src/cmd/mk/mk.1

.TH MK 1
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.SH NAME
mk \- maintain (make) related files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B mk
[
.B -f
.I mkfile
] ...
[
.I option ...
]
[
.I target ...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Mk
uses the dependency rules specified in
.I mkfile
to control the update (usually by compilation) of
.I targets
(usually files)
from the source files upon which they depend.
The
.I mkfile
(default
.LR mkfile )
contains a
.I rule
for each target that identifies the files and other
targets upon which it depends and an
.IR sh (1)
script, a
.IR recipe ,
to update the target.
The script is run if the target does not exist
or if it is older than any of the files it depends on.
.I Mkfile
may also contain
.I meta-rules
that define actions for updating implicit targets.
If no
.I target
is specified, the target of the first rule (not meta-rule) in
.I mkfile
is updated.
.PP
The environment variable
.B $NPROC
determines how many targets may be updated simultaneously;
Some operating systems, e.g., Plan 9, set
.B $NPROC
automatically to the number of CPUs on the current machine.
.PP
Options are:
.TP \w'\fL-d[egp]\ 'u
.B -a
Assume all targets to be out of date.
Thus, everything is updated.
.PD 0
.TP
.BR -d [ egp ]
Produce debugging output
.RB ( p
is for parsing,
.B g
for graph building,
.B e
for execution).
.TP
.B -e
Explain why each target is made.
.TP
.B -i
Force any missing intermediate targets to be made.
.TP
.B -k
Do as much work as possible in the face of errors.
.TP
.B -n
Print, but do not execute, the commands
needed to update the targets.
.TP
.B -s
Make the command line arguments sequentially rather than in parallel.
.TP
.B -t
Touch (update the modified date of) file targets, without
executing any recipes.
.TP
.BI -w target1 , target2,...
Pretend the modify time for each
.I target
is the current time; useful in conjunction with
.B -n
to learn what updates would be triggered by
modifying the
.IR targets .
.PD
.SS The \fLmkfile\fP
A
.I mkfile
consists of
.I assignments
(described under `Environment') and
.IR rules .
A rule contains
.I targets
and a
.IR tail .
A target is a literal string
and is normally a file name.
The tail contains zero or more 
.I prerequisites
and an optional
.IR recipe ,
which is an
.B shell
script.
Each line of the recipe must begin with white space.
A rule takes the form
.IP
.EX
target: prereq1 prereq2
        \f2recipe using\fP prereq1, prereq2 \f2to build\fP target
.EE
.PP
When the recipe is executed,
the first character on every line is elided.
.PP
After the colon on the target line, a rule may specify
.IR attributes ,
described below.
.PP
A
.I meta-rule 
has a target of the form
.IB A % B
where
.I A
and
.I B
are (possibly empty) strings.
A meta-rule acts as a rule for any potential target whose
name matches
.IB A % B
with
.B %
replaced by an arbitrary string, called the
.IR stem .
In interpreting a meta-rule,
the stem is substituted for all occurrences of
.B %
in the prerequisite names.
In the recipe of a meta-rule, the environment variable
.B $stem
contains the string matched by the
.BR % .
For example, a meta-rule to compile a C program using
.IR cc (1)
might be:
.IP
.EX
%:    %.c
        cc -c $stem.c
        cc -o $stem $stem.o
.EE
.PP
Meta-rules may contain an ampersand
.B &
rather than a percent sign
.BR % .
A
.B %
matches a maximal length string of any characters;
an
.B &
matches a maximal length string of any characters except period
or slash.
.PP
The text of the
.I mkfile
is processed as follows.
Lines beginning with
.B <
followed by a file name are replaced by the contents of the named
file.
Lines beginning with
.B "<|"
followed by a file name are replaced by the output
of the execution of the named
file.
Blank lines and comments, which run from unquoted
.B #
characters to the following newline, are deleted.
The character sequence backslash-newline is deleted,
so long lines in
.I mkfile
may be folded.
Non-recipe lines are processed by substituting for
.BI `{ command }
the output of the
.I command
when run by
.IR sh .
References to variables are replaced by the variables' values.
Special characters may be quoted using single quotes
.BR \&''
as in
.IR sh (1).
.PP
Assignments and rules are distinguished by
the first unquoted occurrence of
.B :
(rule)
or
.B =
(assignment).
.PP
A later rule may modify or override an existing rule under the
following conditions:
.TP
\-
If the targets of the rules exactly match and one rule
contains only a prerequisite clause and no recipe, the
clause is added to the prerequisites of the other rule.
If either or both targets are virtual, the recipe is
always executed.
.TP
\-
If the targets of the rules match exactly and the
prerequisites do not match and both rules
contain recipes,
.I mk
reports an ``ambiguous recipe'' error.
.TP
\-
If the target and prerequisites of both rules match exactly,
the second rule overrides the first.
.SS Environment
Rules may make use of
shell
environment variables.
A legal reference of the form
.B $OBJ
or
.B ${name}
is expanded as in
.IR sh (1).
A reference of the form
.BI ${name: A % B = C\fL%\fID\fL}\fR,
where
.I A, B, C, D
are (possibly empty) strings,
has the value formed by expanding
.B $name
and substituting
.I C
for
.I A
and
.I D
for
.I B
in each word in
.B $name
that matches pattern
.IB A % B\f1.
.PP
Variables can be set by
assignments of the form
.I
        var\fL=\fR[\fIattr\fL=\fR]\fIvalue\fR
.br
Blanks in the
.I value
break it into words.
Such variables are exported
to the environment of
recipes as they are executed, unless
.BR U ,
the only legal attribute
.IR attr ,
is present.
The initial value of a variable is
taken from (in increasing order of precedence)
the default values below,
.I mk's
environment, the
.IR mkfiles ,
and any command line assignment as an argument to
.IR mk .
A variable assignment argument overrides the first (but not any subsequent)
assignment to that variable.
The variable
.B MKFLAGS
contains all the option arguments (arguments starting with
.L -
or containing
.LR = )
and
.B MKARGS
contains all the targets in the call to
.IR mk .
.PP
Dynamic information may be included in the mkfile by using a line of the form
.IP
\fR<|\fIcommand\fR \fIargs\fR
.LP
This runs the command 
.I command
with the given arguments
.I args
and pipes its standard output to
.I mk
to be included as part of the mkfile. For instance, the Inferno kernels
use this technique
to run a shell command with an awk script and a configuration
file as arguments in order for
the
.I awk
script to process the file and output a set of variables and their values.
.SS Execution
.PP
During execution,
.I mk
determines which targets must be updated, and in what order,
to build the
.I names
specified on the command line.
It then runs the associated recipes.
.PP
A target is considered up to date if it has no prerequisites or
if all its prerequisites are up to date and it is newer
than all its prerequisites.
Once the recipe for a target has executed, the target is
considered up to date.
.PP
The date stamp
used to determine if a target is up to date is computed
differently for different types of targets.
If a target is
.I virtual
(the target of a rule with the
.B V
attribute),
its date stamp is initially zero; when the target is
updated the date stamp is set to
the most recent date stamp of its prerequisites.
Otherwise, if a target does not exist as a file,
its date stamp is set to the most recent date stamp of its prerequisites,
or zero if it has no prerequisites.
Otherwise, the target is the name of a file and
the target's date stamp is always that file's modification date.
The date stamp is computed when the target is needed in
the execution of a rule; it is not a static value.
.PP
Nonexistent targets that have prerequisites
and are themselves prerequisites are treated specially.
Such a target
.I t
is given the date stamp of its most recent prerequisite
and if this causes all the targets which have
.I t
as a prerequisite to be up to date,
.I t
is considered up to date.
Otherwise,
.I t
is made in the normal fashion.
The
.B -i
flag overrides this special treatment.
.PP
Files may be made in any order that respects
the preceding restrictions.
.PP
A recipe is executed by supplying the recipe as standard input to
the command
.BR /bin/sh .
(Note that unlike
.IR make ,
.I mk
feeds the entire recipe to the shell rather than running each line
of the recipe separately.)
The environment is augmented by the following variables:
.TP 14
.B $alltarget
all the targets of this rule.
.TP
.B $newprereq
the prerequisites that caused this rule to execute.
.TP
.B $newmember
the prerequisites that are members of an aggregate
that caused this rule to execute.
When the prerequisites of a rule are members of an
aggregate,
.B $newprereq
contains the name of the aggregate and out of date
members, while
.B $newmember
contains only the name of the members.
.TP
.B $nproc
the process slot for this recipe.
It satisfies
.RB 0≤ $nproc < $NPROC .
.TP
.B $pid
the process id for the
.I mk
executing the recipe.
.TP
.B $prereq
all the prerequisites for this rule.
.TP
.B $stem
if this is a meta-rule,
.B $stem
is the string that matched
.B %
or
.BR & .
Otherwise, it is empty.
For regular expression meta-rules (see below), the variables
.LR stem0 ", ...,"
.L stem9
are set to the corresponding subexpressions.
.TP
.B $target
the targets for this rule that need to be remade.
.PP
These variables are available only during the execution of a recipe,
not while evaluating the
.IR mkfile .
.PP
Unless the rule has the
.B Q
attribute,
the recipe is printed prior to execution
with recognizable environment variables expanded.
Commands returning error status
cause
.I mk
to terminate.
.PP
Recipes and backquoted
.B rc
commands in places such as assignments
execute in a copy of
.I mk's
environment; changes they make to
environment variables are not visible from
.IR mk .
.PP
Variable substitution in a rule is done when
the rule is read; variable substitution in the recipe is done
when the recipe is executed.  For example:
.IP
.EX
bar=a.c
foo:	$bar
        $CC -o foo $bar
bar=b.c
.EE
.PP
will compile
.B b.c
into
.BR foo ,
if
.B a.c
is newer than
.BR foo .
.SS Aggregates
Names of the form
.IR a ( b )
refer to member
.I b
of the aggregate
.IR a .
Currently, the only aggregates supported are
.IR ar (1)
archives.
.SS Attributes
The colon separating the target from the prerequisites
may be
immediately followed by
.I attributes
and another colon.
The attributes are:
.TP
.B D
If the recipe exits with a non-null status, the target is deleted.
.TP
.B E
Continue execution if the recipe draws errors.
.TP
.B N
If there is no recipe, the target has its time updated.
.TP
.B n
The rule is a meta-rule that cannot be a target of a virtual rule.
Only files match the pattern in the target.
.TP
.B P
The characters after the
.B P
until the terminating
.B :
are taken as a program name.
It will be invoked as
.B "sh -c prog 'arg1' 'arg2'"
and should return a zero exit status
if and only if arg1 is up to date with respect to arg2.
Date stamps are still propagated in the normal way.
.TP
.B Q
The recipe is not printed prior to execution.
.TP
.B R
The rule is a meta-rule using regular expressions.
In the rule,
.B %
has no special meaning.
The target is interpreted as a regular expression as defined in
.IR regexp (6).
The prerequisites may contain references
to subexpressions in form
.BI \e n\f1,
as in the substitute command of
.IR sed (1).
.TP
.B U
The targets are considered to have been updated
even if the recipe did not do so.
.TP
.B V
The targets of this rule are marked as virtual.
They are distinct from files of the same name.
.PD
.SH EXAMPLES
A simple mkfile to compile a program:
.IP
.EX
.ta 8n +8n +8n +8n +8n +8n +8n
</$objtype/mkfile

prog:	a.$O b.$O c.$O
	$LD $LDFLAGS -o $target $prereq

%.$O:	%.c
	$CC $CFLAGS $stem.c
.EE
.PP
Override flag settings in the mkfile:
.IP
.EX
% mk target 'CFLAGS=-S -w'
.EE
.PP
Maintain a library:
.IP
.EX
libc.a(%.$O):N:	%.$O
libc.a:	libc.a(abs.$O) libc.a(access.$O) libc.a(alarm.$O) ...
	ar r libc.a $newmember
.EE
.PP
String expression variables to derive names from a master list:
.IP
.EX
NAMES=alloc arc bquote builtins expand main match mk var word
OBJ=${NAMES:%=%.$O}
.EE
.PP
Regular expression meta-rules:
.IP
.EX
([^/]*)/(.*)\e.$O:R:  \e1/\e2.c
	cd $stem1; $CC $CFLAGS $stem2.c
.EE
.PP
A correct way to deal with
.IR yacc (1)
grammars.
The file
.B lex.c
includes the file
.B x.tab.h
rather than
.B y.tab.h
in order to reflect changes in content, not just modification time.
.IP
.EX
lex.$O:	x.tab.h
x.tab.h:	y.tab.h
	cmp -s x.tab.h y.tab.h || cp y.tab.h x.tab.h
y.tab.c y.tab.h:	gram.y
	$YACC -d gram.y
.EE
.PP
The above example could also use the
.B P
attribute for the
.B x.tab.h
rule:
.IP
.EX
x.tab.h:Pcmp -s:	y.tab.h
	cp y.tab.h x.tab.h
.EE
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR sh (1),
.IR regexp9 (7)
.PP
A. Hume,
``Mk: a Successor to Make''
(Tenth Edition Research Unix Manuals).
.PP
Andrew G. Hume and Bob Flandrena,
``Maintaining Files on Plan 9 with Mk''.
DOCPREFIX/doc/mk.pdf
.SH HISTORY
Andrew Hume wrote
.I mk
for Tenth Edition Research Unix.
It was later ported to Plan 9.
This software is a port of the Plan 9 version back to Unix.
.SH BUGS
Identical recipes for regular expression meta-rules only have one target.
.br
Seemingly appropriate input like
.B CFLAGS=-DHZ=60
is parsed as an erroneous attribute; correct it by inserting
a space after the first 
.LR = .
.br
The recipes printed by
.I mk
before being passed to
.I sh
for execution are sometimes erroneously expanded
for printing.  Don't trust what's printed; rely
on what
.I sh
does.