I’ve always found myself writing short little programs to test out an idea or learn how a language feature/bug works. Often they’re throw away programs, once finished they’re no longer needed. So often it ends up being test.c/test.cpp/test.java etc. But sometimes I like to keep it around so they’ll end up with a meaningful name i.e. I now have a lambda.cpp I used for trying out the new C++11 lambdas. So rather than always have to whip out a new makefile or copy/edit an old one I have this makefile which makes things a little easier. You just drop the makefile in place where you have file.cpp’s laying around and you can compile that single file.cpp with ‘make file’. As you can see I have it working on linux, osx, and windows.
$ cat - > hw.cpp
#include < iostream >
int main() {
std::cout
Here's the makefile
# generic 1 file makefile
# 2013/09/18 Mike Makuch
# This makefile will compile any single file.cpp file without modification
# by simply typing 'make file' without the .cpp eg;
# file name myprog.cpp
# type: make myprog
# Initially works for linux, osx, win7/vs2012,
# Written assuming gnu make
UNAME := $(shell uname -s)
.SUFFIXES:
MAKEFLAGS += --no-builtin-rules
ifeq ($(UNAME), Linux)
CFLAGS = -std=c++11 -Wall
CC = g++
COMPILE = $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $