[SOLVED] Determine if 'make' Command Fails in Bash Script

Issue

Specifically:

make --directory=$1/build
if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
   echo "Bad build"
   exit 1
else
   echo "Good build"
fi

This does not 'fail' when it actually fails. If it matters...the makefiles are generated by CMake.

Solution

The GNU make man page says (emphasis added):

GNU make exits with a status of zero if all makefiles were successfully parsed and no targets that were built failed. A status of one will be returned if the -q flag was used and make determines that a target needs to be rebuilt. A status of two will be returned if any errors were encountered.

So you need to check for $? -eq 2 to detect errors.

Since you didn't use -q, you can also just check if the exit status is non-zero:

if make --directory="$1/build"
then
    echo "Good build"
else
    echo "Bad build"
    exit 1
fi

Don't forget to quote $1 in case it contains whitespace.

Answered By - Barmar