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description title ms.date helpviewer_keywords
Learn more about: NMAKE makefile contents and features
NMAKE makefile contents and features
09/30/2021
makefiles
makefiles, contents
NMAKE program, special characters
makefiles, special characters
special characters, in NMAKE macros
macros, special characters
NMAKE program, long filenames
makefiles, comments
NMAKE program, wildcards
wildcards, expanding

NMAKE makefile contents and features

A makefile contains:

For a sample, see Sample makefile.

NMAKE supports other features, such as wildcards, long filenames, comments, and escapes for special characters.

Wildcards and NMAKE

NMAKE expands filename wildcards (* and ?) in dependency lines. A wildcard specified in a command is passed to the command; NMAKE doesn't expand it.

Long filenames in a makefile

Enclose long filenames in double quotation marks, as follows:

all : "VeryLongFileName.exe"

Comments in a makefile

Precede a comment with a number sign (#). NMAKE ignores text from the number sign to the next newline character.

Examples:

# Comment on line by itself
OPTIONS = /MAP  # Comment on macro definition line

all.exe : one.obj two.obj  # Comment on dependency line
    link one.obj two.obj
# Comment in commands block
#   copy *.obj \objects  # Command turned into comment
    copy one.exe \release

.obj.exe:  # Comment on inference rule line
    link $<

my.exe : my.obj ; link my.obj  # Err: cannot comment this
# Error: # must be the first character
.obj.exe: ; link $<  # Error: cannot comment this

To specify a literal number sign, precede it with a caret (^), as follows:

DEF = ^#define  #Macro for a C preprocessing directive

Special characters in a makefile

To use an NMAKE special character as a literal character, place a caret (^) in front of it as an escape. NMAKE ignores carets that precede other characters. The special characters are:

: ; # ( ) $ ^ \ { } ! @ —

A caret (^) within a quoted string is treated as a literal caret character. A caret at the end of a line inserts a literal newline character in a string or macro.

In macros, a backslash (\) followed by a newline character is replaced by a space.

In commands, a percent symbol (%) is a file specifier. To represent % literally in a command, specify a double percent sign (%%) in place of a single one. In other situations, NMAKE interprets a single % literally, but it always interprets a double %% as a single %. Therefore, to represent a literal %%, specify either three percent signs, %%%, or four percent signs, %%%%.

To use the dollar sign ($) as a literal character in a command, specify two dollar signs ($$). This method can also be used in other situations where ^$ works.

See also

NMAKE Reference