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Recursive Use of make

Recursive use of make means using make as a command in a makefile. This technique is useful when you want separate makefiles for various subsystems that compose a larger system. For example, suppose you have a subdirectory, ‘subdir’, which has its own makefile, and you would like the containing directory’s makefile to run make on the subdirectory. You can do it by writing the following

subsystem:
cd subdir; $(MAKE)

Or, equivalently (see Summary of Options), use the foloowing input.

subsystem:
$(MAKE) -C subdir

You can write recursive make commands just by copying this example, but there are many things to know about how they work and why, and about how the sub-make relates to the top-level make.

See the following documentation for more discusssion.

How the MAKE Variable Works

Communicating Variables to a Sub-make

Communicating Options to a Sub-make

The ‘--print-directory’ Option