Recursive Makefile howto

[Kristof Provost]

On 2012-01-27 11:43:10 (+0530), Manavendra Nath Manav <mnm.kernel at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have developed a Makefile which recursively builds the code spread
> across multiple directories, each having it's own Makefile.
> 
> build_all: targetA \
>                targetB \
>                target C
> 
> Now, the problem is that even when the Makefile of targetA fails, the
> master Makefile continues building with targetB and targetC. I can
> also see the make errors being printed on console. I want the make to
> stop immediately at the first error encountered in any target
> Makefile. How to do this?
> 
It would be a lot easier to help you if you'd post the relevant bits of
your Makefile.

Dusting off my crystal ball, I see in the mists that your makefile looks
something like this:

build:
        for d in $(DIRS) ; \
        do \
                $(MAKE) -C $$d $@ ; \
        done

The problem here is that make considers the whole for loop as one and
doesn't get the exit status of each sub-make, but only of the last one.

Try something like this instead:

build:
        for d in $(DIRS) ; \
        do \
                $(MAKE) -C $$d $@ || exit $? ; \
        done

Regards,
Kristof