rmake Project Management

Introduction

This vignette covers the essential aspects of managing an rmake project, including project initialization, running the build process, cleaning up generated files, and executing builds in parallel.

For an introduction to rmake concepts and basic usage, see the Getting Started with rmake vignette. For detailed information on rule types, see the Build Rules vignette. For advanced features like tasks and templates, see the Tasks and Templates vignette.

Project Initialization

To start maintaining an R project with rmake, create a script Makefile.R that generates the Makefile. Start from a skeleton:

library(rmake)
rmakeSkeleton(".")

This creates two files: - Makefile.R - R script with rule definitions - Makefile - Generated Makefile

Initial Makefile.R:

library(rmake)
job <- list()
makefile(job, "Makefile")

Running the Build Process

Execute make from within R:

make()

Or from shell:

make

In RStudio: 1. Build > Configure Build Tools 2. Set Project build tools to Makefile 3. Use Build All command

Cleaning Up

Delete all generated files:

make("clean")

Each rule automatically adds commands to delete its target files. The Makefile itself is never deleted.

Parallel Execution

GNU Make supports parallel execution with the -j option:

make("-j8")  # Run up to 8 tasks simultaneously

From shell:

make -j8

Summary

This vignette covered the basics of managing an rmake project:

Project Initialization: Use rmakeSkeleton() to create initial project files
Running Builds: Execute make() from R or make from shell, or use RStudio’s build tools
Cleaning Up: Use make("clean") to remove generated files
Parallel Execution: Use make("-j8") to run multiple targets simultaneously

Michal Burda

2026-01-09