How to make a Makefile for a program for assembly Language?

I've come across this task to build a Makefile for a program in assembly language I made (nothing fancy, like a hello world). The program is in Linux 32 bits and I'm using NASM assembler. So far I can only find Makefiles for programs for C, I'm aware that there's not much difference from one to another but I'm not familiar with this thing. What I have is this:

Program: main.o
gcc -o Program main.o
main.o: main.asm
nasm -f elf -g -F stabs main.asm

I can't tell whether this is correct or, if it does, how it works. I can't try the code because this computer doesn't have Linux. I really would like to know what's going on in the code.

First of all, read [an introduction to Makefile][1].

Your Makefile is read by the `make` program on invocation. It executes either the given rule (e.g. `make clean`) or executes the default one (usually `all`).

Each rule has a name, optional dependencies, and shell code to execute.

If you use objects file you usally start your Makefile like that:

all: main.o
gcc -o PROGRAM_NAME main.o

The dependency here is `main.o`, so it must be resolved before the execution of the code. Make searches first for a file named `main.o` and use it. If it doesn't exist, it search for a rule permitting to make the file.

You have the following:

main.o: main.asm
nasm -f elf -g -F stabs main.asm

Here the rule to make `main.o` depends on `main.asm`, which is your source file so I think it already exists. The code under the rule is then executed and has to make the file matching the rule name.
If your `nasm` invocation is correct, then the file is created and the code of the `all` (or `Program` as you named it) is executed.

So your Makefile *should* work, you just have to test it to be sure :) It is barely the same as invoking:

nasm -f elf -g -F stabs main.asm && gcc -o Program main.o

As a side note, you can still test this on windows as long as you have all the tools installed. The [cygwin][2] project provides an environment where you can install `make`, `gcc` and `nasm`.


[1]:

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[2]:

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