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The convention in UNIX / Linux docs is generally to follow the
capitalization of the code. The command is make. The input file can be
named makefile or Makefile, or sometimes other things, such as
MAKEFILE or GNUmakefile. The common practice of using Makefile is so
it appears higher in directory listings.
On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 7:00 PM, Monique Semp
<monique -dot- semp -at- earthlink -dot- net> wrote:
> Hello, TechWR-L-ers,
>
> So for building instructions that are applicable to a huge variety of operating systems (and so they wonât all use the usual Linux make utility, but they will all use the supplied Makefile.<os> or Makefile.<product> pre-configured make files), how would it be best to refer to the group of supplied make files:
>
> * makefiles
> * Makefiles
> * make files
>
> The last (âmake filesâ) is certainly the most generic. But given that the actual filenames are all âMakefile.<something>â, I can see the logic for referring to them as âMakefilesâ. But if the reference isnât at the start of the sentence, the upper-case makes it appear more as a proper noun, which isnât what I want to convey. (Although the actual Make utility is always uppercase, as in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_(software). And this same article seems to use âmakefileâ, lowercase, to refer to these things generically. So thatâs what Iâm leaning toward.)
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