a wrapper for make that searches parent directories

makeup.sh

#!/bin/sh
# I always felt 'make' ought to do this.

# Search parent directories until Makefile is found, and build there.
# All options are passed directly to make, with a possible -C if none exists.
# (If -C or -f are given on the command line, no searching is done.)

dir="."
findparents=true

for arg in "$@"; do
    case "$arg" in
        -C*|-f*) findparents=false ;;
    esac
done

while $findparents; do
    for fn in makefile Makefile; do
        if [ -e "$dir/$fn" ]; then
            #echo "==> $fn found in $dir"
            test $dir = '.' || set -- -C "$dir" "$@"
            break
        fi
    done
    if [ "$dir" -ef "$dir/.." ]; then
        break
    else
        dir="$dir/.."
    fi
done

exec ${MAKE:-make} "$@"