Member Avatar for mstashev

So I have an assignment where I am supposed to create an oop that will run on a provided Unix server.
I have a Mac so when I run the makefile in Terminal, I don't get any errors. But when I try to run the makefile in the provided Unix server, I get this error:

make: *** No rule to make target `Horse.cpp', needed by `Horse.o'.  Stop.

So can someone explain or show me what I am doing wrong? Here are the contents of the makefile:

horserace: Horse.o Race.o main.o
    g++ Horse.o Race.o main.o -o horserace
main.o: main.cpp Race.h Horse.h
    g++ -c main.cpp Horse.cpp Race.cpp
Horse.o: Horse.cpp Horse.h
    g++ -c Horse.cpp
Race.o: Race.cpp Race.h Horse.h
    g++ -c Race.cpp
clean:
    rm -rf *.o horserace

Any help will be most appreciated.

-Mike

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Generated

The error "No rule to make target Horse.cpp', needed byHorse.o'." means make was asked to build an object but couldn't find the matching source file or a rule to produce it. On many Macs the filesystem is case‑insensitive (case‑preserving), so horse.cpp and Horse.cpp can both be opened locally; most Unix/Linux servers are case‑sensitive, so a capitalization mismatch will fail there. As later confirmed, a filename capitalization mismatch was the root cause; 's request to list the directory was the right first diagnostic step.

Useful diagnostics and common pitfalls: verify the working directory and listing with pwd and ls -al; reveal non‑printable characters with ls -b or inspect bytes using hexdump -C/od -c; check for Windows CRLFs in files (the file command or dos2unix can help). Makefile command lines must begin with a literal tab, not spaces — missing tabs produce different, often confusing errors. For visibility into make's decision process, use make -n (dry run) or make -d (verbose debug output). If the server uses a different make implementation, try gmake if available.

A minimal, robust pattern-based Makefile reduces typing mistakes (tabs required before commands):

CXX = g++
CXXFLAGS = -Wall -g
SRCS = Horse.cpp Race.cpp main.cpp
OBJS = $(SRCS:.cpp=.o)
TARGET = horserace

$(TARGET): $(OBJS)
    $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS)

%.o: %.cpp
    $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c $< -o $@

clean:
    rm -f $(OBJS) $(TARGET)

Final notes: prefer consistent, simple naming (lowercase helps avoid cross‑platform surprises), test builds on the target server early, and run the basic ls/pwd checks suggested by before deeper debugging. The case‑sensitivity mismatch between development and deployment environments is a very common source of this exact make error.

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Member Avatar for nezachem

It means that Horse.cpp is not present (at least, in the directory where you run make). What does the ls output look like?

Member Avatar for mstashev

make: *** No rule to make target Horse.cpp', needed byHorse.o'. Stop.

Member Avatar for nezachem

I had to emphasize that ls (ell-es) is a command. Run it in the directory whe you run make, and post the output here.

Member Avatar for mstashev

It turns out that I had the capitalization wrong. It is working fine now. Thanks for the info though.

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