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Questions tagged [autotools]

Autotools is a suite of programming tools (mainly autoconf, automake, and libtool) designed to assist in making source-code packages portable to many Unix-like systems.

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What are Makefile.am and Makefile.in?

These two files are mostly seen in open source projects. What are they for, and how do they work?
Mask
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What are the differences between Autotools, Cmake and Scons?

What are the differences between Autotools, Cmake and Scons?
Wazery
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Make install, but not to default directories?

I want to run 'make install' so I have everything I need, but I'd like it to install the things in their own folder as opposed to the system's /usr/bin etc. is that possible? even if it references tools in the /usr/bin etc.?
Jon Phenow
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error: Libtool library used but 'LIBTOOL' is undefined

I am trying to automake the OrientDb C++ library, but getting some errors. Makefile.am:10: error: Libtool library used but 'LIBTOOL' is undefined Makefile.am:10: The usual way to define 'LIBTOOL' is to add 'LT_INIT' Makefile.am:10: to…
Imme22009
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possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR

I have the following in configure.ac: AC_CHECK_PROGS(MAKE,$MAKE make gmake,error) if test "x$MAKE" = "xerror" ;then AC_MSG_ERROR([cannot find a make command]) fi This has been in our project for a long time, but in some set ups, I get this…
dbeer
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CFLAGS vs CPPFLAGS

I understand that CFLAGS (or CXXFLAGS for C++) are for the compiler, whereas CPPFLAGS is used by the preprocessor. But I still don't understand the difference. I need to specify an include path for a header file that is included with #include --…
EBM
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Debugging the error "gcc: error: x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc: No such file or directory"

I'm trying to build: https://github.com/kanzure/nanoengineer But it looks like it errors out on: gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../.. -I/usr/include/python2.7 -std=c99 x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall…
cat pants
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Why do shell script comparisons often use x$VAR = xyes?

I see this often in the build scripts of projects that use autotools (autoconf, automake). When somebody wants to check the value of a shell variable, they frequently use this idiom: if test "x$SHELL_VAR" = "xyes"; then ... What is the advantage…
jonner
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GNU autotools: Debug/Release targets?

I've been looking for this for a while: I'm currently converting a medium-size program to autotools, coming from an Eclipse-based method (with makefiles) I'm always used to having a "debug" build, with all debug symbols and no optimizations, and a…
cpf
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libtool version mismatch error

When building my application with kdevelop 3.5 on Ubuntu 10.04, I get the following errors: libtool: Version mismatch error. This is libtool 2.2.6 Debian-2.2.6a-4, but the libtool: definition of this LT_INIT comes from libtool 2.2.6b. libtool: You…
mspoerr
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How do I convert an Autotools project to a CMake project?

So there seems to be a lot of writing on the subject of Autotools vs. CMake, but for the life of me I can't seem to find a good tutorial on how to convert a project from Autotools (Makefile.am and configure.ac files) to CMake (CMakeLists.txt files).…
Kurtis Nusbaum
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Why use build tools like Autotools when we can just write our own makefiles?

Recently, I switched my development environment from Windows to Linux. So far, I have only used Visual Studio for C++ development, so many concepts, like make and Autotools, are new to me. I have read the GNU makefile documentation and got almost an…
Navaneeth K N
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Alternatives to Autoconf and Autotools?

I'm a very frequent user of the GNU Autotools (mostly Autoconf, occasionally Libtool). I'm working on a project where portability is going to be a sticking point.. Yet, the rest of the team is just not comfortable working with m4. I got this in my…
Tim Post
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Build 32bit on 64 bit Linux using an automake configure script?

I'm using a 64bit system but want a set of 32bit binaries. What options must I pass to a configure script to generate a 32bit/x86 makefile?
Jack Nock
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Which files generated by Autotools should I keep in version control repository?

I am new to autotools and I am working on a C project. I want to add my project to a git repository. Which files generated by the autotools I need to track in my version control system and which should be ignored?
Abhinav Upadhyay
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