Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/m-grant-prg/acmbuild

AutoTools Bootstrap Script.
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/acmbuild

autoconf automake autotools bash libtool

Last synced: 4 months ago
JSON representation

AutoTools Bootstrap Script.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
-----------------------------------

AutoConf and AutoMake Build Scripts

===================================



Author - Copyright (C) 2014-2021, 2023, 2025 Mark Grant



--------

Contents

========



1 ... Project Description



2 ... AutoTools (configure and make) Installation



3 ... Installation of Distro-Native Packages



4 ... Utility Scripts



-------------------------

1 ... Project Description

=========================



This project produces a helper script for AutoTools projects. It has two main

goals; to reduce repetitive typing of some AutoTools commands, and, to afford a

more standard interface for the programmer across AutoTools projects.



Design

------

At the command line level the script offers it's own options and provides that

all other arguments are passed unparsed and untouched straight to the configure

command line. For example:-



	acmbuild --config .. sysconfdir=/etc -- --prefix=/usr



In this case --config is an acmbuild option to configure the project, .. is the

base directory and everything else is passed untouched to configure, invoking:-



	../configure sysconfdir=/etc --prefix=/usr



thereby obviously supporting environment variable setting and option passing for

configure.



The acmbuild options come in two flavours; action options and enabling options.



b, c, C, D, g, K, m and T are action options. -b, for instance will run make,

whereas -D will run make dist.



The rest, (apart from help and version), are enabling options. Invariably these

are implemented merely by passing an enable argument to configure. For example



	acmbuild --config --debug ..



will run



	configure --enable-debug=yes



That is all. For it to be meaningful the developer must process this argument

in configure. The script does not know if the option is sensible, or indeed, if

it is supported by configure, so, in the above example, if the developer had not

written code in configure to process this argument, configure will issue a

warning and then just ignore the option.



As an example of the simplification this script affords, the following acmbuild

command



	acmbuild -cb .



will run



	autoreconf -if .

	./configure (plus options)

	make (plus options)



Implementation

--------------

The project functionality is implemented as two scripts; acmbuild and

bootstrap.sh. acmbuild does nothing more than invoke bootstrap.sh with the same

arguments. This means that all the functionality is in bootstrap.sh. On project

install both scripts are installed but only acmbuild is installed in the PATH.

So all usage is via acmbuild. The reason for this is that it enables a secondary

usage of bootstrap.sh. bootstrap.sh can be copied and pasted into the

project-root of all AutoTools project to provide a simplified and standardised

build bootstrap as is generally recommended. This eliminates any possible

confusion as to which version of bootstrap.sh is being used whilst also

obviating any dependency on this project.



Command Line Syntax

-------------------

	acmbuild -b [-c [-a] [-A] [{--CC=COMPILER|-s}] [-d] [-H] [-m] [-t] [-v]]

		[-g] [-K] [-pX] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] [-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]

	acmbuild -c [-a] [-A] [{--CC=COMPILER|-s}] [-d] [-H] [-m] [-pX] [-t] [-v]

		[PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] [-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]

	acmbuild -c {-i|-S} [--CC=COMPILER] [-pX] [-v] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT]

		[-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]

	acmbuild {-C|-D|-T} [-c] [-g] [-pX] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT]

		[-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]

	acmbuild -g [-b]

		[-c [-a] [-A] [{--CC=COMPILER|-s}] [-d] [-H] [-m] [-t] [-v]]

		[-K] [-pX] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] [-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]

	acmbuild {-h|-V}

	acmbuild -K [-b]

		[-c [-a] [-A] [{--CC=COMPILER|-s}] [-d] [-H] [-m] [-t] [-v]]

		[-g] [-pX] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] [-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]



	acmbuild [OPTIONS] [PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] [-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS ...]



Options

-------

The script offers the following options:-



	-a, --at-only

		during  testing  and  for  an AutoTools-only install, some build

		changes are required. e.g. You may reference  an  external  Java

		jar  in  datadir but in AT builds and installations this may ex‐

		pand to /usr/local/share... So a substitution  is  required  for

		this scenario.



	-A, --analyzer

		enable compiler analyzer output.



	-b, --build

		make the project.



	-c, --config

		configure the project.



	-C, --distcheck

		perform a normal make distcheck.



	--CC compiler

		Specify a compiler to use. Functionally equivalent to:-

		bootstrap.sh -c . -- CC=compiler

		More ephemerally, as a one-off you can use:-

		make CC=compiler



	-d, --debug

		build with appropriate debug flags.



	-D, --dist

		perform a make dist.



	-g, --gnulib

		run  gnulib-tool --update. Checks for the existence of the cache

		file proj-root/m4/gnulib-cache.m4. If it does not exist the  up‐

		date is not run.



	-h, --help

		prints usage information.



	-H, --header-check

		show include stack depth



	-i, --iwyu

		Run clang's include-what-you-use to analyse header file usage.

		include-what-you-use  invokes the clang compiler, so this option

		automatically sets clang as the compiler and requires  that  op‐

		tion c is specified.



	-K, --check

		run make check



	-m, --config-menu

		invoke menu of configurable options. The only thing fixed is the

		script name, configurable-options.sh in the project root  direc‐

		tory. Usually this would be expected to have a dialog interface.



	-p[X], --parallel-jobs[=X]

		if  X  is specified then make runs with X parallel jobs. If X is

		not specified then make will run with the same number of jobs as

		processors.  If  this option is not specified then make runs se‐

		quentially.



	-s, --sparse

		pass --enable-sparse=yes to configure.



	-S, --scan-build

		Run clang's scan-build static analyser.



	-t, --testing-hacks

		some build changes may be required for testing purposes.  e.g. A

		script  may  invoke a project jar file which when installed will

		be somewhere under datadir, but during  testing  it  is  in  the

		project tree.



	-T, --source-tarball

		perform a make srctarball to build a source tarball.



	-v, --verbose

		emit extra information



	-V, --version

		prints version information



	[PATH_TO_PROJECT_ROOT] The absolute or relative path to the project root

		directory (containing configure)



	-- PASS_THRU_OPTIONS The -- stops processing command line arguments and

		instead passes subsequent arguments on, as-is, to AutoTools



N.B.

----

At a source modification / development level, this project expects to reside in

a git environment. This manifests itself in 2 places:-

1) ... .gitignore files are included in the source.

2) ... The make target, 'srctarball', relies on the command 'git archive' so it

will fail if git is not installed or it is not in a git repository.



-------------------------------------------------

2 ... AutoTools (configure and make) Installation

=================================================



a) ... Download either the source or distribution tarball (the .tar.gz file)

	from:-



https://github.com/m-grant-prg/acmbuild/releases



b) ... Extract the tarball preserving the directory structure.



c) ... cd to the directory created.



d) ... If you downloaded the source tarball type 'autoreconf -if'



e) ... Type './configure'



f) ... As root or sudo, type 'make install clean'



(Quote marks are for textual clarity only).



To uninstall the package:



1 ... cd to the directory created in the above install process.



2 ... As root or sudo, type 'make uninstall clean'



--------------------------------------------

3 ... Installation of Distro-Native Packages

============================================

Installation packages native to different distributions are available, please

refer to the relevant installation section on the wiki at:-



https://github.com/m-grant-prg/acmbuild/wiki



---------------------

4 ... Utility Scripts

=====================

In the project root directory there is 1 helper script; bootstrap.sh.



bootstrap.sh

------------

This misleadingly named script bootstraps the project build and provides other

useful features. The main script options are probably b, c, C, D and T.



In AutoTools it is usually advisable to perform parallel builds. This means you

build somewhere other than the project root. This is because building creates

files and they would confuse the project root downwards. I always create a build

directory straight off the project root, cd to there and do all build and git

work from there, (.gitignore is already set to ignore such a directory). Further

information on VPATH (parallel) builds can be found at:-



https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/VPATH-Builds.html



Assuming you adopt the preceding paragraph then a typical invocation of the

script would be:-



../bootstrap.sh --config --build ..



The last '..' points the way to project root.



For the full list of arguments to bootstrap.sh please look at the acmbuild

options section above.