CODEWITHSUNDEEP
makefilelatex
user213544
user213544

Reputation: 2126

How to simplify listing of dependencies in make file

Goal

I am trying to use a Make file to automate the generation of a panel figure. The data and figures are generated from Rscripts and subsequently combined using latex to generate a PDF.

Problem description

Let's say, I would like to generate a panel figure consisting of 4 subfigures, arranged in a 2x2 grid. By using the following make file, I am able to generate the data as well as the subfigures:

all : data/plot1.txt plots/plot1.pdf \
data/plot2.txt plots/plot2.pdf \
data/plot3.txt plots/plot3.pdf \
data/plot4.txt plots/plot4.pdf \
plots/figure_5.pdf

#Panel Figure#

#Plot 1
data/plot1.txt : scripts/plot1_sim.R
    Rscript scripts/plot1_sim.R $@

plots/plot1.pdf : scripts/plot1_sim.R data/plot1.txt
    Rscript scripts/plot1.R $@

#Plot 2
data/plot2.txt : scripts/plot2_sim.R
    Rscript scripts/plot2_sim.R $@

plots/plot2.pdf : scripts/plot2_sim.R data/plot2.txt
    Rscript scripts/plot2.R $@

#Plot 3
data/plot3.txt : scripts/plot3_sim.R
    Rscript scripts/plot3_sim.R $@

plots/plot3.pdf : scripts/plot3_sim.R data/plot3.txt
    Rscript scripts/plot3.R $@

#Plot 4
data/plot4.txt : scripts/plot4_sim.R
    Rscript scripts/plot4_sim.R $@

plots/plot4.pdf : scripts/plot4_sim.R data/plot4.txt
    Rscript scripts/plot4.R $@

Using a latex file, e.g. figure.tex I am able to compile a panel figure as desired.

However, now I would like to add the construction of the final PDF by latex to the make file. This file is, of course, dependent on plots/plot1.pdf up to and including plots/plot4.pdf.

I added it to the code like this:

plots/figure.pdf : scripts/figure.tex plots/plot1.pdf plots/plot2.pdf plots/plot3.pdf plots/plot4.pdf
    pdflatex scripts/figure.tex

With four subfigures it is doable (but maybe ugly) to do it like this, but if you generate a panel figure with e.g. 16 subfigures, the code becomes unreadable.

Question

Is there a better way to include a larger list of dependencies, in this case for generating panel figures using make and latex?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 52

Answers (1)

Renaud Pacalet
Renaud Pacalet

Reputation: 28955

As far as I understand you could probably factorize all this with something like:

SIMRS    := $(wildcard scripts/plot*_sim.R)
PLOTS    := $(patsubst scripts/plot%_sim.R,%,$(SIMRS))
PDFPLOTS := $(patsubst %,plots/plot%.pdf,$(PLOTS))
TXTPLOTS := $(patsubst %,data/plot%.txt,$(PLOTS))

.PHONY: all

all: $(TXTPLOTS) $(PDFPLOTS) plots/figure_5.pdf

data/plot%.txt : scripts/plot%_sim.R
    Rscript $< $@

plots/plot%.pdf : scripts/plot%_sim.R data/plot%.txt
    Rscript scripts/plot$*.R $@

plots/figure.pdf: scripts/figure.tex $(PDFPLOTS)
    pdflatex $<

Note that the plots/plot%.pdf: ... pattern rule looks strange: its recipe uses scripts/plotX.R but its prerequisites are scripts/plotX_sim.R and data/plotX.txt (no scripts/plotX.R). Is it normal?

Upvotes: 1

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