Continuously run Make in watch mode

Sometimes while developing we want to recompile a file or rerun all tests when something changes. make-watch allows you to run a make command automatically everytime that one of its dependency changes. How? make-watch analyzes your Makefile and extracts a dependency graph, so it can watch all and only the interested files. You no longer need to manually run commands if you change a file or the Makefile itself.

You can install make-watch using npm:

npm install --save-dev make-watch

or, if you prefer, you can install make-watch globally with:

npm install -g make-watch

Once you have installed make-watch, you can use it from the command line. Just replace make with make-watch. Here is an example:

# make
make-watch

# make target1.exe target2.exe
make-watch target1.exe target2.exe

# make target1.exe target2.exe
# also watch .cpp files in src and lib dir except config.cpp
# this is useful if you want to recompile your app
# when you create a new file for example
make-watch target1.exe target2.exe -I "src","lib" -x ".cpp" -i "config.cpp"

Instead of cli options, you can use a .makewatchrc json file, here is an example:

{
  "include": ["src", "lib"],
  "extensions": [".cpp"],
  "ignore": "ignore.cpp"
}

make-watch will lookup to a .makewatchrc in the current directory. If one does not exist, it will travel up the directory tree trying to find it.

This project adheres to Semantic Versioning.
Every release, along with the migration instructions, is documented on the Github Releases page.

Matteo Basso

• github/mbasso
• @teo_basso

Copyright (c) 2017, Matteo Basso.

make-watch source code is licensed under the MIT License.