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5.1 Configuration requirements

The simplest way to meet the basic Automake requirements is to use the macro AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (see Autoconf macros supplied with Automake). 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 (see The effect of --gnu and --gnits).

• Use the macro AC_ARG_PROGRAM if a program or script is installed. See Transforming Program Names When Installing in The Autoconf.
• Use AC_PROG_MAKE_SET if the package is not flat. See Creating Output Files in The Autoconf Manual.
• Use AM_SANITY_CHECK to make sure the build environment is sane.
• Call AC_PROG_INSTALL (see Particular Program Checks in The Autoconf Manual).
• 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 (see Creating Output Files in The Autoconf Manual). 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.