
Steven T. Hatton wrote: Autotools documentation is really not that good, but when you get it, well, you get it. The most common way you use it (in this order) is as follows: input program output acinclude.m4/configure.ac aclocal aclocal.m4 configure.ac autoheader config.h.in Makefile.am automake -a Makefile.in Makefile.in/config.h.in/aclocal.m4 ./configure Makefile Another great feature of autotools is the sanity checks. Once you have a Makefile, you don't need worry anymore (most of the time). If you modify configure.ac, just type make and it goes through all process needed to generate the new Makefile for you. The ./configure script has several advantages compared to custom makefiles. I usually set a lot of flags when developing. to optimize: CXXFLAGS="-O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -DNDEBUG" ./configure --prefix=/usr to debug overflows LDFLAGS="-lefence" ./configure --prefix=/usr and so on. []s Davi
I have to admit, I have never gained a good sense of how to use the gnu Autotools, though I've spent far more time trying than I have with Ant. TrollTech's qmake, OTOH, is very easy to learn. It may simply be the case that Ant hasn't attempted the more complex things Autotools address. I can see some things in Ant which if not addressed soon will lead to the same kinds of obscurity I find in the Autotools.
However, when I try to understand what all of it means, I am at a loss. Is there a problem brewing with this system? When one script generates another, which generates yet another, it seems there is a potential for the result to become incomprehensible even to the creators of the tools. Does anybody share my concern?
STH