Makefile removes object files for no reason

Question

Here is the Makefile code:

CC=gcc 
CXX=g++ 
OBJS=OMXComponent.o Event.o hello_jpeg.o JPEG.o OMXCore.o Locker.o Logger.o
BIN=hello_jpeg.bin

# include ../Makefile.include


CFLAGS+=-DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi

LDFLAGS+=-L$(SDKSTAGE)/opt/vc/lib/ -lGLESv2 -lEGL -lopenmaxil -lbcm_host -lvcos -lvchiq_arm -lpthread -lrt -L../libs/ilclient -L../libs/vgfont

INCLUDES+=-I$(SDKSTAGE)/opt/vc/include/ -I$(SDKSTAGE)/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I$(SDKSTAGE)/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont

all: $(BIN) $(LIB)

%.o: %.c
    @rm -f $@ 
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -g -c $< -o $@ -Wno-deprecated-declarations

%.o: %.cpp
    @rm -f $@ 
    $(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -g -c $< -o $@ -Wno-deprecated-declarations

%.bin: $(OBJS)
    $(CC) -o $@ -Wl,--whole-archive $(OBJS) $(LDFLAGS) -Wl,--no-whole-archive -rdynamic

I am not sure why, but suddenly when I am calling my Makefile, it started deleting all the object files !!! It was not deleting before, but lately after running the Makefile, this is what I get in the console window:

 rm OMXCore.o JPEG.o OMXComponent.o Logger.o hello_jpeg.o Locker.o Event.o

Any idea why it is removing my object files? and how to stop Make from deleting it? What is even more strange is that it was not deleting it yesterday, and it all started today, without me doing any upgrades or making any changes!!! Now when I make a small change in one of my src files, now I have to wait a long time for all the other object files to rebuilt again, which is not necessary and it slows me down.

I am making sure that I am in the correct directory, I even gave "make" a complete path, in case if it is picking up a different Makefile

make -f /my_full_path/Makefile

While Makefile was running, I was doing "ls" in a different terminal, and I noticed that I am correctly accumulating object files, as below:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 pi pi   1170 Mar  3 19:28 Makefile
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 482052 Mar  3 19:30 OMXComponent.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  19984 Mar  3 19:30 Event.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  14688 Mar  3 19:30 hello_jpeg.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 162260 Mar  3 19:31 JPEG.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 215492 Mar  3 19:31 OMXCore.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi  76384 Mar  3 19:31 Locker.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi      0 Mar  3 19:31 Logger.o

But all of a sudden, after everything is built, all the object files get removed !!!

And, here is the output of the Makefile command:

pi@raspberrypi /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_jpeg_v2 $ make -f /opt/vc/src/hello_pi/hello_jpeg_v2/Makefile 
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c OMXComponent.cpp -o OMXComponent.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c Event.cpp -o Event.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c hello_jpeg.cpp -o hello_jpeg.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c JPEG.cpp -o JPEG.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c OMXCore.cpp -o OMXCore.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c Locker.cpp -o Locker.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -DSTANDALONE -D__STDC_CONSTANT_MACROS -D__STDC_LIMIT_MACROS -DTARGET_POSIX -D_LINUX -fPIC -DPIC -D_REENTRANT -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -Wall -g -DHAVE_LIBOPENMAX=2 -DOMX -DOMX_SKIP64BIT -ftree-vectorize -pipe -DUSE_EXTERNAL_OMX -DHAVE_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_EXTERNAL_LIBBCM_HOST -DUSE_VCHIQ_ARM -Wno-psabi -I/opt/vc/include/ -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux -I./ -I../libs/ilclient -I../libs/vgfont -g -c Logger.cpp -o Logger.o -Wno-deprecated-declarations
g++ -g -o hello_jpeg.bin -Wl,--whole-archive OMXComponent.o Event.o hello_jpeg.o JPEG.o OMXCore.o Locker.o Logger.o -L/opt/vc/lib/ -lGLESv2 -lEGL -lopenmaxil -lbcm_host -lvcos -lvchiq_arm -lpthread -lrt -L../libs/ilclient -L../libs/vgfont -Wl,--no-whole-archive -rdynamic
rm OMXCore.o JPEG.o OMXComponent.o Logger.o hello_jpeg.o Locker.o Event.o

but I am not doing "rm" !?! how do I make it not remove the files? — user2112840
Does it purge the .o files on every run of make, even when you do not have a single .c or .cpp file change ? — Tuxdude
Are you sure this is the exact Makefile that you're running? Can you add the complete console output you get when you run Make, starting from a clean? — Oliver Charlesworth
Given the order of files in the rm, and the fact that it prints (when this code has an at-sign in it), I highly suspect this is not your actual makefile. Make sure it isn't picking up another one (perhaps called GNUMakefile, or Makefile, or in a different directory, or whatever) — Rob Napier
@user2112840: That may have fixed it, but it implies that your %.bin rule is not being executed. Some other rule is instead... — Oliver Charlesworth

Idelic Idelic · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-03T21:17:47

The files are being removed because make considers them "intermediate". When make forms a chain of rules to produce a prerequisite, it treats all files created by the intermediate chains as "intermediate" and removes then when the target is created. See Chained Rules in the manual for GNU make.

In your case, you can prevent this in two ways: Get rid of the %.bin rule, which seems wrong anyway, because it says that all .bin files depend on a fixed list of object files, and replace it by

$(BIN): $(OBJS)
        # as before

or mark the object files as "secondary":

.SECONDARY: $(OBJS)

Makefile removes object files for no reason

2 Answers