I realize I'm late to the thread, but I had good success by using "make" to tell me what it would do if the file ffplay.c had changed: make --dry-run -W ffplay.c The -W switch pretends ffplay.c has changed and --dry-run prints out the resulting MAKE commands, which are unique to your ./configuration settings and platform. My output looked like the following: printf "CC\t%s\n" ffplay.o; (followed by an over 900 character string commanding the compile) printf "LD\t%s\n" ffplay_g; (followed by almost 800 character string commanding the library use) printf "CP\t%s\n" ffplay; cp -p ffplay_g ffplay printf "STRIP\t%s\n" ffplay; strip ffplay -- View this message in context: http://ffmpeg-users.933282.n4.nabble.com/Howto-compile-ffplay-c-in-seperate-... Sent from the FFmpeg-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.