Flow diagram of autoconf and automake

Autoconf is a tool for producing shell scripts that automatically configure software source code packages to adapt to many kinds of UNIX-like systems. The configuration scripts produced by Autoconf are independent of it when they are run. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Automake is a programming tool that produces portable makefiles for use by the make program, used in compiling software. ... A shell script is a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Diagram of the relationships between several Unix-like systems A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ...

Together with Automake and Libtool, Autoconf forms the GNU build system. Automake is a programming tool that produces portable makefiles for use by the make program, used in compiling software. ... GNU Libtool is a GNU programming tool from the GNU build system used for creating portable software libraries. ... The GNU build system is a suite of tools produced by the GNU project that assist in making packages portable to many UNIX-like systems. ...

Autoconf makes use of GNU m4 to transform a user-written 'configure.ac' (formerly, and on older projects called 'configure.in') file to a portable shell script called 'configure'. The 'configure' script runs non-interactively, and generates customized headers and makefiles derived from pre-written templates. You could say that Autoconf compiles the M4 program in 'configure.ac' into a shell script. GNU m4 is the GNU version of the m4 macro preprocessor. ... make is a computer program that automates the compilation of programs whose files are dependent on each other. ... This article is about the computing term. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ...

Autoconf was begun in the summer of 1991 by David Mackenzie to support his work at the Free Software Foundation. In the subsequent years it grew to include enhancements from a variety of authors and became the most widely used build configuration system for writing portable free or open source software. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project. ...

Approach

Autoconf is similar to the Metaconfig package used by Perl. The imake system formerly used by the X Window System (up to X11R6.9) is closely related, but has a different philosophy. Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... imake is a C preprocessor interface to the make utility for Unix Systems. ... KDE 3. ...

The Autoconf approach to portability is to test for features, not for versions. For example, the native C compiler on SunOS 4 did not support ISO C. However, it is possible for the user or administrator to have installed an ISO C compliant compiler. A pure version based approach would not detect the presence of the ISO C compiler, but a feature testing approach would be able to discover the ISO C compiler the user had installed. The rationale of this approach is to gain the following advantages: In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... In geographic information systems, a feature comprises an item of feature data. ... Version is a state of an object or concept that varies from its previous state or condition. ... C is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ...

• the configure script can get reasonable results on newer or unknown systems
• it allows administrators to customize their machines and have the configure script take advantage of the customizations
• there's no need to keep track of minute details of versions, patch numbers, etc., to figure out whether a particular feature is supported or not

A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person employed to maintain, and operate a computer system or network. ...

See also

• GNU build system
• Sane build environment

The GNU build system is a suite of tools produced by the GNU project that assist in making packages portable to many UNIX-like systems. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into automake. ...

External links

Free software Portal

• GNU Autoconf home page
• GNU Autoconf macro archive
• The Goat Book homepage (aka the Autobook)
• Tutorial "Learning Autoconf and Automake" by Eleftherios Gkioulekas
• Learning the GNU development tools @sourceforge
• Murray Cumming (of gtkmm fame) produced these succinct Autotool info pages:*one *two.
• Autotoolset home page
• Tutorial "Using Autoconf for fun and profit" by Axel Liljencrantz shows how to perform common, useful tests like checking for headers and providing fallbacks for missing functions using Autoconf
• The "Autotools Tutorial" by Alexandre Duret-Lutz introduces Autoconf, Automake, Libtool, and Gettext.