Autotools

Let's Take a Breather

So far, I've shown you a nearly complete build system that includes almost all of the features outlined in the GCS. The features of Jupiter's build system are all fairly self-contained and reasonably simple to understand. The most difficult feature to implement by hand is the configuration script. In fact, writing a configuration script by hand is so labor intensive, compared to the simplicity of using Autoconf, that I just skipped the hand-coded version entirely in Chapter 2.

Although using Autoconf like I've used it here is quite easy, most people don't create their build systems in the manner I've shown you. Instead, they try to copy the build system of another project, and tweak it to make it work in their own project. ...