Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool: Generated Output Files

| ## 5.2 Generated Output Files By studying the diagram in C. Generated File Dependencies, it should be possible to see which commands must be run to generate the required output files from the input files shown in the last section. First, we generate ``configure'`:
    $ aclocal
    $ autoconf
Because ``configure.in'` contains macro invocations which are not known to autoconf itself--`AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE` being a case in point, it is necessary to collect all of the macro definitions for autoconf to use when generating ``configure'`. This is done using the `aclocal` program, so called because it generates ``aclocal.m4'` (see section C. Generated File Dependencies). If you were to examine the contents of ``aclocal.m4'`, you would find the definition of the `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE` macro contained within. After running `autoconf`, you will find a ``configure'` script in the current directory. It is important to run `aclocal` first because `automake` relies on the contents of ``configure.in'` and ``aclocal.m4'`. On to `automake`:
    $ automake --add-missing
    automake: configure.in: installing ./install-sh
    automake: configure.in: installing ./mkinstalldirs
    automake: configure.in: installing ./missing
    automake: Makefile.am: installing ./INSTALL
    automake: Makefile.am: required file ./NEWS not found
    automake: Makefile.am: required file ./README not found
    automake: Makefile.am: installing ./COPYING
    automake: Makefile.am: required file ./AUTHORS not found
    automake: Makefile.am: required file ./ChangeLog not found
The ``--add-missing'` option copies some boilerplate files from your Automake installation into the current directory. Files such as ``COPYING'`, which contain the GNU General Public License change infrequently, and so can be generated without user intervention. A number of utility scripts are also installed--these are used by the generated ``Makefile'`s, particularly by the `install` target. Notice that some required files are still missing. These are: ``NEWS'` A record of user-visible changes to a package. The format is not strict, but the changes to the most recent version should appear at the top of the file. ``README'` The first place a user will look to get an overview for the purpose of a package, and perhaps special installation instructions. ``AUTHORS'` Lists the names, and usually mail addresses, of individuals who worked on the package. ``ChangeLog'` The ChangeLog is an important file--it records the changes that are made to a package. The format of this file is quite strict (see section 5.5 Documentation and ChangeLogs). For now, we'll do enough to placate Automake:
    $ touch NEWS README AUTHORS ChangeLog
    $ automake --add-missing
Automake has now produced a ``Makefile.in'`. At this point, you may wish to take a snapshot of this directory before we really let loose with automatically generated files. By now, the contents of the directory will be looking fairly complete and reminiscent of the top-level directory of a GNU package you may have installed in the past:
    AUTHORS	   INSTALL      NEWS        install-sh    mkinstalldirs
    COPYING    Makefile.am  README      configure     missing
    ChangeLog  Makefile.in  aclocal.m4  configure.in
It should now be possible to package up your tree in a `tar` file and give it to other users for them to install on their own systems. One of the `make` targets that Automake generates in ``Makefile.in'` makes it easy to generate distributions (see section 13. Rolling Distribution Tarballs). A user would merely have to unpack the `tar` file, run `configure` (see section 3. How to run configure and make) and finally type `make all`:
    $ ./configure
    creating cache ./config.cache
    checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
    checking whether build environment is sane... yes
    checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes
    checking for working aclocal... found
    checking for working autoconf... found
    checking for working automake... found
    checking for working autoheader... found
    checking for working makeinfo... found
    checking for gcc... gcc
    checking whether the C compiler (gcc  ) works... yes
    checking whether the C compiler (gcc  ) is a cross-compiler... no
    checking whether we are using GNU C... yes
    checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
    checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
    checking for flex... flex
    checking for flex... (cached) flex
    checking for yywrap in -lfl... yes
    checking lex output file root... lex.yy
    checking whether yytext is a pointer... yes
    checking for bison... bison -y
    updating cache ./config.cache
    creating ./config.status
    creating Makefile

    $ make all
    gcc -DPACKAGE=\"foonly\" -DVERSION=\"1.0\" -DYYTEXT_POINTER=1  -I. -I. \
      -g -O2 -c main.c
    gcc -DPACKAGE=\"foonly\" -DVERSION=\"1.0\" -DYYTEXT_POINTER=1  -I. -I. \
      -g -O2 -c foo.c
    flex   scanner.l && mv lex.yy.c scanner.c
    gcc -DPACKAGE=\"foonly\" -DVERSION=\"1.0\" -DYYTEXT_POINTER=1  -I. -I. \
      -g -O2 -c scanner.c
    bison -y   parser.y && mv y.tab.c parser.c
    if test -f y.tab.h; then \
      if cmp -s y.tab.h parser.h; then rm -f y.tab.h; \
      else mv y.tab.h parser.h; fi; \
    else :; fi
    gcc -DPACKAGE=\"foonly\" -DVERSION=\"1.0\" -DYYTEXT_POINTER=1  -I. -I. \
      -g -O2 -c parser.c
    gcc  -g -O2  -o foonly  main.o foo.o scanner.o parser.o -lfl

This document was generated by Gary V. Vaughan on May, 24 2001 using texi2html