configure.info: Build Files Description
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Build Files Description
This is a description of the files which are created at build time.
`config.status'
The first step in building a package is to run the `configure'
script. The `configure' script will create the file
`config.status', which is itself a shell script. When you first
run `configure', it will automatically run `config.status'. An
`Makefile' derived from an automake generated `Makefile.in' will
contain rules to automatically run `config.status' again when
necessary to recreate certain files if their inputs change.
`Makefile'
This is the file which make will read to build the program. The
`config.status' script will transform `Makefile.in' into
`Makefile'.
`config.h'
This file defines C preprocessor macros which C code can use to
adjust its behaviour on different systems. The `config.status'
script will transform `config.in' into `config.h'.
`config.cache'
This file did not fit neatly into the picture, and I omitted it.
It is used by the `configure' script to cache results between
runs. This can be an important speedup. If you modify
`configure.in' in such a way that the results of old tests should
change (perhaps you have added a new library to `LDFLAGS'), then
you will have to remove `config.cache' to force the tests to be
rerun.
The autoconf manual explains how to set up a site specific cache
file. This can speed up running `configure' scripts on your
system.
`stamp.h'
This file, which I omitted from the picture, is similar to
`stamp-h.in'. It is used as a timestamp file indicating whether
`config.h' is up to date. This is useful since `config.h' depends
upon `config.status', but it is easy for `config.status' to change
in a way which does not affect `config.h'.
Created Wed Sep 1 16:41:59 2004 on bee with info_to_html version 0.9.6.