Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.


Auto-generating aclocal.m4

Automake includes a number of Autoconf macros which can be used in your package; some of them are actually required by Automake in certain situations. These macros must be defined in your `aclocal.m4'; otherwise they will not be seen by autoconf.

The aclocal program will automatically generate `aclocal.m4' files based on the contents of `configure.in'. This provides a convenient way to get Automake-provided macros, without having to search around. Also, the aclocal mechanism is extensible for use by other packages.

At startup, aclocal scans all the `.m4' files it can find, looking for macro definitions. Then it scans `configure.in'. Any mention of one of the macros found in the first step causes that macro, and any macros it in turn requires, to be put into `aclocal.m4'.

The contents of `acinclude.m4', if it exists, are also automatically included in `aclocal.m4'. This is useful for incorporating local macros into `configure'.

aclocal tries to be smart about looking for new AC_DEFUNs in the files it scans. It will warn if it finds duplicates. It also tries to copy the full text of the scanned file into `aclocal.m4', including both `#' and `dnl' comments. If you want to make a comment which will be completely ignored by aclocal, use `##' as the comment leader.

aclocal accepts the following options:

--acdir=dir
Look for the macro files in dir instead of the installation directory. This is typically used for debugging.
--help
Print a summary of the command line options and exit.
-I dir
Add the directory dir to the list of directories searched for `.m4' files.
--output=file
Cause the output to be put into file instead of `aclocal.m4'.
--print-ac-dir
Prints the name of the directory which aclocal will search to find the `.m4' files. When this option is given, normal processing is suppressed. This option can be used by a package to determine where to install a macro file.
--verbose
Print the names of the files it examines.
--version
Print the version number of Automake and exit.


Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.