6.4 Mmakefile fragment files

The ‘mmake’ build tool gets the information it needs about the program being built from Makefile fragments automatically generated by the Mercury compiler. These fragments come from files with the following extensions.

• .dep files are automatically generated Makefile fragments which contain the rules for an entire program.
• .dv files are automatically generated Makefile fragments which contain variable definitions for an entire program.
• .d files are automatically generated Makefile fragments which contain the dependencies for a module.

.dep and .dv files are built as part of the initial setup of the program, when ‘mmc’ is invoked with ‘--generate-dependencies’ (or some related options). .d files contain information about a single module, and they are updated (if needed) by every recompilation of that module.