I wonder in the installation process of configure, make, make check and make install, what does make check do? Thanks!

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3 Answers

Strictly speaking, it doesn't necessarily do anything.

If a Makefile has a target named check, then make check will "build" that target. It's typically a phony target, meaning that it is a make-scripted command rather than a file named "check" that gets created.

The gnu project advises that all gnu software should include a make check target that runs post-build tests in the build directory, so make check can be used frequently on packages distributed from the FSF. Other projects will sometimes follow this convention as well.

According to the GNU Make manual, it performs self tests on the program this makefile builds.

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make check is a command to a makefile. It does whatever the makefile defines it to do.

It sounds like a little background on makefiles would be good. This is a tutorial that my school uses for a programming course. Here are some good quotes:

Make can be used to automatically execute the many Linux commands that are needed to compile, link, and test a large C++ program. Since these commands will be executed hundreds of times during a program's development, automating these tasks is essential.

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