[SingletonIface]

> But speaking as a former FreeBSD user, this is pretty easy to figure out after your first time seeing the flood of syntax errors.

I seem to be about the only person that makes use of the following feature, but FreeBSD and GNU make will in addition to looking for a file named Makefile, also look for BSDmakefile or GNUmakefile respectively.

So when I write a makefile with GNU make specific contents, I name it GNUmakefile, and when I write one that is specific to FreeBSD make, I name it BSDmakefile.

The user has to do absolutely nothing different; they simply write

    make

and if their make is GNU make and my makefile is a GNUmakefile then it builds. Likewise with FreeBSD make and a file named BSDmakefile.

The big win is when someone then has the wrong make. Instead of beginning to build and then failing at some point kicking and screaming, they will simply be told

    make: no target to make.

    make: stopped in (path)

by FreeBSD make, or

    make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

by GNU make.

And at that point they will consult the README I have written for the project in question and they will learn that they need the other make than what they are using if they want to build this software.

[CJefferson]

Nowadays I write a GNUmakefile, then add a Makefile with a message telling people to use gmake. Same idea.

[contras1970]

i have this in a (hand-written) configure script:

    case "$(uname -s)" in
    Darvin|Linux)
      MAKE=make
      GMAKE=$MAKE
    ;;
    DragonFly|*BSD)
      MAKE=make
      GMAKE=gmake
    ;;
    *)
      MAKE=gmake
      GMAKE=$MAKE
    ;;
    esac

    ...

    if test "$MAKE" != "$GMAKE"; then
      case "$(uname -s)" in
      DragonFly|*BSD)
        populate $rootdir/Makefile.in Makefile
      ;;
      esac
    fi

    cat <<EOF

    to build the programs from their sources:

      $MAKE

    to test their correctness:

      $MAKE check

    EOF

$rootdir/Makefile.in contains

    all .DEFAULT:
      @@GMAKE@ --no-print-directory "$@"