MakeVars

MakeVars defines make variables for use in MakeTargets and specialized Makefiles. The file itself has copious comments, which may help your understanding.

Variable definitions may be on the command line, in a Makefile, in MakeVars, in a Pictools.properties file, or in the environment. That order is the precedence; definitions in one source override all those in subsequent sources. Assignments in MakeVars are usually with "?="; that is, if a variable already has a value it is not changed. Otherwise, variables definedwith "=" will override previous definitions. (In make, "=" assignment iis not evaluated until a reference is made to the defined variable. Someday you may be tstruck by the wisdom of this.

Variables values are NOT exported to recipes and recursive makes. However, your Makefile may have export directives, as you like.

When a property value is a file or directory name, it is almost always relative to SRCROOT. It begins with a slash, and ends without one. No spaces; only letters, digits, -, ., _, and / and : as delimiters.

As described in Makefiles and directories, MakeTargets builds files from a source directory to a staging directory and then copies the files from that staging directory to the server. MakeVars sets variable _SITEPATH to be the path from SRCROOT to the current source directory. So:

'make build' copies from SRCROOT/_SITEPATH to STAGINGAREA/_SITEPATH

'make upload' copies from the latter to the server, that is, from STAGINGAREA/_SITEPATH to SHDEST:PICSDIR/_SITEPATH

Mandatory Environment Variables

Before running make or any Pictools scripts, two variables must be defined in the shell environment. As described in setup, they can be defined in either the user's environment or or the initialization script for the shell.

SRCROOT: Path to the tree of source directories holding the site source. The value must be a full path, start with a slash, and end without a slash. Example value: /cygdrive/h/physpics/websrc
PICTOOLS: Must contain the path to the pictools directory from SRCROOT. The value must start with a slash and end without a slash. Usual value: /pictools.

Initial steps

For startup, MakeVars does these

Fetch the Pictools properties by running propcon and then importing Pictools.mkinc. It the current directory is not a child of SRCROOT, properties are fetched from SRCROOT.
Define SRC to be the current directory, with drive letter in lower case.
Check the values of SRCROOT and STAGINGAREA.
If PICSCP is set to fakescp, prompt for the ftp password.

Variables Defined from Properties

The variables are typically defined in /Pictools.properties.

STAGINGAREA: Path to the tree of directories holding the staging area. Starts with slash; no final slash. Example value: /cygdrive/c/physpics.com
PICSDIR: A directory path on the server leading from the initial SSHDEST directory to the directory corresponding to SRCROOT. Examples: physpics.com (dreamhost); httpdocs (networksolutions) The value may be empty and usually does not begin with a slash. No final slash unlss value is "/" (highly unlikely).
SSHDEST: User name and host name with '@' between. The destination for sftp to server. Example value: physpics@physpics.com
PICSCP = scp: May be set to fakescp to use ftp instead of scp. To make this work you will have to modify MakeVars and MakeTargets to use ftp instead of tar|tar.
PICPASS: If using fakescp or picmikdir, the ftp password must be supplied; if PICPASS is not set, MakeVars prompts for the password and exports it to the environment used for running commands. (That is, the password is not stored in a file, but is available to commands run for recipes during this execution of make.)
AFTERSSH =: DreamHost aborts an upload if there are more than 10 ssh calls per minute. As a work-around, this variable is inserted in MakeTargets recipes after each ssh. If you are using DreamHost to do a major upload, set this variable to something like sleep 10. It is usually enough to set this in the shell you are using for an upload; you may also set it in Pictools.properties as: afterssh = sleep 10

By the above, the server tree resides at ${SSHDEST}:${PICSDIR}; for example: physpics@physpics.com:httpdocs

Site Variables set by MakeVars

These variables are set by MakeVars and may be used by the client Makefile. Most begin with slash and end without one. Server begins with a user name. If you think you need to change these values in your client Makefile, you are wrong; do something differently.

_SITEPATH = subpath: Path from $(SRCROOT) to $(CURDIR). Something like: /annals/2015; may be empty.
STAGE = ${STAGINGAREA}${_SITEPATH}: 'build' places files in this directory
SERVER = $(SSHDEST):$(PICSDIR)$(_SITEPATH): 'upload' runs 'scp' to copy from STAGE to SERVER
SRC = $(CURDIR): A copy of Make's CURDIR, the initial current directory.

Content Variables

A client Makefile defines these variables to specify directory-specific lists of things to be built, copied to the staging directory, or uploaded. The default for each is no value.

SUBDIRS = dir1 dir2 ...: A list of those subdirectories to be processed for buildall, updateall, and cleanall.
COPYFILES = file1 file2 ...: Files to be copied to STAGE and then uploaded to SERVER. If non-existent or out-of-date, they are first built.
BUILDTOSTAGE = file1 file2 ...: Files to be built directly into STAGE. Although they do not appear in the source directory, these files ae must be listed without a directory name. Rules for making items on the list do have the STAGE directory If file fffff.ext is in the BUILDTOSTAGE list, there must be a rule for building STAGE/ffff.ext
BUILDONLY = file1 file2 ...: Files to be generated locally for 'build', but not uploaded.
FINISHUPLOAD: Additional targets to be added to the list of targets made for 'target 'upload'.
DEFINES = -Dv1=value1 -Dv2=value2 ...: These variable definitions are passed along to genhtm for expanding caption files.
Example: -DtripTitle="Florida, Spring, 2007"
LOCALJUNK = item1 item2 ...: A list of files or wild cards to be deleted for make clean. Entries may be file names or wild cards.
Example: testout.txt *.o foo*
TAR_EXCLUDE_LIST = _notes CVS *.BAK *~* Thumbs.db *.exe \ Pictools.csh Pictools.mkinc $(MORE_TAR_EXCLUDES): List of files to be omitted when creating tar files. Replace this value if you do not wish to exclude some of these files.
MORE_TAR_EXCLUDES: Set this variable to exclude additional files or types of files.

Default Content Lists

The following variables are given tentative values in MakeVars. If the client wants some other value, it can reset them. Note that values are case-sensitive. All files listed are copied to the server.

HTMLFILES = *.html
IMAGEFILES = *.png *.PNG *.jpg *.JPG *.gif *.GIF *.bmp *.BMP
JSFILES = *.js
CSSFILES = *.css
PHPFILES = *.php
CAPFILE = *.cap: is set by MakeVars to *.cap. May be set by the client to some other value. NO MORE THAN ONE .cap file is supported.
JUNKFILES = *~ $(LOCALJUNK): List of files to be removed for `make clean'

Targets

MakeVars defines a few standard targets, especially for recursion. The basic single directory targets--build and upload--are defined in MakeTargets. See Makefiles. The targets defined in MakeVars are all, buildall (the default), clean, and cleanall. Also defined are targets to create directories and the macros run-scp and make-thumb for copying to the server and making thumbnail images.

Debugging

The variable PICTOOLSDEBUG may be defined in the shell environment running make. If set, some tools will append notes to /tmp/pictoolsdebug. Larger values may give more information. (At present the talkative tools are MakeVars, MakeTargets, gendirs.csh, debug.csh, fakescp, gencaps.) When PICTOOLSDEBUG is 5 or more, MakeVars will show ALL defined variables.