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standard targets

Last edited by Ben Gamari
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Standard Targets

The following targets work both at the top level, and in any subdirectory of the tree. When used in a subdirectory, they apply only to the components of the system in that directory.

  • help

    Invoking make help in any directory of the build tree will elicit a message describing the targets available in that directory.

  • all

    (default target, can be omitted). Builds all the targets for this directory. At the top level, builds everything that needs to be built for a GHC installation, including the stage 2 GHC, all libraries and documentation. After make, make install will not need to do any further rebuilding.

  • clean

    Delete all files from the current directory that are normally created by make. Don't delete the files that record the configuration.

To see how these targets are defined: Building/Architecture/Idiom/StandardTargets.

Top level targets

The following targets are accepted only by the top-level Makefile:

  • install and install-strip

    (Non-Windows only) installs the things built by all. Where does it install them? In the places you specified when running configure, principally set by the --prefix flag, or in DESTDIR; see Building/Installing. The install-strip variant strips executable files while installing them.

  • distclean

    The same as clean, but also removes files created by configure. distclean preserves files that would normally go in a source distrubtion. Note that after make distclean you will have to run ./configure before building again.

  • maintainer-clean

    The same as distclean, but also removes files generated by python3 boot. The result of make maintainer-clean should be a completely clean source tree, containing only revision-controlled files (besides files you created yourself, like for example mk/build.mk).

  • test

    Runs the testsuite with some sensible default settings.

  • fasttest

    Runs the testsuite in fast mode.

  • slowtest (GHC <= 7.10: fulltest)

    Runs the full testsuite.

  • binary-dist

    Builds a binary distribution. A binary distribution is a copy of the build tree with the source files removed, such that it can be installed on a different system simply by issuing `./configure; make install`.

  • sdist

    Builds a source distribution. A source distribution is a source tree for GHC, complete with some extra files included for convenience so that the user doesn't need to install autoconf, Happy, or Alex in order to build it.

Documentation Targets

The following targets build the users guide:

  • html

    Builds the users guide in HTML format.

  • pdf

    Builds the users guide in PDF format.

  • ps

    Builds the users guide in PS format.