What is the difference between "Automake" and OPUS "Make"?

[R. T. (Fortran Man)]

What is the difference between "Automake" and OPUS "Make"?

[Lahey Support]

Automake is less flexible than OPUS make. That is OPUS Make's advantage.

Automake has these advantages:

1. Automake handles Fortran 90 module dependencies automatically (OPUS Make had problems).
2. Automake is *much* simpler to learn.
3. Automake is a one step process (with OPUS if you wanted to do things automatically you had to run MKMF then MAKE, and MKMF was not as smart as Automake).
4. Automake is done by a company (Polyhedron) that has an interest in moving the technology forward on the Fortran front.

Automake was chosen for its ability to handle Fortran 90 module dependencies. It is also, on average, easier to use than Opus Make for most applications. Unfortunately, complex makefiles developed under Opus Make are not easily ported to Automake (it is usually easier to start from scratch). There is nothing wrong with continuing to use Opus Make; just be sure that MAKE.EXE, MAKEL.EXE and MKMF.EXE are on your path, and be sure that MAKE.INI, MAKEFILE.LIB, and MAKEFILE.PRG reside in the same directory as these EXE files.

To set up Automake for a large project with components in multiple directories, it is easiest to copy all components of the project into a single (temporary) directory and run AM so it can figure out the dependencies. You can then copy the resulting AUTOMAKE.DEP file over to your working directory. You will also need to copy the file AUTOMAKE.FIG from the BIN subdirectory into the working directory and edit it so that the placemarkers for the various components describe the actual paths of those components.

Chapter 6 of the LF90 User's Guide and the file AUTOMAKE.FIG provide sufficient information on using Automake should you choose to use it.