How do I force make/GCC to show me the commands?

Question

I'm trying to debug a compilation problem, but I cannot seem to get GCC (or maybe it is make??) to show me the actual compiler and linker commands it is executing.

Here is the output I am seeing:

  CCLD   libvirt_parthelper
libvirt_parthelper-parthelper.o: In function `main':
/root/qemu-build/libvirt-0.9.0/src/storage/parthelper.c:102: undefined reference to `ped_device_get'
/root/qemu-build/libvirt-0.9.0/src/storage/parthelper.c:116: undefined reference to `ped_disk_new'
/root/qemu-build/libvirt-0.9.0/src/storage/parthelper.c:122: undefined reference to `ped_disk_next_partition'
/root/qemu-build/libvirt-0.9.0/src/storage/parthelper.c:172: undefined reference to `ped_disk_next_partition'
/root/qemu-build/libvirt-0.9.0/src/storage/parthelper.c:172: undefined reference to `ped_disk_next_partition'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[3]: *** [libvirt_parthelper] Error 1

What I want to see should be similar to this:

$ make
gcc -Wall   -c -o main.o main.c
gcc -Wall   -c -o hello_fn.o hello_fn.c
gcc   main.o hello_fn.o   -o main

Notice how this example has the complete gcc command displayed. The above example merely shows things like "CCLD libvirt_parthelper". I'm not sure how to control this behavior.

Answer 1

To invoke a dry run:

make -n

This will show what make is attempting to do.