What is the future of Autotools?

[NeilBlue]

I have looked at using autoconf, automake etc a few times now, and it seems initially like a good system if you are running linux or unix.

However getting started with autotools is not easy, as I have yet to find an up-to-date tutorial on them, and the docs are rather spread out.

Looking round I have found other offerings such as aap and (s)cons, but they require the end user to have perl or python installed. Ant and Maven seem to be doing well, but are very java biased though I know they can be used with non-java code, and like the other alternatives require extra apps to be installed in order to use them.

I just wanted to find out what other developers thought about autotools and what the current trend is for building cross platform easy to install projects.

Neil

[Stuka]

My $.02:
The GNU Autotools are the workhorse of the C programmer for Linux/Unix. While Ant, Maven, etc. all strive to be replacements (though AFAIK, Ant is a make replacement, NOT an automake/autoconf replacement), they do require extra components that a target platform may not have. The best thing about the autotools is that they depend on nothing other than the shell - and any mostly-POSIX compliant system should be able to handle the configure script, etc.

Assessment: the day may come when something supplants the GNU autotools, but I don't see it being any day too soon.

[NeilBlue]

Thanks Stuka,

The problem I find is the overhead to get going with the autotools is quite high. I think they do a great job, but there don't seem to be many tutorials or guides and the docs are hard to follow as you need to read autoconf automake and libtool docs together to understand what is going on.

For example a problem I have at the moment is trying to get autoreconf to call automake, the docs of autoconf don't tell you how to do this.

I just wonder if the hurdle to get going with the autotools may be off putting for new linux developers.

[Stuka]

I won't argue that point - but there is a New Riders book out on the full suite. Maybe if you're serious, the cost of the book is worth it (though I haven't read it, so I can't say).

[mart_man00]

I was thinking about learning more about ebuilds and rpm, but i think id like to do it the righy way first.

Is there any tools for the tool?

After reading this post and printing some manuals id love a gui. I still cant get over how big it got. Maybe its just overwelming at first...

[NeilBlue]

The links I have are to the autotools book and a tutorial.

http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/
http://www.seul.org/docs/autotut/

the book is good but quite far out of date now and some of the examples don't work with the more recent versions automake and autoconf.

[bwkaz]

Bah, just learn the m4 language. You'll be all set for autoconf / automake then. :p

Actually, considering the state of the online docs, this is almost what I had to do when I taught autotools to myself. But I ended up finding /usr/share/autoconf and all the .m4 files in there, plus some scattered elsewhere in /usr/share, which helped quite a bit (using those, I could keep to just the pieces of m4 that autotools used).

However, the autotools info nodes were a pretty decent help in the end, also (info autoconf, then hit the 'u' key twice, then start reading). They're GNU programs, so the manpages aren't very good (or may not even be there).

[Citadel]

Originally posted by NeilBlue

I just wonder if the hurdle to get going with the autotools may be off putting for new linux developers.

Yes. < ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/Manuals >.

Newest manuals:
Autoconf-2.57 < ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/Manuals/autoconf-2.57/html_chapter/autoconf_toc.html >.
Automake-1.7 < ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/Manuals/automake-1.7.2/html_node/automake_toc.html >.

If want pdf versions download the .dvi version and use:
dvipdf filename.dvi filename.pdf

[NeilBlue]

Thanks Citadel,

Breathing life into an old post. I have been working through these docs and in the end distilled what I learn't into a single document on my site with a helper script:

http://www.icu.isa-geek.org

Cheers
Neil

[Citadel]

Nice! I like it. I think I'll read it over. Good idea.