no rule to make stdXXX.h

[daviddoria]

I am trying to compile some software I found online. I am getting a bunch of these errors:

No rule to make target `/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2.2/include/stdarg.h', needed by `formCluster.o'.  Stop.

In the Makefiles, there are certainly lines like this:

transform.o: /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2.2/include/stddef.h

The errors seem to go away if I simply remove those lines. Is this a reasonable thing to do (there are zillions of them, so I want to be sure this is the right thing to do before spending a lot of time removing them). I'm assuming it was something to do with old compilers that is not needed anymore?

Thanks,

Dave

[nezachem]

Since there are zillions of such lines, and they refer to a particular gcc installation, the makefile is most likely autogenerated. Check the Readme (or Install) for clues of how to regenerate it. Does the tarball have something like configure? Is there a 'depend' target in the makefile? autoconf sources?

[daviddoria]

There is no 'configure' file. The readme just says to make sure opengl is installed. There are no autoconf sources. The depend target says:

depend:
cd src; make depend-all

So if I can't regenerate, can I just manually remove those stddef.h kinds of dependencies? It doesn't really make sense to build a header file, does it?

Dave

[nezachem]

There is no 'configure' file. The readme just says to make sure opengl is installed. There are no autoconf sources. The depend target says:

depend:
cd src; make depend-all

O! Did you try to make depend at the command prompt (I'd even do make clean depend if there's a clean target as well)?

PS:

So if I can't regenerate, can I just manually remove those stddef.h kinds of dependencies? It doesn't really make sense to build a header file, does it?

It surely doesn't, and nobody is going to build them. Notice that there is really no rule for doing that. Such a dependency guarantees recompilation in case any of them change (e.g. you upgraded your GCC).

PPS:
I can bet that the make depend boils down to calling gcc with the -M switch. You can make a huge favor to developers by patching it to -MM.

[daviddoria]

'make depend' looks promising.

However, I get a bunch of these:

akedepend: warning:  server.c (reading /usr/include/unistd.h, line 227): cannot find include file "stddef.h"
	not in ../../include/stddef.h
	not in ../../3rd_party/libarg/stddef.h
	not in /usr/X11R6/include/stddef.h
	not in /usr/local/include/stddef.h
	not in ./stddef.h
	not in /usr/include/g++-2/stddef.h
	not in /usr/include/stddef.h

Is there a more "c++" header to use instead of "unistd.h"? I think cstddef has replaced stddef.h, so maybe this is the problem?

Thanks,
Dave

[daviddoria]

Or better yet, it seems like I do have some of these files (stddef.h) on my system, just not in one of the places make depend was looking.

I tried to tell it to look in another place with

make depend -I/usr/include/linux

but it still doesn't seem to be looking there?

[nezachem]

'make depend' looks promising.

However, I get a bunch of these:

makedepend

This is really ancient. Please disregard my PPS from the last post.

Is there a more "c++" header to use instead of "unistd.h"? I think cstddef has replaced stddef.h, so maybe this is the problem?

Thanks,
Dave

Yet another crystal ball type guess. Did you install libc6-dev package? stddef.h must be in /usr/include.

[daviddoria]

I don't have any packages with libc6 in the name. (I'm on Fedora 11). Why must stddef.h be in /usr/include?

It looks like this makefile is simply calling "make depend" on a bunch of other make files. At the end of the chain, this is what is actually getting run:

depend: 
	makedepend -o$(OBJ) -- $(INCFLAGS) $(MAKEDEPEND_INCFLAGS) $(DEFINEFLAGS) -- $(ALL_FILES)

I tried to add the -I flag by putting this:

MAKEDEPEND_INCFLAGS=-I/usr/include/linux

in the top level makefile, but it still isn't looking in the right place.

Any more suggestions?

[nezachem]

Why must stddef.h be in /usr/include?

This is a way the compiler works. A source file does #include <stddef.h> , and the compiler looks it up in /usr/include .

Any more suggestions?

I gather that you do have /usr/include/linux/stddef.h , which means that you have the kernel-devel headers installed. What you are missing (judjing by the absence of /usr/include/stddef.h ) is the libc development package. You need to install it. It is called libc-devel . I am not familiar with Fedora administration and can't tell you the exact command.

PS: You can not just remove these dependencies. A compilation will fail at a different phase with a different message.

[daviddoria]

Unfortunately

sudo yum install libc-devel

tells me

No package libc-devel available.

However, I do have glibc-devel installed (possibly the same thing?), but alas no /usr/include/stddef.h :(

[daviddoria]

Ok I figured out some makedepend stuff and got past that part.

Now I am getting errors like

/usr/local/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.5.0/../../../../include/c++/4.5.0/cstddef:52:11: error: ‘::size_t’ has not been declared
/usr/include/wchar.h:148:40: error: ‘size_t’ has not been declared

Any idea how to fix these?

Dave