from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
makefile
A script which tells the Unix program "{make}" how to build a
particular computer program or set of programs. A makefile
contains variable assignments and rules of the form
target: inputs
commands
which say if any of the files in "inputs" has been modified
more recently than file "target" (or if the target does not
exist) then execute "commands", which will normally bulid
"target" from "inputs".
If make is run with no arguments, it looks for a makefile
called "Makefile" or "makefile".
(1995-01-05)