Simplify Building With the Sun WorkShop Building Window

Your makefile describes explicitly how to build each module of your program as well as the final executable. Sun WorkShop Building is a graphical interface to the UNIX make utility, the utility that oversees program compilation and ensures that your programs are compiled from the newest sources. After you initiate a program build in the Building window, the build process reads the makefile for the program and executes the commands it finds there.

The Building tool marks the evolution of the make command into a powerful and flexible tool that permits you to use the processing power of today's workstations more efficiently. With the Building tool, you can distribute the building of large programs over a number of processes and, in the case of multiprocessor systems, over multiple CPUs.

Use the Building tool to:

• Expand the makefile rules and macros

• Increase productivity and reduce errors

The Sun WorkShop Building tool gives you the following advantages over issuing make commands from the command line:

• Storage of high-level makefile target names in a menu for easy access

• Visual feedback about the progress of your build

• Links from the build errors listed in the Building window that open the source files containing the errors in the text editor window

• Dialog boxes for changing the make options, makefile macros, and environment variables passed into the build (Sun WorkShop does not generate a makefile for you, however)

• A choice of three build modes:

  • Execute one job at a time on the local host

  • Execute multiple build jobs concurrently on the local host

  • Execute multiple build jobs over several build servers