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1.4 Building

Most readers of this document should already know how to build a tool by running `configure' and `make'. This section may serve as a quick introduction or reminder.

Building a tool is normally as simple as running `configure' followed by `make'. You should normally run `configure' from an empty directory, using some path to refer to the `configure' script in the source directory. The directory in which you run `configure' is called the object directory.

In order to use a object directory which is different from the source directory, you must be using the GNU version of `make', which has the required `VPATH' support. Despite this restriction, using a different object directory is highly recommended:

If you don't have GNU `make', you will have to run `configure' in the source directory. All GNU packages should support this; in particular, GNU packages should not assume the presence of GNU `make'.

After running `configure', you can build the tools by running `make'.

To install the tools, run `make install'. Installing the tools will copy the programs and any required support files to the installation directory. The location of the installation directory is controlled by `configure' options, as described below.

In the Cygnus tree at present, the info files are built and installed as a separate step. To build them, run `make info'. To install them, run `make install-info'.

All `configure' scripts support a wide variety of options. The most interesting ones are `--with' and `--enable' options which are generally specific to particular tools. You can usually use the `--help' option to get a list of interesting options for a particular configure script.

The only generic options you are likely to use are the `--prefix' and `--exec-prefix' options. These options are used to specify the installation directory.

The directory named by the `--prefix' option will hold machine independent files such as info files.

The directory named by the `--exec-prefix' option, which is normally a subdirectory of the `--prefix' directory, will hold machine dependent files such as executables.

The default for `--prefix' is `/usr/local'. The default for `--exec-prefix' is the value used for `--prefix'.

The convention used in Cygnus releases is to use a `--prefix' option of `/usr/cygnus/release', where release is the name of the release, and to use a `--exec-prefix' option of `/usr/cygnus/release/H-host', where host is the configuration name of the host system (see section 4. Configuration Names).

Do not use either the source or the object directory as the installation directory. That will just lead to confusion.


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