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6.3.1 aclocal Options ¶

aclocal accepts the following options:

--automake-acdir=dir ¶

Look for Automake-provided macro files in dir instead of in the installation directory. This is typically used for debugging.

If this option is not specified, the value of the environment variable ACLOCAL_AUTOMAKE_DIR, if set, is used to set the directory containing Automake-provided macro files. Otherwise an install-time default is used.

--aclocal-path=path ¶

Look for local third-party macro files (and the special dirlist file, see dirlist) along path (a colon-separated list of directories) instead of in the installation directory. (This can be used for building against alternative system roots (“sysroots”) for finding headers and libraries.)

If this option is not specified, the value of the environment variable ACLOCAL_PATH, if set, is used to set the search path containing local third-party macro files. Otherwise an install-time default is used.

--system-acdir=dir ¶

Look for the system-wide third-party macro files (and the special dirlist file) in dir instead of in the installation directory. This is typically used for debugging.

--diff[=command] ¶

Run command on the M4 file that would be installed or overwritten by --install. The default command is ‘diff -u’. This option implies --install and --dry-run.

--dry-run ¶

Do not overwrite (or create) aclocal.m4 and M4 files installed by --install.

--help ¶

Print a summary of the command line options and exit successfully.

-I dir ¶

Add the directory dir to the list of directories searched for .m4 files.

--install ¶

Install system-wide third-party macros into the first directory specified with ‘-I dir’ instead of copying them into the output file. This is also done if dir is an absolute path.

When this option is used, and only when this option is used, aclocal will also honor ‘#serial number’ lines that appear in macros: an M4 file is ignored if there exists another M4 file with the same basename and a greater serial number in the search path (see Serial Numbers).

--force ¶

Always overwrite the output file. The default is to overwrite the output file only when needed, i.e., when its contents change or if one of its dependencies is younger.

This option forces the update of aclocal.m4 (or the file specified with --output below) and only this file; it has no influence on files that may need to be installed by --install.

--output=file ¶

Cause the output to be put into file instead of aclocal.m4.

--print-ac-dir ¶

Print the name of the directory that aclocal will search to find third-party .m4 files. When this option is given, normal processing is suppressed. This option was used in the past by third-party packages to determine where to install .m4 macro files, but this usage is today discouraged, since it causes ‘$(prefix)’ not to be thoroughly honored (violating the GNU Coding Standards). And similar semantics can be better obtained with the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable (see Writing your own aclocal macros).

--verbose ¶

Print the names of files examined.

--version ¶

Print the version number of Automake and exit successfully.

-W CATEGORY

--warnings=category ¶

Output warnings falling in category, one of:

syntax

dubious syntactic constructs, underquoted macros, unused macros, etc.

unsupported

unknown macros.

all

all the warnings; this is the default.

none

turn off all the warnings.

no-category

turn off warnings in category.

error

treat warnings as errors.

All warnings are output by default.

The environment variable WARNINGS is honored in the same way as it is for automake (see Creating a Makefile.in: Invoking automake).