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GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool
- By Gary V. Vaughn, Ben Ellison, Tom Tromey, Ian Lance Taylor
- Published Oct 6, 2000 by Sams. Part of the Circle series.
- Copyright 2000
- Dimensions: 6 X 9
- Pages: 432
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 1-57870-190-2
- ISBN-13: 978-1-57870-190-2
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PTR Bullets
- This book teaches developers how to boost their productivity and the portability of their applications using GNU autoconf, GNU automake and GNU libtool.
- A unique book that will appeal to application developers working across multiple platforms
- Authored by Open Source community luminaries and current maintainers of the tools
PTR Overview
There is a huge amount of interest in Open Source development, with many of the major blue chip computer companies using and supporting this software development model. Developers that are looking to participate in this growth area will need to learn new Open Source tools. GNU autoconf, GNU automake and GNU libtool are key tools for Open Source application development. These tools are not easy to learn, so some of the leading authorities on these tools have agreed to work together on this book to teach developers how to boost their productivity and the portability of their application. This book places New Riders/MTP at the center of the Open Source development community. Autoconf, Automake and Libtool is an efficient discourse on the use of autoconf, automake and libtool aimed at reducing the steep learning curve normally associated with these tools.
User Level
Intermediate - Advanced
Audience
Any UNIX / Linux developer who is dissatisfied with their current build environment. Developers who already use some, or all, these tools and would like to understand how to get the best use out of them. Developers (including the win32 community) interested in a build environment that encourages and maximizes the potential portability of their project, or interested in encompassing more diverse project host machines.
Annotation
The first book focused on the three key Open Source development tools, written by the maintainers of the tools!
Product Author Bios
Ben Elliston works for Cygnus Solutions, one of the leading Open Source software companies. He is the current maintainer of GNU Autoconf. Eleftherios Gkioulekas is a graduate student in the Department of Applied Mathematics in the University of Washington. Elef began writing tutorial documentation for GNU development tools in January 1998 for fun. Ian Lance Taylor has been contributing to free software since 1990. His GNU/Taylor UUCP package was an early beta test for autoconf in 1991. He has contributed many patches to autoconf, including rewriting the support for a separate config.h file. He contributed support for conditionals in automake. He is currently the maintainer of the GNU binutils, which was one of the first widely distributed free software packages to adopt libtool. He worked on free software for many years at Cygnus Solutions, and is a founder of Zembu Labs. Tom Tromey is the current maintainer and a leading authority on automake, authoring much of the online documentation on this tool. Gary Vaughan is one of the current maintainers of libtool. He has contributed patches to autoconf for close to five years, and to automake and libtool since their inceptions. He is currently working on making libtool an Open Source tool for NT developers.
If you are a developer and are looking to participate in the Open Source development growth area you will need to learn new Open Source tools. GNU autoconf, GNU automake and GNU libtool are key tools for Open Source application development. These tools are not easy to learn, so some of the leading authorities on these tools have agreed to work together on this book to teach developers how to boost their productivity and the portability of their application. This book place New Riders/MTP at the center of the Open Source development community. Autoconf, Automake and Libtool is an efficient discourse on the use of autoconf, automake and libtool aimed at reducing the steep learning curve normally associated with these tools. This is a study guide to the interactions between the tools, and how best to get them to cooperate. If you are a developer and have no GNU build environment expertise, this book will help you develop these tools completely and confidently.
Author's Site
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful
This book is too out of date to use.,
By A Customer
This review is from: GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool (Paperback)
First off, the book is very non-linear and very disorganized. The subject material is extremely difficult and non-linear, so this was probably a very difficult book to write, and I sympathize with the authors. I couldn't have done a better job.However, as of Nov 2003, the versions of autoconf, automake and libtool that the book uses are very out of date and very deprecated. It's not a matter of "some things have changed", it's a matter of "they're completely different". The main ideas and concepts remain the same, but as for the details... you will NOT be able to use autoconf / automake / libtool after reading the book. You'll be floundering in "did I do something wrong or is this just because I'm using a newer version?". Do not buy this book until the authors update it. You will NOT learn the subject material and will be very sorry you spent the money.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
If you write software for Linux (unix)....,
By A Customer
This review is from: GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool (Paperback)
...get this book! If you have ever downloaded some Linux / Unix source code and wanted to understand just what the "configure" script and makefiles do --- get this book!!More to the point, if you want to distribute your source code and allow users to compile it on many different systems, this book offers you a step by step understanding of what needs to be done to make that happen. I got this book because I was looking to 'cross-compile' some programs. (That is, compile a program on one machine but run it on another) Thanks to the intelligent layout - I was able to get the program compiled and going in a couple of hours. One caveat, this is not for the 'newbie' or faint-at-heart. You will need to at least understand the concepts of compilers, linkers, libraries, etc. in order to comprehend this book. However, you don't have to be a programming-guru. I think that even administrators will get alot out of this book. Particularly, helping them understand how to set the... Read more
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Excellent book, if you meet the prerequisites, By john christian (fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool (Paperback)
I had originally bought this book so that I could maintain a GNU autotools based build system for a company I was doing CM for at the time. I was basically a kid, and didn't have any professional C development background, and after reading the first several chapters, I was thinking to myself "This book is unnecessairly hard to understand, I just want to know how to use autoconf, show me a listing of the macros, etc, not this other, preipheral sic shell stuff!"Months later, and after doing some actual Linux C development myself (a command interpreter, no less), I came back to this book, and was able to get a lot more out of it. Just be aware that it is geared toward someone doing really involved open-source/GPL'd C development. This book may have been better if each feature of the autotools were discussed in a more abstract way, without following the development of this sic shell. It is interesting, but that kind of orginisation forces you to read it from front to... Read more |
Table of Contents
History.
How to Run Configure, and the Most Useful Standard Makefile Targets.
Introducting 'Makefile's.
Using GNU Autotools to Manage a "Minimal Project".
Writing a Portable 'configure.in'.
Introducing GNU Automake.
A Small GNU Autotools Project.
Bootstrapping.
Introducing GNU Libtool.
Using GNU Libtool with 'configure.in' and 'Makefile.am'.
A Large GNU Autotools Project.
Rolling Distribution Tarballs.
Installing and Uninstalling Configured Packages.
Writing Portable C with GNU Autotools .
Writing Portable C++ with GNU Autotools.
Dynamic Loading.
Using GNU libltdl.
Advanced GNU Automake Usage.
A Complete GNU Autotools Project.
GNU M4.
Writing Portable Bourne Shell.
Writing New Macros for Autoconf.
Migrating an Existing Package to GNU Autotools.
Using Autotools with Cygnus' Cygwin.
Cross-Compilation with GNU Autotools.
Installing GNU Autotools.
Platforms.
Generated File Dependencies.
Autoconf Macro Reference.
Open Publication License.
Downloadable Sample Chapter
Click below for Sample Chapter related to this title:
1578701902.pdf
Errata
Errata for the book - 53 kb - posted 11/07/02 - 1578701902.pdf
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