Autotools: A Practitioner's Guide to GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool

586 Pages·2019·26.159 MB·English

by  John Calcote

2ND EDITION
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A P R A C T I T I O N E R ’ S G U I D E T O
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The GNU Autotools make it easy to create software that Along the way, you’ll learn how to: G N U A U T O C O N F , A U T O M A K E , A N D L I B T O O L
is portable across many Unix-like operating systems,
• Master the Autotools build system to maximize your
even Windows.
software’s portability TT
Autotools is a tutorial-based guide to the GNU build
• Generate Autoconf configuration scripts to simplify
system. You’ll begin with an overview of high-level J O H N C A L C O T E
concepts and a hands-on tour of the philosophy and the compilation process OO
design of the Autotools. Next, you will tackle details like • Produce portable makefiles with Automake
using the M4 macro processor with Autoconf, extending
• Build cross-platform software libraries with Libtool
the Automake framework, and building Java and C# TT
sources. At the end you’ll find answers to frequently • Write your own Autoconf macros
encountered problems.
Stop fighting against the system and make sense of it all OO
This second edition has been updated to cover the latest with the second edition of Autotools!
versions of the Autotools. Seven new chapters cover
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
topics like pkg-config, unit and integration testing with
OO
Autotest, internationalizing with GNU tools, the portabil- John Calcote is a senior software engineer at Hammer
ity of gnulib, and using the Autotools with Windows. space.com, a software company specializing in cloud
You’ll focus on two projects: a simple “Hello, world!” data management. He has been writing portable
program, and a complex open source effort containing networking and storage software for over 25 years LL
four separate but interdependent subprojects. and actively develops, debugs, and analyzes diverse
open source software packages.
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AUTOTOOLS

A U T O T O O L S
2 N D E D I T I O N
A Practitioner’s Guide to
GNU Autoconf, Automake,
and Libtool
by John Calcote
San Francisco
AUTOTOOLS, 2ND EDITION. Copyright © 2020 by John Calcote.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
ISBN-10: 1-59327-972-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-972-1
Publisher: William Pollock
Production Editor: Janelle Ludowise
Cover and Interior Design: Octopod Studios
Developmental Editor: Ellie Bru
Technical Reviewer: Eric Blake
Copyeditor: Barton D. Reed
Compositors: Janelle Ludowise and Danielle Foster
Proofreader: Paula L. Fleming
Indexer: Beth Nauman-Montana
For information on distribution, translations, or bulk sales, please contact No Starch Press, Inc. directly:
No Starch Press, Inc.
245 8th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
phone: [phone]; [email protected]
www.nostarch.com
The Library of Congress has catalogued the first edition as follows:
Calcote, John, 1964-
Autotools : a practitioner's guide to GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool / by John Calcote.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-206-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59327-206-5 (pbk.)
1. Autotools (Electronic resource) 2. Cross-platform software development. 3. Open source software.
4. UNIX (Computer file) I. Title.
QA76.76.D47C335 2010
005.3--dc22
2009040784
No Starch Press and the No Starch Press logo are registered trademarks of No Starch Press, Inc. Other
product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Rather
than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are using the names only
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has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor No Starch Press, Inc. shall have any
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For Michelle
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love forever.
—Robert Burns

About the Author
John Calcote is currently a senior software engineer at Hammerspace.com,
a software company specializing in cloud data management. He’s been
writing portable networking and storage software for over 25 years and
is active in developing, debugging, and analyzing diverse open source
software packages. John is an advocate for the open source movement,
participating in a number of open source communities.
About the Technical Reviewer
Eric Blake has contributed to a variety of open source projects since 2000.
He became maintainer for GNU M4 in 2006, and GNU Autoconf in 2007.
Eric currently works at Red Hat Inc. since 2010, where his primary focus
has been on the qemu and libvirt virtualization software. He is also an active
participant in the Austin Group which maintains the POSIX specification.