AVR Freaks

I'd start by reinstalling AS7. As I say there is something very fundamentally wrong going on there as the auto-generated Makefile that AS7 creates uses $< to represent the input filenames to be compiled and $@ to represent the output. If you have a main.cpp and file.cpp in the project then $< should expand out first to be main.cpp and on the second time to be file.cpp and so on. The output ($@) should be main.o and then file.o. But this meta expansion is not occuring so something is utterly FUBAR there.

Hopefully a reinstall will fix things.

If you want to try something a little less severe as a first step then junk the current project and create a new project and just add the existing files to it. If it's just something corrupt in that one particular project this should clear things. But if this doesn't work I fear a reinstall is inevitable.

I was talking conceptually/metaphorically

I mean if you have a project that consists of foo.cpp, bar.cpp, baz.cpp then a Makefile that has the rule:

%.o:%.cpp
     something -input $< -ouptut $@

*should* lead to the commands:

something -input foo.cpp -ouptut foo.o
something -input bar.cpp -ouptut bar.o
something -input baz.cpp -ouptut baz.o

being executed in turn. But in your case what appears to have been attempted is the literal command:

something -input $< -ouptut $@

where the $< and $@ have not been replaced by the file names in turn. That is F'd Up Beyond All Recognition = FUBAR

As I say your remedy might start with

1) recreate project - perhaps the fault was "local" - a new project will clear it

2) if not uninstall/reinstall AS7 as something about the whole build/make system is FUBAR

(boy I love how Windows makes yous sit for minutes with a non helpful % complete showing while it applies updates!)

Anyway laptop finally updated and I was able to load the project attached to #12 above into AS 7.0.943 (yeah, I know, well out of date!) and it said:

------ Build started: Project: Test, Configuration: Debug AVR ------
Build started.
Project "Test.cppproj" (default targets):
Target "PreBuildEvent" skipped, due to false condition; ('$(PreBuildEvent)'!='') was evaluated as (''!='').
Target "CoreBuild" in file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Vs\Compiler.targets" from project "C:\Users\Cliff\Downloads\Test_1\Test\Test\Test.cppproj" (target "Build" depends on it):
	Using "RunCompilerTask" task from assembly "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Extensions\Application\AvrGCC.dll".
	Task "RunCompilerTask"
		Shell Utils Path C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\shellUtils
		C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\shellUtils\make.exe all --jobs 4 --output-sync 
		Building file: .././main.cpp
		Invoking: AVR8/GNU C Compiler : 4.9.2
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-g++.exe" -funsigned-char -funsigned-bitfields -DDEBUG  -I"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\include"  -O1 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fpack-struct -fshort-enums -mrelax -g2 -Wall -mmcu=atmega128 -B "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\gcc\dev\atmega128" -c -MD -MP -MF "main.d" -MT"main.d" -MT"main.o"   -o "main.o" ".././main.cpp" 
		Finished building: .././main.cpp
		Building target: Test.elf
		Invoking: AVR8/GNU Linker : 4.9.2
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-g++.exe" -o Test.elf  main.o   -Wl,-Map="Test.map" -Wl,--start-group -Wl,-lm  -Wl,--end-group -Wl,--gc-sections -mrelax -mmcu=atmega128 -B "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\gcc\dev\atmega128"  
		Finished building target: Test.elf
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -O ihex -R .eeprom -R .fuse -R .lock -R .signature -R .user_signatures  "Test.elf" "Test.hex"
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -j .eeprom  --set-section-flags=.eeprom=alloc,load --change-section-lma .eeprom=0  --no-change-warnings -O ihex "Test.elf" "Test.eep" || exit 0
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objdump.exe" -h -S "Test.elf" > "Test.lss"
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -O srec -R .eeprom -R .fuse -R .lock -R .signature -R .user_signatures "Test.elf" "Test.srec"
		"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-size.exe" "Test.elf"
		   text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
		    208	      0	      0	    208	     d0	Test.elf
	Done executing task "RunCompilerTask".
	Using "RunOutputFileVerifyTask" task from assembly "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Extensions\Application\AvrGCC.dll".
	Task "RunOutputFileVerifyTask"
				Program Memory Usage 	:	208 bytes   0.2 % Full
				Data Memory Usage 		:	0 bytes   0.0 % Full
	Done executing task "RunOutputFileVerifyTask".
Done building target "CoreBuild" in project "Test.cppproj".
Target "PostBuildEvent" skipped, due to false condition; ('$(PostBuildEvent)' != '') was evaluated as ('' != '').
Target "Build" in file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Vs\Avr.common.targets" from project "C:\Users\Cliff\Downloads\Test_1\Test\Test\Test.cppproj" (entry point):
Done building target "Build" in project "Test.cppproj".
Done building project "Test.cppproj".

Build succeeded.
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

Absolutley no error there and it expanded $< and $@ just as I expected. If I start an AS7 Command prompt and run make I get:

C:\Users\wrigh\Downloads\Test_1>make -v
GNU Make 4.1
Built for Windows32
Copyright (C) 1988-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

and if I switch to the build directory I can do this:

C:\Users\wrigh\Downloads\Test_1\Test\Test\Debug>make clean
rm -rf  main.o
rm -rf  main.d
rm -rf "Test.elf" "Test.a" "Test.hex" "Test.lss" "Test.eep" "Test.map" "Test.srec" "Test.usersignatures"

C:\Users\wrigh\Downloads\Test_1\Test\Test\Debug>make
Building file: .././main.cpp
Invoking: AVR8/GNU C Compiler : 4.9.2
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-g++.exe" -funsigned-char -funsigned-bitfields -DDEBUG  -I"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\include"  -O1 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fpack-struct -fshort-enums -mrelax -g2 -Wall -mmcu=atmega128 -B "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\gcc\dev\atmega128" -c -MD -MP -MF "main.d" -MT"main.d" -MT"main.o"   -o "main.o" ".././main.cpp"
Finished building: .././main.cpp
Building target: Test.elf
Invoking: AVR8/GNU Linker : 4.9.2
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-g++.exe" -o Test.elf  main.o   -Wl,-Map="Test.map" -Wl,--start-group -Wl,-lm  -Wl,--end-group -Wl,--gc-sections -mrelax -mmcu=atmega128 -B "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\Packs\atmel\ATmega_DFP\1.0.106\gcc\dev\atmega128"
Finished building target: Test.elf
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -O ihex -R .eeprom -R .fuse -R .lock -R .signature -R .user_signatures  "Test.elf" "Test.hex"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -j .eeprom  --set-section-flags=.eeprom=alloc,load --change-section-lma .eeprom=0  --no-change-warnings -O ihex "Test.elf" "Test.eep" || exit 0
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objdump.exe" -h -S "Test.elf" > "Test.lss"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-objcopy.exe" -O srec -R .eeprom -R .fuse -R .lock -R .signature -R .user_signatures "Test.elf" "Test.srec"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Atmel\Studio\7.0\toolchain\avr8\avr8-gnu-toolchain\bin\avr-size.exe" "Test.elf"
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
    208       0       0     208      d0 Test.elf

C:\Users\wrigh\Downloads\Test_1\Test\Test\Debug>

So again, everything there is working as expected for me. So I don't really have a clue why the $</$@ is not working for y'all.

The Makefile is created from scratch every time you click "Build". At that moment AS7 collects together all the details of the Project options you have set and the list of source files you have in the project and it puts them all together to create a Makefile that represents what you have asked to build. It then create a temporary .bat file that itself creates a temporary command environment and within that it runs the commands to execute "make" with the Makefile it has just created.

So it effectively starts "clean" each time it builds anyway.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the contents of the Makefile itself. As you can see I used a  Command prompt above and did "make clean" then "make" and it built your code using the Makefile that Studio had previously created. I thin the fault in your machine is the way the command shell and the make themselves are being executed. Something on your PC is leading to either wrong versions being used or the ones that are there not working in the "normal" way.

The expansion of "$<" to the list of source files is something make.exe itself does. The fact that it's apparently not happening on your machine leads me to think that it is not the right make that is being executed or the way in which it IS being executed differs from normal. No idea why though.

It's quite difficult to google things like "$<" and "$@" because Google just "eats punctuation" but there is a search engine that does not here:

http://symbolhound.com/

If I use to that to search for things like "$< is not being expanded" I get hits such as this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questio...

(though that particular thread is something a bit different). It may, however, be worth trying a few searches at SymbolHound and trawling the results in case anything similar to this has been seen previously that may give a clue (don't limit yourself to the AVR world either!).

Unfortunately most Makefiles have $< and $@ in them so you will get a lot of spurious hits simply because people are quoting "normal" makefiles.

Wow that is weird beyond belief. Wonder how a permissions issue could affect $< ? 

Hi,ggudino:

recently i have met the same question as you too;

 .

     At first , i take the problem as make file mistake , but my friends solve this problem by simply check   head file "SoftwareSerial.h" ,and find that "#endif" is missing from the  head file .

just add a "#end if"  ,all the error is gone.

    SO i think the "recipe for target main.o" failed is not caused by  make file , maybe the problem exist in your head file , if your head file is wrong , it will cause compiling error . and that my result an "recipe for target main.o failed" .

you can have a try in finding mistake in your headfile ,or just comment your code in headfile. 

   i think this may help.