated to look for help. I\'ve searched around on problems with make on this site and others, and tried the search engines, and got nothing relavent within the first few pages, as far as I could tell. Sorry if I\'m missing something obvious, but OS X is forcing me to learn more about Unix then I had to before when using other Unices, where things just worked pretty much.

[scruffy]

I\'ll mention this, although chances are you already know it...

<tt>cp /usr/libexec/config* .</tt>

... is usually required to get the config scripts to work right. Often you need to copy the config scripts into subdirectories too. However, if as you say <tt>./config</tt> goes off without a hitch, that probably isn\'t the problem.

I was looking at the GnuPG website earlier today, thinking more or less the same thing you\'re describing. Like you, though, I have never done anything in ObjC.

<i>but OS X is forcing me to learn more about Unix then I had to before when using other Unices, where things just worked pretty much.</i>

You said it. Although this is the first time that X11 has just worked, with some sort of reasonable performance - I tried with LinuxPPC, that was a headache...

[Vroomfondel]

It\'s interesting that scruffy would mention GnuPG, as that\'s the first piece of software I\'ve been having trouble with. I\'ve built lots of things which either worked or failed spectacularly. GnuPG is the only thing I\'ve tried where configure worked but make didn\'t do anything.

There seems to be some sort of syntax error in the configure script for GnuPG. When I configure it, it tells me:

sed: 46: conftest.s1: unescaped newline inside substitute pattern

and, consequently, the generated Makefile is empty. Ergo, no targets to build when you make.

The makefile isn\'t the only file with this problem. There are a bunch of them. I\'ve quickly glanced through the configure script, but I\'m a sed newbie and my newbie eyes didn\'t spot the syntax error.

[tiger02]

this may reveal my newbie-ness, but there doesn\'t seem to be a mention in the manual for make (type, \"man make\".) could it be a beta bug?
tom

[tiger02]

this may reveal my newbie-ness, but there doesn\'t seem to be a mention in the manual for make (type, \"man make\".) could it be a beta bug?
tom

[redbird]

It is under gnumake. If you apropos for make, you will find it, along with a bunch of other man pages that happen to have the word make. There is a mention in the man pages about the fact that Info pages prefered for make documentation, but I haven\'t looked to see if info is around in Mac OS X, and if it is what pages are installed.

[scruffy]

tiger - the thing to do would be to type "which make". That'll tell you the location of the file, if any, that would run if typed "make".

You're right, there is a lot of stuff missing from the man pages. A lot of stuff.