---

5.1 Configuration requirements

The simplest way to meet the basic Automake requirements is to use the macro AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (FIXME: xref). But if you prefer, you can do the required steps by hand:

• Define the variables PACKAGE and VERSION with AC_SUBST. PACKAGE should be the name of the package as it appears when bundled for distribution. For instance, Automake defines PACKAGE to be ‘automake’. VERSION should be the version number of the release that is being developed. We recommend that you make configure.in the only place in your package where the version number is defined; this makes releases simpler.

  Automake doesn’t do any interpretation of PACKAGE or VERSION, except in ‘Gnits’ mode (FIXME xref).

• Use the macro AC_ARG_PROGRAM if a program or script is installed.
• Use AC_PROG_MAKE_SET if the package is not flat.
• Use AM_SANITY_CHECK to make sure the build environment is sane.
• Use AM_PROG_INSTALL if any scripts (see Executable Scripts) are installed by the package. Otherwise, use AC_PROG_INSTALL.
• Use AM_MISSING_PROG to see whether the programs aclocal, autoconf, automake, autoheader, and makeinfo are in the build environment. Here is how this is done:

  missing_dir=`cd $ac_aux_dir && pwd`
  AM_MISSING_PROG(ACLOCAL, aclocal, $missing_dir)
  AM_MISSING_PROG(AUTOCONF, autoconf, $missing_dir)
  AM_MISSING_PROG(AUTOMAKE, automake, $missing_dir)
  AM_MISSING_PROG(AUTOHEADER, autoheader, $missing_dir)
  AM_MISSING_PROG(MAKEINFO, makeinfo, $missing_dir)
  

Here are the other macros which Automake requires but which are not run by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE:

AC_OUTPUT

Automake uses this to determine which files to create. Listed files named Makefile are treated as Makefiles. Other listed files are treated differently. Currently the only difference is that a Makefile is removed by make distclean, while other files are removed by make clean.