Getting started with autotools

Question

Anyone recommend how a person could get started with autotools in building a C project?

Gregory Pakosz · Answer 1 · 2016-07-26T13:45:09.123

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Alexandre Duret-Lutz's tutorial is my resource of choice.

There are also:

To me, the autobook is not up to date anymore and more difficult to read. However it still contains interesting chapters like Writing Portable Bourne Shell.

Also, consider learning about non-recursive automake which addresses the concerns raised by Peter Miller in his Recursive Make Considered Harmful article.

EDIT: for reference, there is also Autotools Tutorial for Beginners.

edited Jul 26 '16 at 13:45

answered Nov 21 '09 at 14:09

Gregory Pakosz

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seriously? I got -1 for my answer while being the most exhaustive one... you can't be serious – Gregory Pakosz Jun 23 '10 at 10:58
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Well, ten months later, you get a +1 for being, as far as I'm concerned, the best answer. – Cascabel Aug 31 '10 at 19:08
Another +1 for the reference to the online version of practitioner's guide. I have the book at home, but sometimes need the info at work as well. – BD at Rivenhill Aug 17 '11 at 10:40

Gonzalo · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-17T02:18:34.343

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Follow the autotools tutorial.

You can also get the autobook. Chapter 4 covers a minimal GNU autotools project.

edited Nov 17 '09 at 02:18

answered Nov 17 '09 at 02:01

Gonzalo

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Really, I dislike the autobook - I found Alexandre Duret-Lutz's tutorial more helpful and actually has the form of a tutorial, just my 2 cents. – Gregory Pakosz Dec 07 '09 at 21:07
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Agreed, adl's tutorial is way better, but checking out the autobook does not hurt. – Gonzalo Dec 07 '09 at 21:44
Am i missing something or is this 'tutorial' a set of power-point-style slides? – Arthur Ulfeldt Jun 21 '10 at 20:33
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The first link gives me a "This Connection is Untrusted" error. – Flimm Nov 07 '13 at 10:21
Yeah, looks like their certificate is now signed by their own self-signed certificate. Ignore the warning and proceed. The tutorial is still there :-) – Gonzalo Nov 07 '13 at 14:10

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 17 '09 at 06:02

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I would recommend this tutorial and get the book when it's released. The tutorial really helped me a lot, it even contains a step by step conversion of an existing (non trivial) project to autotools.

answered Nov 17 '09 at 06:02

Puppe

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 15 '12 at 04:56

This is a good place to start:

http://www.dwheeler.com/autotools/ - video tutorial: Introduction to the Autotools (2012-03-05)

He makes a very good point "Beware any documentation written before 2006 is probably out of date."

After that:

http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~adl/autotools.html - autotools tutorial (556 slides) http://www.openismus.com/documents/linux/automake/automake - Using Automake and Autoconf with C++

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

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I found this tutorial given by Thomas Petazzoni at the Embedded Linux Conference 2016 very helpful to start learning autotools: Autotools: A Demystification Tutorial

Here are the associated slides: GNU Autotools Tutorial Slides

He gives demonstrations and good examples that are in my opinion a good start before going further with the already mentioned A. Duret-Lutz tutorial.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

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answered Mar 16 '17 at 14:23

Ahresse

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Getting started with autotools

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