File: autoconf.info,  Node: autoreconf Invocation,  Prev: autoconf Invocation,  Up: Making configure Scripts

3.5 Using ‘autoreconf’ to Update ‘configure’ Scripts
====================================================

Installing the various components of the GNU Build System can be
tedious: running ‘autopoint’ for Gettext, ‘automake’ for ‘Makefile.in’
etc. in each directory.  It may be needed either because some tools such
as ‘automake’ have been updated on your system, or because some of the
sources such as ‘configure.ac’ have been updated, or finally, simply in
order to install the GNU Build System in a fresh tree.

   ‘autoreconf’ runs ‘autoconf’, ‘autoheader’, ‘aclocal’, ‘automake’,
‘libtoolize’, ‘intltoolize’, ‘gtkdocize’, and ‘autopoint’ (when
appropriate) repeatedly to update the GNU Build System in the specified
directories and their subdirectories (*note Subdirectories::).  By
default, it only remakes those files that are older than their sources.

   If you install a new version of some tool, you can make ‘autoreconf’
remake _all_ of the files by giving it the ‘--force’ option.

   The environment variables ‘AUTOM4TE’, ‘AUTOCONF’, ‘AUTOHEADER’,
‘AUTOMAKE’, ‘ACLOCAL’, ‘AUTOPOINT’, ‘LIBTOOLIZE’, ‘INTLTOOLIZE’,
‘GTKDOCIZE’, ‘M4’, and ‘MAKE’ may be used to override the invocation of
the respective tools.

   Except for ‘AUTOM4TE’ and ‘M4’, setting any of these enviroment
variables to ‘true’, ‘false’, ‘:’, or the empty string has the same
effect as passing ‘--exclude=CMD’ on the command line, where CMD is the
lowercased version of the command’s name; see the description of the
‘--exclude’ option, below.

   *Note Automatic Remaking::, for Make rules to automatically rebuild
‘configure’ scripts when their source files change.  That method handles
the timestamps of configuration header templates properly, but does not
pass ‘--autoconf-dir=DIR’ or ‘--localdir=DIR’.

   Gettext supplies the ‘autopoint’ command to add translation
infrastructure to a source package.  If you use ‘autopoint’, your
‘configure.ac’ should invoke ‘AM_GNU_GETTEXT’ and one of
‘AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION(GETTEXT-VERSION)’ or
‘AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION(MIN-GETTEXT-VERSION)’.  *Note Invoking
the ‘autopoint’ Program: (gettext)autopoint Invocation, for further
details.

‘autoreconf’ accepts the following options:

‘--help’
‘-h’
     Print a summary of the command line options and exit.

‘--version’
‘-V’
     Print the version number of Autoconf and exit.

‘--verbose’
‘-v’
     Print the name of each directory ‘autoreconf’ examines and the
     commands it runs.  If given two or more times, pass ‘--verbose’ to
     subordinate tools that support it.

‘--debug’
‘-d’
     Don’t remove the temporary files.

‘--force’
‘-f’
     Consider all generated and standard auxiliary files to be obsolete.
     This remakes even ‘configure’ scripts and configuration headers
     that are newer than their input files (‘configure.ac’ and, if
     present, ‘aclocal.m4’).

     If deemed appropriate, this option triggers calls to ‘automake
     --force-missing’.  Passing both ‘--force’ and ‘--install’ to
     ‘autoreconf’ will in turn undo any customizations to standard
     files.  Note that the macro ‘AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE’ has some options
     which change the set of files considered to be standard.

‘--replace-handwritten’
‘-R’
     Replace files that _could_ be generated but appear to have been
     written by hand.  Currently this only affects the treatment of the
     primary configuration header template (usually ‘config.h.in’; *note
     Header Templates::).  In the future it may also affect ‘aclocal.m4’
     and others.

‘--install’
‘-i’
     Install any missing standard auxiliary files in the package.  By
     default, files are copied; this can be changed with ‘--symlink’.

     If deemed appropriate, this option triggers calls to ‘automake
     --add-missing’, ‘libtoolize’, ‘autopoint’, etc.

‘--no-recursive’
     Do not rebuild files in subdirectories to configure (see *note
     Subdirectories::, macro ‘AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS’).

‘--symlink’
‘-s’
     When used with ‘--install’, install symbolic links to the missing
     auxiliary files instead of copying them.

‘--make’
‘-m’
     When the directories were configured, update the configuration by
     running ‘./config.status --recheck && ./config.status’, and then
     run ‘make’.

‘--exclude=CMD[,CMD...]’
‘-x CMD[,CMD...]’
     Do not run any CMD in the list, even if it seems to be needed.  CMD
     can be ‘autoconf’, ‘autoheader’, ‘automake’, ‘aclocal’,
     ‘autopoint’, ‘libtoolize’, ‘intltoolize’, ‘gtkdocize’, or ‘make’.

     ‘--exclude make’ has priority over ‘--make’.

‘--include=DIR’
‘-I DIR’
     Append DIR to the include path.  Multiple invocations accumulate.
     Passed on to ‘aclocal’, ‘autoconf’ and ‘autoheader’ internally.

‘--prepend-include=DIR’
‘-B DIR’
     Prepend DIR to the include path.  Multiple invocations accumulate.
     Passed on to ‘autoconf’ and ‘autoheader’ internally.

‘--warnings=CATEGORY[,CATEGORY...]’
‘-WCATEGORY[,CATEGORY...]’
     Enable or disable warnings related to each CATEGORY.  *Note
     m4_warn::, for a comprehensive list of categories.  Special values
     include:

     ‘all’
          Enable all categories of warnings.

     ‘none’
          Disable all categories of warnings.

     ‘error’
          Treat all warnings as errors.

     ‘no-CATEGORY’
          Disable warnings falling into CATEGORY.

     The environment variable ‘WARNINGS’ may also be set to a
     comma-separated list of warning categories to enable or disable.
     It is interpreted exactly the same way as the argument of
     ‘--warnings’, but unknown categories are silently ignored.  The
     command line takes precedence; for instance, if ‘WARNINGS’ is set
     to ‘obsolete’, but ‘-Wnone’ is given on the command line, no
     warnings will be issued.

     Some categories of warnings are on by default.  Again, for details
     see *note m4_warn::.

   If you want ‘autoreconf’ to pass flags that are not listed here on to
‘aclocal’, set ‘ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS’ in your ‘Makefile.am’.  Due to a
limitation in the Autoconf implementation these flags currently must be
set on a single line in ‘Makefile.am’, without any backslash-newlines or
makefile comments.  Also, be aware that future Automake releases might
start flagging ‘ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS’ as obsolescent, or even remove support
for it.