Refactoring build system to use Autotools

Question

Over the past couple of days I have been reading into using autotools to build my project instead of the Makefiles I have pieced together over the past couple of months. Unfortunately I have not found an example that gave me enough insight towards how my project structure is currently.

I have three libraries that are included in the application code of my project. I am looking for the best way to use a single configure script to make (and install) the application, and libraries.

Autotools documentation is kind of sparse. They arn't the simplest of tools either. Very Unixified. — Aiden Bell, Jun 09 '09 at 19:47
So I've heard; the project I am working on I'd rather be easily deployed via GNU tool chain. — John Bellone, Jun 09 '09 at 23:13

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 09 '09 at 20:06

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Sorry for offtopic.

I did similar thing now, but I was able to choose between Autotools and CMake. I am happy to have choosen the second.

Might be worth looking at, including CDash, CTest and CPack. http://www.cmake.org/

Best Regards,

Ovanes

answered Jun 09 '09 at 20:06

ovanes

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Would you mind sharing some tutorials for cmake? The website just points to the book. – Amjith Jun 09 '09 at 20:57
+1 for CMake once you get started it is very easy. I use it for all my c++ projects even if I am just creating a small spike in visual studio. – iain Jun 10 '09 at 13:12

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 09 '09 at 19:49

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Here are a few I found that don't look to bad:

The last one is a free book

Good Luck

answered Jun 09 '09 at 19:49

Aiden Bell

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I've been using autotools for probably 10 years and still use the 'info automake' docs. The #2 reference here has a useful picture to grasp what is generated. I would also suggest finding an existing autotooled project such as the GNU ones that has the pattern you need - libs+app and see what they did. I'd recommend separate dirs for each library and app. – dajobe Jun 10 '09 at 00:59
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But don't just copy paste from OSS. Licence apart, there are a lot of bad autotools examples out there. – richq Jun 10 '09 at 07:25

qrdl · Answer 3 · 2009-06-09T20:54:05.767

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Here is a starter's guide to autoconf: http://amjith.blogspot.com/2009/04/autoconf-and-automake-tutorial.html

edited Jun 09 '09 at 20:54

answered Jun 09 '09 at 20:00

qrdl

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 18 '09 at 20:59

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When I read this, I was already pretty well familiar with the autotools, but it seems like a pretty good introduction: link text

answered Jul 18 '09 at 20:59

William Pursell

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Refactoring build system to use Autotools

4 Answers4