How to print out a variable in makefile

You can print out variables as the makefile is read (assuming GNU make as you have tagged this question appropriately) using this method (with a variable named "var"):

$(info $$var is [${var}])

You can add this construct to any recipe to see what make will pass to the shell:

.PHONY: all
all: ; $(info $$var is [${var}])echo Hello world

Now, what happens here is that make stores the entire recipe ($(info $$var is [${var}])echo Hello world) as a single recursively expanded variable. When make decides to run the recipe (for instance when you tell it to build all), it expands the variable, and then passes each resulting line separately to the shell.

So, in painful detail:

It expands $(info $$var is [${var}])echo Hello world

To do this it first expands $(info $$var is [${var}]) $$ becomes literal $ ${var} becomes :-) (say) The side effect is that $var is [:-)] appears on standard out The expansion of the $(info...) though is empty

$$ becomes literal $

${var} becomes :-) (say)

The side effect is that $var is [:-)] appears on standard out

The expansion of the $(info...) though is empty

Make is left with echo Hello world Make prints echo Hello world on stdout first to let you know what it's going to ask the shell to do

Make prints echo Hello world on stdout first to let you know what it's going to ask the shell to do

The shell prints Hello world on stdout.

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As per the GNU Make manual and also pointed by 'bobbogo' in the below answer, you can use info / warning / error to display text.

$(error   text…)
$(warning text…)
$(info    text…)

To print variables,

$(error   VAR is $(VAR))
$(warning VAR is $(VAR))
$(info    VAR is $(VAR))

'error' would stop the make execution, after showing the error string

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from a "Mr. Make post" https://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/printing-value-makefile-variable

Add the following rule to your Makefile:

print-%  : ; @echo $* = $($*)

Then, if you want to find out the value of a makefile variable, just:

make print-VARIABLE

and it will return:

VARIABLE = the_value_of_the_variable

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If you simply want some output, you want to use $(info) by itself. You can do that anywhere in a Makefile, and it will show when that line is evaluated:

$(info VAR="$(VAR)")

Will output VAR="<value of VAR>" whenever make processes that line. This behavior is very position dependent, so you must make sure that the $(info) expansion happens AFTER everything that could modify $(VAR) has already happened!

A more generic option is to create a special rule for printing the value of a variable. Generally speaking, rules are executed after variables are assigned, so this will show you the value that is actually being used. (Though, it is possible for a rule to change a variable.) Good formatting will help clarify what a variable is set to, and the $(flavor) function will tell you what kind of a variable something is. So in this rule:

print-% : ; $(info $* is a $(flavor $*) variable set to [$($*)]) @true

$* expands to the stem that the % pattern matched in the rule.

$($*) expands to the value of the variable whose name is given by by $*.

The [ and ] clearly delineate the variable expansion. You could also use " and " or similar.

$(flavor $*) tells you what kind of variable it is. NOTE: $(flavor) takes a variable name, and not its expansion. So if you say make print-LDFLAGS, you get $(flavor LDFLAGS), which is what you want.

$(info text) provides output. Make prints text on its stdout as a side-effect of the expansion. The expansion of $(info) though is empty. You can think of it like @echo, but importantly it doesn't use the shell, so you don't have to worry about shell quoting rules.

@true is there just to provide a command for the rule. Without that, make will also output print-blah is up to date. I feel @true makes it more clear that it's meant to be a no-op.

Running it, you get

$ make print-LDFLAGS
LDFLAGS is a recursive variable set to [-L/Users/...]

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All versions of make require that command lines be indented with a TAB (not space) as the first character in the line. If you showed us the entire rule instead of just the two lines in question we could give a clearer answer, but it should be something like:

myTarget: myDependencies
        @echo hi

where the first character in the second line must be TAB.

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@echo $(NDK_PROJECT_PATH) is the good way to do it. I don't think the error comes from there. Generally this error appears when you mistyped the intendation : I think you have spaces where you should have a tab.

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No need to modify the Makefile.

$ cat printvars.mak
print-%:
        @echo '$*=$($*)'

$ cd /to/Makefile/dir
$ make -f ~/printvars.mak -f Makefile print-VARIABLE

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Run make -n; it shows you the value of the variable..

Makefile...

all:
        @echo $(NDK_PROJECT_PATH)

Command:

export NDK_PROJECT_PATH=/opt/ndk/project
make -n 

Output:

echo /opt/ndk/project

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This makefile will generate the 'missing separator' error message:

all
    @echo NDK_PROJECT_PATH=$(NDK_PROJECT_PATH)

done:
        @echo "All done"

There's a tab before the @echo "All done" (though the done: rule and action are largely superfluous), but not before the @echo PATH=$(PATH).

The trouble is that the line starting all should either have a colon : or an equals = to indicate that it is a target line or a macro line, and it has neither, so the separator is missing.

The action that echoes the value of a variable must be associated with a target, possibly a dummy or PHONEY target. And that target line must have a colon on it. If you add a : after all in the example makefile and replace the leading blanks on the next line by a tab, it will work sanely.

You probably have an analogous problem near line 102 in the original makefile. If you showed 5 non-blank, non-comment lines before the echo operations that are failing, it would probably be possible to finish the diagnosis. However, since the question was asked in May 2013, it is unlikely that the broken makefile is still available now (August 2014), so this answer can't be validated formally. It can only be used to illustrate a plausible way in which the problem occurred.

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The problem is that echo works only under an execution block. i.e. anything after "xx:"

So anything above the first execution block is just initialization so no execution command can used.

So create a execution blocl

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If you don't want to modify the Makefile itself, you can use --eval to add a new target, and then execute the new target, e.g.

make --eval='print-tests: @echo TESTS $(TESTS) ' print-tests

You can insert the required TAB character in the command line using CTRL-V, TAB

example Makefile from above:

all: do-something

TESTS=
TESTS+='a'
TESTS+='b'
TESTS+='c'

do-something:
        @echo "doing something"
        @echo "running tests $(TESTS)"
        @exit 1

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This can be done in a generic way and can be very useful when debugging a complex makefile. Following the same technique as described in another answer, you can insert the following into any makefile:

# if the first command line argument is "print"
ifeq ($(firstword $(MAKECMDGOALS)),print)

  # take the rest of the arguments as variable names
  VAR_NAMES := $(wordlist 2,$(words $(MAKECMDGOALS)),$(MAKECMDGOALS))

  # turn them into do-nothing targets
  $(eval $(VAR_NAMES):;@:))

  # then print them
  .PHONY: print
  print:
          @$(foreach var,$(VAR_NAMES),\
            echo '$(var) = $($(var))';)
endif

Then you can just do "make print" to dump the value of any variable:

$ make print CXXFLAGS
CXXFLAGS = -g -Wall

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if you use android make (mka) @echo $(NDK_PROJECT_PATH) will not work and gives you error *** missing separator. Stop." use this answer if you are trying to print variables in android make

NDK_PROJECT_PATH := some_value
$(warning $(NDK_PROJECT_PATH))

that worked for me

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I usually echo with an error if I wanted to see the variable value.(Only if you wanted to see the value. It will stop execution.)

@echo $(error NDK_PROJECT_PATH= $(NDK_PROJECT_PATH))

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You could create a vars rule in your make file, like this:

dispvar = echo $(1)=$($(1)) ; echo

.PHONY: vars
vars:
    @$(call dispvar,SOMEVAR1)
    @$(call dispvar,SOMEVAR2)

There are some more robust ways to dump all variables here: gnu make: list the values of all variables (or "macros") in a particular run.

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