README

#the first look, contains a summary about the content and a reference to the file INSTALL

Starting from the top level directory of the package, the sequence of steps is as
follows:
autoscan (optional) Generates configure.scan, a proposal for configure.ac derived
from the source code
aclocal Places M4 macro definitions needed by autoconf into a single file. The
aclocal command first scans for macro definitions in *.m4 files in its default
directory (/usr/share/aclocal on some systems) and in the file acinclude.m4. It
next scans for macros used in the configure.ac file. It generates an aclocal.m4
file that contains definitions of all M4 macros required by autoconf and a
directory autom4te.cache.
edit configure.ac Adjust the generated proposal configure.scan or write the file
from scratch
autoconf Generates the configure script
autoheader (optional) Generates the template file config.h.in
create Makefile.in Either by hand from the static Makefile or edit Makefile.am and
run automake -a The parameter “a” adds missing files and scripts.


Except autoscan, these steps are repeated after every change of the input files.
In order to “automate” the reconfiguration they are compressed into one powerful
command:
autoreconf -vfi.
It rebuilds configure and templates. The parameters are as follows:
v verbose, to get information about the reconfiguration process
f force, to replace existing files
i install, to copy missing files into the package



If software projects are under version control, such as CVS or Subversion, there
are no files in the repository, which could be generated automatically. Thus there
are only the input files (configure.ac Makefile.am). In order to organize the calls of
the autotools there is a script typically named autogen.sh. Unfortunaly this name
is similar to the name of an existing software tool for automatic text generation
“autogen”. There is no relation between autogen and autogen.sh.