lfs-book/appendixa/automake-desc.xml

<sect2><title>Contents of Automake</title>

<para>Last checked against version &automake-contversion;.</para>

<sect3><title>Program Files</title>
<para>aclocal and automake</para></sect3>

<sect3><title>Descriptions</title>

<sect4><title>aclocal</title>
<para>automake includes a number of autoconf macros which can be used in
packages; some of them are actually required by automake in certain
situations. These macros must be defined in the aclocal.m4-file;
otherwise they will not be seen by autoconf.</para>

<para>The aclocal program will automatically generate aclocal.m4 files
based on the contents of configure.in.  This provides a convenient
way to get automake-provided macros, without having to search around.
Also, the aclocal mechanism is extensible for use 
by other packages.</para></sect4>

<sect4><title>automake</title>
<para>To create all the Makefile.in's for a package, run the automake
program in the top level directory, with no arguments.  automake will
automatically find each appropriate Makefile.am (by scanning
configure.in) and generate the corresponding Makefile.in.</para></sect4>

</sect3>

</sect2>