1.8 Other Variables

Since gnustep-make is a system of scripts rather than compiled code, all the source is always present and available to read, so the main documentation is intentionally provided as comments within that source.

In particular, gnustep-make variables are documented at the head of the project-type files in which they are used. eg $GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES/Instance/library.make for the variables used to build a library.

However, there are some variables which, while not in provided in common.make are of more general use, and therefore may reasonably be documented here:

Variable: GS_WITH_ARC

GS_WITH_ARC = 1 turns on ARC for the current build if using the Next Generation runtime setting. This variable may be defined as an environment variable, or on the make command line, or (usually) at the start of GNUmakefile.

The variable needs to be defined before common.make is included, and the library-combo needs to be ng-gnu-gnu for it to take effect (in which case it causes the -fobjc-arc flag to be used when compiling any Objective-C source files).

Variable: xxx_FILE_FILTER_OUT_FLAGS

xxx_FILE_FILTER_OUT_FLAGS (where xxx is the file name, such as mframe.m) is a filter-out make pattern of flags to be filtered out from the compilation flags when compiling xxx. In exceptional conditions, you might need to want to use different compiler flags for a file (for example, if a file doesn’t compile with optimization turned on, you might want to compile that single file with optimizations turned off).

file.m_FILE_FILTER_OUT_FLAGS = -O% -fomit-frame-pointer

This says that when compiling file.m we should disable optimization flags, and also remove frame pointer information.

Variable: xxx_FILE_FLAGS

xxx_FILE_FLAGS (where xxx is the file name, such as main.m) add special compilation flags to be used when compiling xxx. In exceptional conditions, you might need to want to use different compiler flags for a file (for example, if ou want to turn on automated reference counting for that file)

file.m_FILE_FLAGS = -fobjc-arc

This says that when compiling file.m we should turn on ARC.