Autoconf

Autoconf is an extensible package of m4 macros that produce shell

scripts to automatically configure software source code packages.

These scripts can adapt the packages to many kinds of UNIX-like

systems without manual user intervention.  Autoconf creates a

configuration script for a package from a template file that lists the

operating system features that the package can use, in the form of m4

macro calls.

Producing configuration scripts using Autoconf requires GNU m4.  You

must install GNU m4 (version 1.1 or later, preferably 1.3 or later

for better performance) before configuring Autoconf, so that

Autoconf's configure script can find it.  The configuration scripts

produced by Autoconf are self-contained, so their users do not need to

have Autoconf (or GNU m4).

Also, some optional utilities that come with Autoconf use Perl, TCL,

and the TCL packages Expect and DejaGNU.  However, none of those

are required in order to use the main Autoconf program.  If they are

not present, the affected Autoconf utilities will not be installed.

The file INSTALL can be distributed with packages that use

Autoconf-generated configure scripts and Makefiles that conform to the

GNU coding standards.  The package's README can just give an overview

of the package, where to report bugs, and a pointer to INSTALL for

instructions on compilation and installation.  This removes the need

to maintain many similar sets of installation instructions.

The file `acconfig.h' contains short descriptions of the C preprocessor

variables that Autoconf can define, suitable for copying into other

packages' configuration headers or Makefile.in files.  You can use the

program `autoheader' to automatically create a configuration header

from a `configure.in', based on the information in `acconfig.h'.

Mail suggestions and bug reports for Autoconf to autoconf@gnu.org.

Please include the Autoconf version number, which you can get by running

"autoconf --version".  The current autoconf maintainer is Ben Elliston

<bje@cygnus.com>.