14.5 The Types of Distributions

Automake generates rules to provide archives of the project for distributions in various formats. Their targets are:

dist-gzip

Generate a ‘gzip’ tar archive of the distribution. This is the only format enabled by default. By default, this rule makes gzip use a compression option of -9 (more widely supported than --best). To make it use a different one, set the GZIP_ENV environment variable. For example, ‘make dist-gzip GZIP_ENV=-7’. GZIP_ENV is not used when decompressing.

dist-bzip2

Generate a ‘bzip2’ tar archive of the distribution. bzip2 archives are usually smaller than gzipped archives. By default, this rule makes ‘bzip2’ use a compression option of -9. To make it use a different one, set the BZIP2 environment variable.

dist-lzip

Generate an ‘lzip’ tar archive of the distribution. lzip archives are usually smaller than bzip2-compressed archives. By default, this rule makes ‘lzip’ use a compression option of -9. To make it use a different one, set the LZIP_OPT environment variable.

dist-xz

Generate an ‘xz’ tar archive of the distribution. xz archives are usually smaller than bzip2-compressed archives. By default, this rule makes ‘xz’ use a compression option of -e. To make it use a different one, set the XZ_OPT environment variable. For example, run this command to use the default compression ratio, but with a progress indicator: ‘make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-ve’.

dist-zip

Generate a ‘zip’ archive of the distribution.

dist-zstd

Generate a zstd tar archive of the distribution. By default, this rule makes zstd use a compression option of -19. To use a different setting, set the ZSTD_OPT environment variable. For example, run this command to use the default compression ratio, but with a progress indicator: ‘make dist-zstd ZSTD_OPT=-19v’. However, note that for compatibility with zstd itself, you may instead set the ZSTD_CLEVEL environment variable, in which case, any ZSTD_OPT setting is ignored.

dist-shar

Generate a ‘shar’ archive of the distribution. This format archive is obsolescent, and use of this option is deprecated. It and the corresponding functionality will be removed altogether in Automake 2.0.

dist-tarZ

Generate a tar archive of the distribution, compressed with the historical (and obsolescent) program compress. This option is deprecated, and it and the corresponding functionality will be removed altogether in Automake 2.0.

The rule dist (and its historical synonym dist-all) will create archives in all the enabled formats (see List of Automake options for how to change this list). By default, only the dist-gzip target is enabled by dist.