autoconf

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Last Updated 10/11/2024

This is going to be quick dive into using autoconf. This might be necessary to bring a little extra information to light when discussing rpmbuild

SHORT VERSION:

The short version is that autoconf is an automatio and development tool. It’s used to take a template and by examining the current environment alter the configuration or provide extra libraries accordingly.

The easiest item to grasp is usually when configuring for a specific architecture.(aarch64, ppc64ie, s390x; x86_64; Arm64; cray) This might determine in advance your endian expectations. A more deeper version might even have to do with detecting if you have an NVIDEA Graphics card and hence can take advantage of specific GPU operations either for Cryptographic or Graphics support.

Dependencies

It is this ability to build automation that autoconf is built on the back other items. Most notably M4; Perl; Automake; and Libtool.

Libtool – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Libtool
M4 – https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/

In the simplest case one might say that in using autoconf one makes use of a template (autoconf.ca) which then can use macros as a way to perform some primitive operations. Autoconf builds by building on some of these macros to create a configuration file appropriate for your environment.

References:
https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/=

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