Makefile Source Code Blocks in Org Mode

The make program is a dependency-tracking build utility that is distributed with *nix systems. There are several make programs, but they each generally look for a file named makefile or Makefile, which contains rules for building one or more targets. ob-makefile.el helps the Org mode user tangle a makefile using source code blocks.

Currently, ob-makefile.el is useful only for tangling a makefile. Hopefully, at some point in the future it will support variables.

The make program is a somewhat unusual *nix utility because the TAB character is an important part of the syntax.

Emacs includes a makefile-mode for editing the makefile code.

For tangling to work, the variable org-src-preserve-indentation must be non-nil, so that tabs aren't lost in the Org mode buffer.

(setq org-src-preserve-indentation t)

Currently, there is no need to activate makefile with org-babel-do-load-languages, but it won't hurt to do so.

(org-babel-do-load-languages
 'org-babel-load-languages
 '((makefile . t)))