13.4. Uninstall
As if things aren't confusing enough, there is still one more major installation-related feature not yet mentioned: uninstall. Automake adds an uninstall target to your 'Makefile' that does the reverse of install: It deletes the newly installed package.
Unlike install, there is no uninstall-data or uninstall-exec; although possible in theory, we don't think this would be useful enough to actually use. Like install, you can write uninstall-local or uninstall-hook rules.
In our experience, uninstall is not a very useful feature. Automake implements it because it is mandated by the GNU standards, but it does not work reliably across packages. Maintainers who write install hooks typically neglect to write uninstall hooks. Also, because ...
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