4.1. User-Provided Input Files
The smallest project requires the user to provide only two files. The GNU Autotools generate the remainder of the files needed to build the package are in Section 4.2, "Generated Output Files." The files are as follows:
| 'Makefile.am' | An input to automake |
| 'configure.in' | An input to autoconf |
I like to think of 'Makefile.am' as a high-level, bare-bones specification of the project's build requirements: what needs to be built, and where does it go when it is installed? This is probably Automake's greatest strength—the description is about as simple as it could possibly be, yet the final product is a 'Makefile' with an array of convenient make targets.
The 'configure.in' is a template of macro invocations and shell code ...
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