Re: Newbie question: How to compile a project?

[Markus Gerwinski]

Philip Willoughby wrote:
> In my experience, it's usually a good idea to use autoscan to generate a
> first try at configure.ac (it will call it configure.scan, so rename it).

I tried so and added the line you recommended (slightly modified):

  AM_PATH_GTKMM([2.2.0], , AC_ERROR([GTKMM was not found]))

... but now calling aclocal yields an error message:

  aclocal: configure.in: 14: macro `AM_PATH_GTKMM' not found in library

I tried to fix this with the aclocal option you mentioned (see below), but
without success.

> Then write Makefile.am yourself -- it usually isn't too complex.

How do I do that? I'm completely new to the auto* tools, so I don't have the
foggiest idea what phrases belong into a Makefile.am. At the moment, I can
only look into existing files and try to copy their contents in a way that
seems to make sense.

> Starting with an existing one and removing bits is a bad plan -- there'll
> be a lot of irrelevant stuff left, and you'll have no idea what anything
> does, so changes will be more difficult.

Do you know a source where to find a really, really simple example? Up to now,
I only found the official documentation from gnu.org and that autotut site, but
their examples don't seem to fit what I'm trying. (As I said, they were what I
copied and modified to start with.)

> The aclocal error is because you need to tell aclocal the path to gtk.m4
> and/or gtkmm.m4.  If gtk.m4 was in /opt/gnome/share/aclocal for instance,
> you'd need to run:
> 
> aclocal -I /opt/gnome/share/aclocal

You mean the aclocal error I'm getting now? As it seems, the gtkmm tarball
didn't include a gtkmm.m4. There are a few .m4 files in my gtkmm installation
dir, but running aclocal with a path to them doesn't avoid the error.

What now?

Thank you for your help,

  Markus