(automake-1.16.info)aclocal Options

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6.3.1 aclocal Options
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‘aclocal’ accepts the following options:

‘--automake-acdir=DIR’
     Look for the automake-provided macro files in DIR instead of in the
     installation directory.  This is typically used for debugging.

     The environment variable ‘ACLOCAL_AUTOMAKE_DIR’ provides another
     way to set the directory containing automake-provided macro files.
     However ‘--automake-acdir’ takes precedence over it.

‘--system-acdir=DIR’
     Look for the system-wide third-party macro files (and the special
     ‘dirlist’ file) in DIR instead of in the installation directory.
     This is typically used for debugging.

‘--diff[=COMMAND]’
     Run COMMAND on M4 file that would be installed or overwritten by
     ‘--install’.  The default COMMAND is ‘diff -u’.  This option
     implies ‘--install’ and ‘--dry-run’.

‘--dry-run’
     Do not actually overwrite (or create) ‘aclocal.m4’ and M4 files
     installed by ‘--install’.

‘--help’
     Print a summary of the command line options and exit.

‘-I DIR’
     Add the directory DIR to the list of directories searched for ‘.m4’
     files.

‘--install’
     Install system-wide third-party macros into the first directory
     specified with ‘-I DIR’ instead of copying them in the output file.
     Note that this will happen also if DIR is an absolute path.

     When this option is used, and only when this option is used,
     ‘aclocal’ will also honor ‘#serial NUMBER’ lines that appear in
     macros: an M4 file is ignored if there exists another M4 file with
     the same basename and a greater serial number in the search path
     (Note: Serials).

‘--force’
     Always overwrite the output file.  The default is to overwrite the
     output file only when really needed, i.e., when its contents
     changes or if one of its dependencies is younger.

     This option forces the update of ‘aclocal.m4’ (or the file
     specified with ‘--output’ below) and only this file, it has
     absolutely no influence on files that may need to be installed by
     ‘--install’.

‘--output=FILE’
     Cause the output to be put into FILE instead of ‘aclocal.m4’.

‘--print-ac-dir’
     Prints the name of the directory that ‘aclocal’ will search to find
     third-party ‘.m4’ files.  When this option is given, normal
     processing is suppressed.  This option was used _in the past_ by
     third-party packages to determine where to install ‘.m4’ macro
     files, but _this usage is today discouraged_, since it causes
     ‘$(prefix)’ not to be thoroughly honored (which violates the GNU
     Coding Standards), and a similar semantics can be better obtained
     with the ‘ACLOCAL_PATH’ environment variable; Note: Extending
     aclocal.

‘--verbose’
     Print the names of the files it examines.

‘--version’
     Print the version number of Automake and exit.

‘-W CATEGORY’
‘--warnings=CATEGORY’
     Output warnings falling in CATEGORY.  CATEGORY can be one of:
     ‘syntax’
          dubious syntactic constructs, underquoted macros, unused
          macros, etc.
     ‘unsupported’
          unknown macros
     ‘all’
          all the warnings, this is the default
     ‘none’
          turn off all the warnings
     ‘error’
          treat warnings as errors

     All warnings are output by default.

     The environment variable ‘WARNINGS’ is honored in the same way as
     it is for ‘automake’ (Note: automake Invocation).