3.2.2 Build Files Description
This is a description of the files which are created at build time.
- `config.status'
-
The first step in building a package is to run the `configure'
script. The `configure' script will create the file
`config.status', which is itself a shell script. When you first
run `configure', it will automatically run `config.status'.
An `Makefile' derived from an automake generated `Makefile.in'
will contain rules to automatically run `config.status' again when
necessary to recreate certain files if their inputs change.
- `Makefile'
-
This is the file which make will read to build the program. The
`config.status' script will transform `Makefile.in' into
`Makefile'.
- `config.h'
-
This file defines C preprocessor macros which C code can use to adjust
its behaviour on different systems. The `config.status' script
will transform `config.in' into `config.h'.
- `config.cache'
-
This file did not fit neatly into the picture, and I omitted it. It is
used by the `configure' script to cache results between runs. This
can be an important speedup. If you modify `configure.in' in such
a way that the results of old tests should change (perhaps you have
added a new library to `LDFLAGS'), then you will have to remove
`config.cache' to force the tests to be rerun.
The autoconf manual explains how to set up a site specific cache file.
This can speed up running `configure' scripts on your system.
- `stamp.h'
-
This file, which I omitted from the picture, is similar to
`stamp-h.in'. It is used as a timestamp file indicating whether
`config.h' is up to date. This is useful since `config.h'
depends upon `config.status', but it is easy for
`config.status' to change in a way which does not affect
`config.h'.
This document was generated
by system on December, 2 2004
using texi2html