"Autoconf is an extensible package of [m4] macros that produce [shell] [script]s to automatically configure software source code packages,"
according to its official home page
[http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/].  But it ''really'' is ...  for the purpose of ...
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'''autoconf''' acts on '''configure.in''' to generate '''configure'''.

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This 
[http://la-samhna.de/library/compile/configure.html] "Compile-Howto"
usefully introduces autoconf.

[http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/gnu/autoconf/html_chapter/autoconf_3.html#SEC9] explains "The Autoconf Language". Particularly useful is the explanation of [[brackets]], which seem to behave very much as {braces} do in Tcl.

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[drh] describes
"Using Autoconf With [Mktclapp]"
[http://www.hwaci.com/sw/mktclapp/autoconf.html].

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"Stop the autoconf insanity! Why we need a new build system."
[http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/889/]


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[[Refer to TIP 34?]]

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Helpful tip: autoconf 2.5 (ick!) has a habit of creating a file called "autom4te.cache" each time it's run.
The purpose of this file is supposedly to make subsequent autoconf runs go faster; 
but in practice it mostly seems to just make subsequent autoconf runs do the wrong thing because of stale data.

To make autoconf 2.5 (ick!) stop doing that, create a ".autom4te.cfg" file in your home directory containing the following lines:

 begin-language: "Autoconf"
 args: --no-cache
 end-language: "Autoconf"


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[Category Application] | [Category Deployment] |
[Category Dev. tools] |
[Category Porting]