(automake-1.16.info)Standard Directory Variables

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2.2.3 Standard Directory Variables
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The GNU Coding Standards also specify a hierarchy of variables to denote
installation directories.  Some of these are:

Directory variable   Default value
-------------------------------------------------------
‘prefix’             ‘/usr/local’
  ‘exec_prefix’      ‘${prefix}’
    ‘bindir’         ‘${exec_prefix}/bin’
    ‘libdir’         ‘${exec_prefix}/lib’
    ...
  ‘includedir’       ‘${prefix}/include’
  ‘datarootdir’      ‘${prefix}/share’
    ‘datadir’        ‘${datarootdir}’
    ‘mandir’         ‘${datarootdir}/man’
    ‘infodir’        ‘${datarootdir}/info’
    ‘docdir’         ‘${datarootdir}/doc/${PACKAGE}’
  ...

   Each of these directories has a role which is often obvious from its
name.  In a package, any installable file will be installed in one of
these directories.  For instance in ‘amhello-1.0’, the program ‘hello’
is to be installed in BINDIR, the directory for binaries.  The default
value for this directory is ‘/usr/local/bin’, but the user can supply a
different value when calling ‘configure’.  Also the file ‘README’ will
be installed into DOCDIR, which defaults to
‘/usr/local/share/doc/amhello’.

   As a user, if you wish to install a package on your own account, you
could proceed as follows:

     ~/amhello-1.0 % ./configure --prefix ~/usr
     ...
     ~/amhello-1.0 % make
     ...
     ~/amhello-1.0 % make install
     ...

   This would install ‘~/usr/bin/hello’ and
‘~/usr/share/doc/amhello/README’.

   The list of all such directory options is shown by ‘./configure
--help’.