====== Dependencies ======

Any complex design will involve a large number of ACT files and namespaces. 
For a hierarchical design with many imported libraries, it is useful to be able to determine dependency information and see if all the libraries are present in the directories where ACT can find them. The command ''adepend'' is used to check dependencies.

For C/C++ programs, many systems have the utility ''makedepend'' that generates a list of dependencies for each file in a syntax that can readily integrated into a ''Makefile.'' ACT provides ''adepend'' for the same functionality. For example, running it on the ''adder8b.act'' [[intro_example:loops|example]]  would have the following result:

<code>
$ adepend adder8b.act
adder8b.act:  adder.act   gates.act
</code>

Here, running adepend on ''adderb8.act'' shows that it depends on the ''adder.act'' and ''gates.act''.