Automake includes a number of Autoconf macros which can be used in
your package; some of them are actually required by Automake in certain
situations. These macros must be defined in your
aclocal.m4;
otherwise they will not be seen by
autoconf.
The
aclocal
program will automatically generate
aclocal.m4
files based on the contents of
configure.in.
This provides a convenient way to get Automake-provided macros,
without having to search around. Also, the
aclocal
mechanism is extensible for use by other packages.
At startup,
aclocal
scans all the
.m4
files it can find, looking for macro definitions. Then it scans
configure.in.
Any mention of one of the macros found in the first step causes that
macro, and any macros it in turn requires, to be put into
aclocal.m4.
The contents of
acinclude.m4,
if it exists, are also automatically included in
aclocal.m4.
This is useful for incorporating local macros into
configure.
aclocal
accepts the following options:
-
- --acdir=DIR
-
Look for the macro files in DIR instead of the installation
directory. This is typically used for debugging.
-
- --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.
-
- --output=FILE
-
Cause the output to be put into FILE instead of
aclocal.m4.
-
- --verbose
-
Print the names of the files it examines.
-
- --version
-
Print the version number of Automake and exit.