Re: autotools automake autoconf

[Ron Baker, Pluralitas!]

"Miles Bader" <miles@gnu.org> wrote in message 
news:87k608aaqt.fsf@catnip.gol.com...
> "Ron Baker,    Pluralitas!" <stoshu@bellsouth.net.po> writes:
>>> The one really stupid part though is the rigmarole of running the
>>> various programs in the right order (as you seemed to have been asking
>>
>> That doesn't sound "dead simple" to me.  ;)
>
> Well, writing the input files is dead simple -- it's only this little
> stupidity in command invocation that interferes with the fun.
>
>> I'm not up to speed on the "--foreign" option yet.  The documents I
>> have only say that it eases off on the GNU standards.  I have no idea
>> what the real consequences of that are?
>
> There are various files that are supposed to be in any GNU program
> distribution, like INSTALL, README, ChangeLog, AUTHORS, etc.
>
> By default, automake will bitch at you if it doesn't see them.
> --foreign makes automake shut up about this.

OK.
I think I'll skip the '--foreign' as long as it doesn't
complain on me.

>
>>>    AUTOMAKE="automake --foreign" autoreconf -i
>>
>> What is that?
>> Is that an alias?  An environment variable?
>
> It just sets the environment variable AUTOMAKE to "automake --foreign"
> and then runs autoreconf -i (when autoreconf tries to run automake, it

Did you leave out a semicolon?
      AUTOMAKE="automake --foreign"; autoreconf -i

I didn't know autoreconf reads an environment variable, "AUTOMAKE".
I don't recall seeing it in the documentation.  Thanks
for the tip.


> will run the command in that environment variable instead if it exists).
> You can presumably achieve the same thing by setting the AUTOMAKE
> environment variable via other means, if your shell doesn't support the
> above syntax (which is sh/bash syntax).

Thanks for your tips.  I think I'm rolling pretty good on
the autoreconf, ./configure stuff.

Then I wanted to add some source files to the project.
It seems the makefile made per autotools will do it
automatically but only if there is a .h for the new .c
and you put the .h in every .c that calls the new .c.
(I'm guessing it uses the #includes to also trace .c
dependencies.)

So now I'm hacking an application from an initial
Glade skelleton.  I'm trying to figure out the best
way to have the gui frontend talk with the core/backend.
Gtk doesn't seem to have user signals/events.


>
> -Miles
>
> -- 
> "An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that 
> there
> can't be a god.  He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence
> on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf
> question."  [John McCarthy]

I agree.  ;)

Thanks for your tips.

--
rb