automake: Autotools Introduction

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1 2 An Introduction to the Autotools
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1 If you are new to Automake, maybe you know that it is part of a set of
1 tools called _The Autotools_.  Maybe you’ve already delved into a
1 package full of files named ‘configure’, ‘configure.ac’, ‘Makefile.in’,
1 ‘Makefile.am’, ‘aclocal.m4’, ..., some of them claiming to be _generated
1 by_ Autoconf or Automake.  But the exact purpose of these files and
1 their relations is probably fuzzy.  The goal of this chapter is to
1 introduce you to this machinery, to show you how it works and how
1 powerful it is.  If you’ve never installed or seen such a package, do
1 not worry: this chapter will walk you through it.
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1    If you need some teaching material, more illustrations, or a less
1 ‘automake’-centered continuation, some slides for this introduction are
1 available in Alexandre Duret-Lutz’s Autotools Tutorial
1 (http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~adl/autotools.html).  This chapter is the
1 written version of the first part of his tutorial.
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Menu

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· GNU Build System            Introducing the GNU Build System
· Use Cases                   Use Cases for the GNU Build System
· Why Autotools               How Autotools Help
· Hello World                 A Small Hello World Package
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