(automake-1.16.info)Use Cases

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2.2 Use Cases for the GNU Build System
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In this section we explore several use cases for the GNU Build System.
You can replay all of these examples on the ‘amhello-1.0.tar.gz’ package
distributed with Automake.  If Automake is installed on your system, you
should find a copy of this file in
‘PREFIX/share/doc/automake/amhello-1.0.tar.gz’, where PREFIX is the
installation prefix specified during configuration (PREFIX defaults to
‘/usr/local’, however if Automake was installed by some GNU/Linux
distribution it most likely has been set to ‘/usr’).  If you do not have
a copy of Automake installed, you can find a copy of this file inside
the ‘doc/’ directory of the Automake package.

   Some of the following use cases present features that are in fact
extensions to the GNU Build System.  Read: they are not specified by the
GNU Coding Standards, but they are nonetheless part of the build system
created by the Autotools.  To keep things simple, we do not point out
the difference.  Our objective is to show you many of the features that
the build system created by the Autotools will offer to you.

Basic Installation

Common installation procedure

Standard Targets

A list of standard Makefile targets

Standard Directory Variables

A list of standard directory variables

Standard Configuration Variables

Using configuration variables

config.site

Using a config.site file

VPATH Builds

Parallel build trees

Two-Part Install

Installing data and programs separately

Cross-Compilation

Building for other architectures

Renaming

Renaming programs at install time

DESTDIR

Building binary packages with DESTDIR

Preparing Distributions

Rolling out tarballs

Dependency Tracking

Automatic dependency tracking

Nested Packages

The GNU Build Systems can be nested