Modernize your autotools build system

Update: I converted this post in a new GnomeGoal, see here

Update 2: Added some more tips

Autotools is the most common system to build programs in GTK+/GNOME projects.

Remove deprecated macros for our configure.ac file and use the new syntax will do our build system more legible and portable

The Autotools comes with a program to make the work for us, simply run

autoupdate

in you source tree and you have a new updated configure.ac. (Checks the result for possibles errors)

Some more tips:

Respect the standard configure.ac layout
Try to avoid the use of AM_MAINTAINER_MODE. AM_MAINTAINER_MODE (called like that) disables dependency-checking for autotools-generated stuff. AM_MAINTAINER_MODE([enabled]) retains the default behavior, but lets users pass a configure option to disable the dependency checking. So, if you really need this macro, use AM_MAINTAINER_MODE([enabled]). See the automake manual for a extended explanation
Use all the parameters of AC_INIT() (for the fifth parameter you need autoconf >= 2.64):

AC_INIT([Glom],[1.13.2],[http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Glom],[glom],[http://www.glom.org/])

Use updated versions of the programs (all of these versions (and newer) are present in Debian stable):
- automake >= 1.11.1 (AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11.1])) (or 1.10.3, Automake < 1.10.3 and 1.11 are known to be suffering from critical security issues)
- autoconf >= 2.64 (AC_PREREQ(2.64))
- libtool >= 2.2.6 (LT_PREREQ([2.2.6]))
- intltool >= 0.40.0 (IT_PROG_INTLTOOL([0.40.0]))
Take a look to all AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE() posible parameters. For example, to use 1.11.1 automake version and generate bzip2 distribution tarballs in addition to the gzip’ed:

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([1.11.1 dist-bzip2])

Use LT_INIT() syntax for libtool (needs libtool >= 2.2.0). More info about LT_INIT(). For example, change this:

AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN
AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL
AC_DISABLE_STATIC
AM_PROG_LIBTOOL

For this:

LT_PREREQ([2.2.6])
LT_INIT([dlopen win32-dll disable-static])

Don’t use GNOME_COMMON_INIT, as it does not work with autoreconf. Simply add this to your Makefile.am. (You have to define the macros dir in your configure.ac, in this case: AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4]))

ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 ${ACLOCAL_FLAGS}

Use gnome-common macros for compile warnings macros instead custom ones. Also use GNOME_MAINTAINER_MODE_DEFINES to get warnings when using deprecated symbols:

GNOME_COMPILE_WARNINGS([maximum])
GNOME_CXX_WARNINGS([yes])
GNOME_MAINTAINER_MODE_DEFINES

Other tips

Feel free to suggest more tips in the comments!

Some documentation:

11 thoughts on “Modernize your autotools build system”

Interesante información. ¡Estaría bien si tu blog estuviera el http://planeta.es.gnome.org/ y http://planet.gnome.org!

Some more hints:

Use dist_foo_BAR to avoid pulling everything via EXTRA_DIST:

scriptsdir = $(bindir)
dist_scripts_SCRIPTS = script1 script2

http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Fine_002dgrained-Distribution-Control

Pass dist-bzip2 to AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to generate bzip2 distribution tarballs in addition to the gzip’ed:

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([… dist-bzip2])

Use silent rules and AM_V_GEN for custom compilation:

autoconf: AM_SILENT_RULES([yes])
automake: $(AM_V_GEN) custom-compil-tool …

http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Fine_002dgrained-Distribution-Control/am_v_gen/

@Juanjo Marin: Me has dado una idea … 😉

@Mike Thank you for the tips!
The use of silent rules is already a GnomeGoal: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/NicerBuilds

Feel free to add more tips in the GnomeGoal page

Regards

Why not dropping autotools in favor of CMake (or another one) instead of improving them? It’s a very high barrier of entry to new developers.

@Andrés, If you are interested, maybe It’s a good idea talk with some project maintainer and make a patch to use CMake instead autotools, so everybody can see the benefits and/or drawbacks of the change.

Some time ago I did some search about this topis [1]. I only found 2 GTK+ projects that use CMake: gtkpod and inkscape (If you know any other, please tell me)

[1] http://live.gnome.org/JavierJardon/NewBuildSystem

@Andrés, why would Gnome want to switch to CMake? From my experience with it, it’s a pretty rubbish system… I had a lot of trouble with it. For example, it couldn’t even do pkg-config without a 3rd party script.

I find Autotools to be nicer, as long as you do it properly (that is, non-recursively)