Using clearmake compatibility modes

clearmake is designed for compatibility with existing make programs, which minimizes the changes you need to make to your makefiles.

There are many variants of make, and each provides different sets of extended features. clearmake does not support all features of all variants, and we do not guarantee absolute compatibility.

If your makefiles use only the common extensions, they will probably work with clearmake without changes. If you must use features that clearmake does not support, consider using another make program in a clearaudit shell. This alternative provides build auditing (configuration records), but does not provide build avoidance (winkin).

Note: When building with configuration records, clearmake handles double-colon rules differently from other make programs. For more information, see How clearmake interprets double-colon rules.

To specify a compatibility mode, take one of the following actions:

  • Use the environment variable CCASE_MAKE_COMPAT in a build options specification file or in your environment. For more information, see clearmake makefiles and BOS files.
  • Use the -C option with clearmake. For more information, see the clearmake reference page.

You can use the following compatibility modes:

sun
SunOS make
gnu
Free Software Foundation Gnu make
std
Standard clearmake with no compatibility mode enabled. (Use this option to nullify a setting of the environment variable CCASE_MAKE_COMPAT.)

For information about specific clearmake compatibility modes, see the makefile_sun, makefile_gnu, and makefile_ccase reference pages.