# Makepp manual

Makepp is a drop-in replacement for GNU make which has a number of features that allow for more reliable builds and simpler build files. It supports almost all of the syntax that GNU make supports, and can be used with makefiles produced by utilities such as automake. It is called makepp (or make++) because (1) it was designed for building C++ programs; (2) its relationship to make is analogous to C++'s relationship to C. For backward compatibility, it will work with input files designed for make, but there are much better ways to do things.

Makepp currently runs only on unix, because I do not develop on Windows at the moment. It could be ported, but this has not happened yet.

- Features that makepp has that are not found in the standard make utility. If you don't know anything about make, you will want to start with the tutorial instead.
- Tutorial on writing makefiles for makepp. Even if you already know make, you might want to glance through this to see the preferred way to do things with makepp.
- Signature checking, or how makepp decides when to rebuild a file
- Makefile syntax for makepp
- Command line options and syntax
- Builds involving multiple directories and other issues about how makepp finds and loads makefiles
- Repositories and variant builds
- Scanning command lines and include files
- Automatically inferring object files
- The build algorithm that makepp uses
- Extending makepp with your own perl subroutines
- Using and improving your old makefiles
- Incompatibilities between makepp and other makes (especially GNU make)
- Unexpected features and limitations
- Release notes for version 1.00

Makepp home page
Last modified: Thu Oct 19 09:26:04 PDT 2000