4.11 Creating Configuration Links

You may find it convenient to create links whose destinations depend upon results of tests. One can use AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS but the creation of relative symbolic links can be delicate when the package is built in a directory different from the source directory.

Macro: AC_CONFIG_LINKS (dest:source…, [cmds], [init-cmds])

Make AC_OUTPUT link each of the existing files source to the corresponding link name dest. Makes a symbolic link if possible, otherwise a hard link if possible, otherwise a copy. The dest and source names should be relative to the top level source or build directory, and should not contain shell metacharacters. See Special Chars in Variables.

This macro is one of the instantiating macros; see Configuration Actions.

For example, this call:

AC_CONFIG_LINKS([host.h:config/$machine.h
                object.h:config/$obj_format.h])

creates in the current directory host.h as a link to srcdir/config/$machine.h, and object.h as a link to srcdir/config/$obj_format.h.

The tempting value ‘.’ for dest is invalid: it makes it impossible for ‘config.status’ to guess the links to establish.

One can then run:

./config.status host.h object.h

to create the links.