16.10 configure Invocation

configure recognizes the following options to control how it operates.

--help

-h

Print a summary of all of the options to configure, and exit.

--help=short

--help=recursive

Print a summary of the options unique to this package’s configure, and exit. The short variant lists options used only in the top level, while the recursive variant lists options also present in any nested packages.

--version

-V

Print the version of Autoconf used to generate the configure script, and exit.

--cache-file=file

Enable the cache: use and save the results of the tests in file, traditionally config.cache. file defaults to /dev/null to disable caching.

--config-cache

-C

Alias for --cache-file=config.cache.

--quiet

--silent

-q

Do not print messages saying which checks are being made. To suppress all normal output, redirect it to /dev/null (any error messages will still be shown).

--srcdir=dir

Look for the package’s source code in directory dir. Usually configure can determine that directory automatically.

--prefix=dir

Use dir as the installation prefix. Installation Names for more details, including other options available for fine-tuning the installation locations.

--no-create

-n

Run the configure checks, but stop before creating any output files.

configure also accepts some other, not widely useful, options. Run ‘configure --help’ for more details.