Not using Makefile.am

[Eduardo Costa]

Hi,

I'm on a project where I'm trying to use autoconf/automake to exactly
suit my needs.

This includes aliasing some ac macros found in
`/usr/share/autoconf/autoconf/general.m4' such that I can have custom
`./configure --help' messages, etc.

I guess the same would happen to anyone else using autoconf/automake
for an embedded project, as many of the standard variables, paths, and
targets filled-in by automake will just don't apply, so I've left only
those the chain needs to function properly.

Yet, I'd like automake to try parsing my `configure.in' (and
Makefile.in to the applicable extent) so it could guess which files
should be copied, but obviously it will stop as soon as it notices no
Makefile.am's are found, not giving me the chance to use it only for
copying missing files.

So my question is if anyone has faced the same situation, can give me
some hint, or knows of a similar project I can have a look at?

I'm not old or experienced enough to know, but I guess before
Makefile.am's existed, people just used just to needed files manually,
so I thought on copying `/usr/bin/automake' and remove the non-wanted,
but then it needs to have the automake's directory hardcoded on it,
and because automake's directory name uses to have it's version number
appended, other user compiling my package in a future could not
rebuild it as usual.

Perhaps I should look for the automake directory manually and use
`libdir' found on Automake/Config.pm?

Well, I hope some guru can tell me something about, I might even be
approaching all this incorrectly.

Thanks,