lfs-book/chapter06/m4.xml

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  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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<sect1 id="ch-system-m4" xreflabel="M4" role="wrap">
<title>M4-&m4-version;</title>
<?dbhtml filename="m4.html"?>

<indexterm zone="ch-system-m4"><primary sortas="a-M4">M4</primary></indexterm>

<sect2 role="package"><title/>
<para>The M4 package contains a macro processor.</para>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>&buildtime;</segtitle>
<segtitle>&diskspace;</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>0.1 SBU</seg><seg>3.0 MB</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>M4 installation depends on</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC,
Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Perl, Sed</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>
</sect2>

<sect2 role="installation">
<title>Installation of M4</title>

<para>Prepare M4 for compilation:</para>

<screen><userinput>./configure --prefix=/usr</userinput></screen>

<para>Compile the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make</userinput></screen>

<para>To test the results, issue:
<userinput>make check</userinput>.</para>

<para>And install the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>

</sect2>


<sect2 id="contents-m4" role="content"><title>Contents of M4</title>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>Installed program</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>m4</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>

<variablelist><title>Short descriptions</title>

<varlistentry id="m4">
<term><command>m4</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-m4 m4"><primary sortas="b-m4">m4</primary></indexterm>
<para>copies the given files
while expanding the macros that they contain. These macros are either built-in
or user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides just doing macro
expansion, <command>m4</command> has built-in functions for including named files, running Unix
commands, doing integer arithmetic, manipulating text in various ways,
recursion, and so on. The <command>m4</command> program can be used either as a front-end to a
compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect2>

</sect1>