More shell variables What about adding -lm to link only? #!/gnu/usr/bin/bash CXXFLAGS="-Wall -g -ansi -pedantic" LDFLAGS="-lm" g++ $CXXFLAGS -c file1.cc g++ $CXXFLAGS -c file2.cc g++ $CXXFLAGS $LDFLAGS -o prog \ file1.o file2.o