The purpose of this page is to create a quick reference for all the macro (and variable) definitions we find in the EPICS build environment.  Often times, the names of the macros do not give much of a clue of their purpose, and sometimes the names are misleading. 

Makefiles typically have the name "Makefile" but in EPICS they can have just about any name.  For example, RELEASE or CONFIG or RULES.  I still call them makefiles (lower case m) as their syntax is defined by the makefile parser program "make".

Links

• EPICS App Dev Guide / Build Facility

Terms

An EPICS application is an application that is linked with EPICS libraries.

...

DIRS defines which directories should be entered.  Each directory should have a Makefile which is read by make.  DIRS can be used in Makefiles located in directories other than the top level, but I am not sure which.  The path of the directory you add is relative to the current directory.

<dir_name>_DEPEND_DIRS I'm not sure what this is.  This might define the order in which directories are entered by make.

...

USR_LIBS defines the libraries that are baked into your application.  This is additive, so use +=.

USR_LIBS_<operating_system> e.g. USR_LIBS_Linux defines the libraries that are baked into your application when the target OS is <operating_system>, e.g. USR_LIBS_Linux.  This is additive, so use +=.

...