automake: automake Invocation
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1 5 Creating a ‘Makefile.in’
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1 To create all the ‘Makefile.in’s for a package, run the ‘automake’
1 program in the top level directory, with no arguments. ‘automake’ will
1 automatically find each appropriate ‘Makefile.am’ (by scanning
1 ‘configure.ac’; ⇒configure) and generate the corresponding
1 ‘Makefile.in’. Note that ‘automake’ has a rather simplistic view of
1 what constitutes a package; it assumes that a package has only one
1 ‘configure.ac’, at the top. If your package has multiple
1 ‘configure.ac’s, then you must run ‘automake’ in each directory holding
1 a ‘configure.ac’. (Alternatively, you may rely on Autoconf’s
1 ‘autoreconf’, which is able to recurse your package tree and run
1 ‘automake’ where appropriate.)
1
1 You can optionally give ‘automake’ an argument; ‘.am’ is appended to
1 the argument and the result is used as the name of the input file. This
1 feature is generally only used to automatically rebuild an out-of-date
1 ‘Makefile.in’. Note that ‘automake’ must always be run from the topmost
1 directory of a project, even if being used to regenerate the
1 ‘Makefile.in’ in some subdirectory. This is necessary because
1 ‘automake’ must scan ‘configure.ac’, and because ‘automake’ uses the
1 knowledge that a ‘Makefile.in’ is in a subdirectory to change its
1 behavior in some cases.
1
1 Automake will run ‘autoconf’ to scan ‘configure.ac’ and its
1 dependencies (i.e., ‘aclocal.m4’ and any included file), therefore
1 ‘autoconf’ must be in your ‘PATH’. If there is an ‘AUTOCONF’ variable
1 in your environment it will be used instead of ‘autoconf’, this allows
1 you to select a particular version of Autoconf. By the way, don’t
1 misunderstand this paragraph: ‘automake’ runs ‘autoconf’ to *scan* your
1 ‘configure.ac’, this won’t build ‘configure’ and you still have to run
1 ‘autoconf’ yourself for this purpose.
1
1 ‘automake’ accepts the following options:
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1 ‘-a’
1 ‘--add-missing’
1 Automake requires certain common files to exist in certain
1 situations; for instance, ‘config.guess’ is required if
1 ‘configure.ac’ invokes ‘AC_CANONICAL_HOST’. Automake is
1 Programs::); this option will cause the missing ones to be
1 automatically added to the package, whenever possible. In general
1 if Automake tells you a file is missing, try using this option. By
1 default Automake tries to make a symbolic link pointing to its own
1 copy of the missing file; this can be changed with ‘--copy’.
1
1 Many of the potentially-missing files are common scripts whose
1 location may be specified via the ‘AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR’ macro.
1 Therefore, ‘AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR’’s setting affects whether a file is
11 considered missing, and where the missing file is added (⇒
Optional).
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11 In some strictness modes, additional files are installed, see ⇒
Gnits for more information.
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1 ‘--libdir=DIR’
1 Look for Automake data files in directory DIR instead of in the
1 installation directory. This is typically used for debugging.
1
1 The environment variable ‘AUTOMAKE_LIBDIR’ provides another way to
1 set the directory containing Automake data files. However
1 ‘--libdir’ takes precedence over it.
1
1 ‘--print-libdir’
1 Print the path of the installation directory containing
1 Automake-provided scripts and data files (like e.g., ‘texinfo.texi’
1 and ‘install-sh’).
1
1 ‘-c’
1 ‘--copy’
1 When used with ‘--add-missing’, causes installed files to be
1 copied. The default is to make a symbolic link.
1
1 ‘-f’
1 ‘--force-missing’
1 When used with ‘--add-missing’, causes standard files to be
1 reinstalled even if they already exist in the source tree. This
1 involves removing the file from the source tree before creating the
1 new symlink (or, with ‘--copy’, copying the new file).
1
1 ‘--foreign’
1 Set the global strictness to ‘foreign’. For more information, see
1 ⇒Strictness.
1
1 ‘--gnits’
1 Set the global strictness to ‘gnits’. For more information, see
1 ⇒Gnits.
1
1 ‘--gnu’
1 Set the global strictness to ‘gnu’. For more information, see
1 ⇒Gnits. This is the default strictness.
1
1 ‘--help’
1 Print a summary of the command line options and exit.
1
1 ‘-i’
1 ‘--ignore-deps’
1 This disables the dependency tracking feature in generated
1 ‘Makefile’s; see ⇒Dependencies.
1
1 ‘--include-deps’
1 This enables the dependency tracking feature. This feature is
1 enabled by default. This option is provided for historical reasons
1 only and probably should not be used.
1
1 ‘--no-force’
1 Ordinarily ‘automake’ creates all ‘Makefile.in’s mentioned in
1 ‘configure.ac’. This option causes it to only update those
1 ‘Makefile.in’s that are out of date with respect to one of their
1 dependents.
1
1 ‘-o DIR’
1 ‘--output-dir=DIR’
1 Put the generated ‘Makefile.in’ in the directory DIR. Ordinarily
1 each ‘Makefile.in’ is created in the directory of the corresponding
1 ‘Makefile.am’. This option is deprecated and will be removed in a
1 future release.
1
1 ‘-v’
1 ‘--verbose’
1 Cause Automake to print information about which files are being
1 read or created.
1
1 ‘--version’
1 Print the version number of Automake and exit.
1
1 ‘-W CATEGORY’
1 ‘--warnings=CATEGORY’
1 Output warnings falling in CATEGORY. CATEGORY can be one of:
1 ‘gnu’
11 warnings related to the GNU Coding Standards (⇒
(standards)Top).
1 ‘obsolete’
1 obsolete features or constructions
1 ‘override’
1 user redefinitions of Automake rules or variables
1 ‘portability’
1 portability issues (e.g., use of ‘make’ features that are
1 known to be not portable)
1 ‘extra-portability’
1 extra portability issues related to obscure tools. One
1 example of such a tool is the Microsoft ‘lib’ archiver.
1 ‘syntax’
1 weird syntax, unused variables, typos
1 ‘unsupported’
1 unsupported or incomplete features
1 ‘all’
1 all the warnings
1 ‘none’
1 turn off all the warnings
1 ‘error’
1 treat warnings as errors
1
1 A category can be turned off by prefixing its name with ‘no-’. For
1 instance, ‘-Wno-syntax’ will hide the warnings about unused
1 variables.
1
1 The categories output by default are ‘obsolete’, ‘syntax’ and
1 ‘unsupported’. Additionally, ‘gnu’ and ‘portability’ are enabled
1 in ‘--gnu’ and ‘--gnits’ strictness.
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1 Turning off ‘portability’ will also turn off ‘extra-portability’,
1 and similarly turning on ‘extra-portability’ will also turn on
1 ‘portability’. However, turning on ‘portability’ or turning off
1 ‘extra-portability’ will not affect the other category.
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1 The environment variable ‘WARNINGS’ can contain a comma separated
1 list of categories to enable. It will be taken into account before
1 the command-line switches, this way ‘-Wnone’ will also ignore any
1 warning category enabled by ‘WARNINGS’. This variable is also used
1 by other tools like ‘autoconf’; unknown categories are ignored for
1 this reason.
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1 If the environment variable ‘AUTOMAKE_JOBS’ contains a positive
1 number, it is taken as the maximum number of Perl threads to use in
1 ‘automake’ for generating multiple ‘Makefile.in’ files concurrently.
1 This is an experimental feature.
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