¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

Problem statement: Given a Makefile within ~/git/scaffolding/Makefile, and a command that needs to run from the scaffolding/ directory, create an all target that works from any directory.

Solution:

# The directory wherein the Makefile resides.
ROOT_DIR := $(patsubst %/,%,$(dir $(realpath $(lastword $(MAKEFILE_LIST)))))

all:
    @echo $(ROOT_DIR)
	kickstart $(ROOT_DIR)/app

.PHONY: all

Explanation:

• The echo is used only for debugging, therefore it should be removed in prod.
• The kickstart command will properly run having ~/git/scaffolding as $PWD whether you invoke it from ~/git/scaffolding or from ~/git (via make -C).
• pathsubst is needed to remove the trailing slash (/) from the directory, so that $(ROOT_DIR)/ does not yield a double slash, which works but it is ugly.

Source (adapted): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18136918/how-to-get-current-relative-directory-of-your-makefile