Autotools

Executing config.status

Now that you know how configure works, you might be tempted to execute config.status yourself. This was exactly the intent of the Autoconf designers and the authors of the GCS, who originally conceived these design goals. However, a more important reason for separating checks from template processing is that make rules can use config.status to regenerate makefiles from their templates when make determines that a template is newer than its corresponding makefile.

Rather than call configure to perform needless checks (your environment hasn't changed—just your template files), makefile rules should be written to indicate that output files are dependent on their templates. The commands for these rules run config.status, passing ...