All built targets need fixdep to be built first, before handling object dependencies [1]. We're missing one such dependency before the libsubcmd target. This resolves .cmd file generation issues such that the following sequence produces many fewer results: $ git clean -xfd tools/ $ make tools/objtool $ grep "cannot find fixdep" $(find tools/objtool -name '*.cmd') In particular, only a buggy tools/objtool/libsubcmd/.fixdep.o.cmd remains, due to circular dependencies of fixdep on itself. Such incomplete .cmd files don't usually cause a direct problem, since they're designed to fail "open", but they can cause some subtle problems that would otherwise be handled by proper fixdep'd dependency files. [2] [1] This problem is better described in commit abb26210a395 ("perf tools: Force fixdep compilation at the start of the build"). I don't apply its solution here, because additional recursive make can be a bit of overkill. [2] Example failure case: cp -arl linux-src linux-src2 cd linux-src2 make O=/path/to/out cd ../linux-src rm -rf ../linux-src2 make O=/path/to/out Previously, we'd see errors like: make[6]: *** No rule to make target '/path/to/linux-src2/tools/include/linux/compiler.h', needed by '/path/to/out/tools/bpf/resolve_btfids/libsubcmd/exec-cmd.o'. Stop. Now, the properly-fixdep'd .cmd files will ignore a missing /path/to/linux-src2/... Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/ZGVi9HbI43R5trN8@bhelgaas/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/Zk-C5Eg84yt6_nml@xxxxxxxxxx/ Signed-off-by: Brian Norris <briannorris@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: Jiri Olsa <jolsa@xxxxxxxxxx> --- (no changes since v3) Changes in v3: - update notes about failure cases - add Jiri's Acked-by tools/lib/subcmd/Makefile | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/tools/lib/subcmd/Makefile b/tools/lib/subcmd/Makefile index b87213263a5e..59b09f280e49 100644 --- a/tools/lib/subcmd/Makefile +++ b/tools/lib/subcmd/Makefile @@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ include $(srctree)/tools/build/Makefile.include all: fixdep $(LIBFILE) -$(SUBCMD_IN): FORCE +$(SUBCMD_IN): fixdep FORCE @$(MAKE) $(build)=libsubcmd $(LIBFILE): $(SUBCMD_IN) -- 2.45.2.993.g49e7a77208-goog