Gnu-autotools

[Coleman Kane]

On Tue, 2009-10-13 at 21:17 -0400, D. Bahi wrote:
> Lori Nagel wrote:
> > I was wondering where I could find some good tutorials on gnu-autotools and using them in free software projects -thanks. 
> > 
> 
> I would also like to see a condensed tutorial that would demystify this
> art for me... till then I've made use of these:
> 
> the IDE "Anjuta"
> 
>   http://projects.gnome.org/anjuta/features.shtml
> 
> has a project wizard (using autogen) to create autotool based projects.
> it also has an autotool based project manager.
> 
> 
> more generically
> 
> short (hah) - http://fsmsh.com/2753
> 
> longer - http://sourceware.org/autobook/

Sourceware's HOWTO has always been a bit outdated. There is currently a
push in the automake and autoconf projects to better structure their
work, hopefully deprecating the 'aclocal' tool in the future for a
better alternative.

> 
> and sources:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autogen/
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/autogen/manual/autogen.html
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf.html
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/libtool.html
> 

I've found the source code for the X.org projects to be a set of good
examples for the common use cases for Autotools:
  * Build and Install a shared library using libtool
  * Build and Install an executable program
  * Build and/or Install a package consisting only of Header files
  * Build and/or Install a non-software package (like a set of bitmaps 
    or fonts)

You can view them at:
  * http://cgit.freedesktop.org/

Typically, the team there attempts to upgrade their configure.ac files
(the proper name now, so stop using 'configure.in') as well as their
Makefile.am files to track the features and syntax in the latest
releases from autotools.

You can also ask me... I'm a pretty good resource for this stuff. I've
been playing with it for a long long time, and I keep track of the devel
lists for libtool, automake, and autoconf.

-- 
Coleman Kane