Call external program from autoconf-generated makefile - makefile

I'm using Google's protocol buffers library in my project. I've found that there is no backward-compatibility between protoc 2.5.0 and 2.4.1 generated code (obviously):
#error incompatible with your Protocol Buffer headers. Please
regenerate this file with a newer version of protoc.
So I simply want to add Makefile rules to call protoc and generate source files on user's machine. (yes more unnecessary dependencies please)
I would like to add similar rules for bisonc++,flexc++ and xsd-generated codes.
The project is on an autohell (GNU autoconf) build system.

I don't know protoc, but I run other programs from Makefile.
In my case programs generate platform-dependent data and don't work when cross-compiling. You probably don't need these checks.
in configure.ac:
AM_CONDITIONAL([CROSS_COMPILING], [ test "x$cross_compiling" = xyes ])
add generated file in Makefile.am (assuming that you use automake):
if !CROSS_COMPILING
pkgdata_DATA = generated_file
endif
and then just write a normal make rule to generate it:
generated_file: input_file
generate$(EXEEXT) -input $< -output $#

Related

Configure compilation options and compiler autoconf

I'm working on a personal project with Rust and tcl but i still want to use the classic makefile structure.
I know that to compile multifile I just need to declare mod second on main.rs and rustc automatically connect the modules. So I use
$ rustc main.rs -o output -C debuginfo=2
Now I tried to integrate autoconf and automake because I want to make a configure script to check for tcl, rustup etc... But I don't know how to edit to compile with rustc and its options insead of cc and c options (like trying a .o that doesn't compile because they don't have a main function).
for the configure.ac i used:
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([source/main.rs])
AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR(config)
# I manually checked for rustup and tclsh
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile])
AC_OUTPUT
for the Makefile.am:
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
bin_PROGRAMS = output
SUBDIRS = sources
output_SOURCES = sources/main.rs
I have the main directory with configure.ac and Makefile.am and the sources directory with all the stuff (and also the config directory for autoconf)
Now I tried to integrate autoconf and automake because I want to make a configure script to check for tcl, rustup etc...
The configure script is the responsibility of Autoconf. It is not obligatory to use Automake together with Autoconf, and you should consider whether it would be sensible for you to use Autoconf alone. That would give you complete control over the generated Makefile, as you would write a Makefile.in directly instead of relying on Automake to do that for you. Presumably, you would write a much simpler Makefile.in than Automake generates, and that's fine.
Automake is not necessarily out of the question, but its manual has this to say about language support:
Automake currently only includes full support for C, C++ (see C++
Support), Objective C (see Objective C Support), Objective C++ (see
Objective C++ Support), Fortran 77 (see Fortran 77 Support), Fortran
9x (see Fortran 9x Support), and Java (see Java Support with gcj).
There is only rudimentary support for other languages, support for
which will be improved based on user demand.
Some limited support for adding your own languages is available via
the suffix rule handling (see Suffixes).
The referenced section about suffix rules shows how you might use such a rule to teach Automake how to build Rust programs. It might look something like this:
.rs:
$(RUSTC) $< -o $# $(AM_RUSTFLAGS) $(RUSTFLAGS)
SUFFIXES = .rs
That assumes that configure will identify the Rust compiler and export its name as RUSTC. AM_RUSTFLAGS is for defining compilation flags internally in your project (typically in your Makefile.am), and RUSTFLAGS is for the builder to add or override compilation flags at build time.
But since the compiler does not produce intermediate object files (or so I gather), I would expect that defining sources in output_SOURCES would not yield a working Makefile, and that you would probably need the name of the top-level Rust source to match the name of the wanted binary (i.e. output.rs instead of main.rs). The single-suffix rule should, then, get your binary built without any sources being explicitly specified. You would also want to name all contributing Rust sources in the EXTRA_SOURCES variable, else they would be omitted from distribution packages built via make dist.
Note, too, that the above does not define all the build dependencies that actually exist if you're building multifile programs. I would suggest doing that by adding an appropriate prerequisite-only rule, such as
output: $(output_extra_sources)
(with no recipe) in multifile cases. This will ensure that make will recognize when output needs to be rebuilt as a result of a modification to one of its sources other than output.rs.

Compile subdir-objects multiple times

Automake 1.14 is causing us a few issues. At first, automake errored with the complaint:
warning: source file 'X' is in a subdirectory but option 'subdir-objects' is disabled
So I enabled subdir-objects, but now it isn't recompiling some files. For example, lets say
src/a/foo.c is compiled in SUBDIR a but in src/b, I would like to compile it again with different preprocessor flags, however since ../a/foo.o already exists, make doesn't rebuild it. This is because subdir-objects changes am_b_OBJECTS to look for ../a/foo.o instead of foo.o. Is there a way I can get around the original complaint and instruct make to build the file a second time with the appropriate preprocessor flags? This all worked on previous versions of automake.
I would settle for executing rm ../a/foo.o before compiling src/b but I don't know how to edit the Makefile.am to make that happen.
This happens if you're using subdir-objects under the same tree from different Makefile.am files. As automake can't see you're using the same source file with different parameters it'll assume it was rebuilt correctly.
The proper solution to this is to not use separate Makefile.am files and instead rephrase the build system as non-recursive automake and so in that case it would then build foo.c as foo-a.o and foo-b.o.

Adding GLib to an existing application with gnu toolchain (configure, Makefile, etc.)

I've added code to an existing large application and need to make GLib a requirement, as my code relies on it. For development, I just manually edited the Makefile to add
-lglib-2.0
To the LIBS= variable and
-I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib64/glib-2.0/include $<
to the line starting with ${CC}.
However, I am at a loss for how to make this permanent/portable in the app -- i.e. when someone executes ./configure in the future, the resulting Makefile should also include the above (as appropriate, since these depend on pkg-config output, I've learned). The codebase I updated includes the following files from the gnu tool chain:
Makefile.in
Makefile.manual
config.h.in
configure
configure.in
I only have a handful of CS degrees and a few years of development experience, so the GNU toolchain remains utterly impenetrable to me. :-/ From googling around, I'm under the impression there should also be a configure.ac file or something where I should add a macro for requiring glib, but no such file is included in the package and I'm at the point of learned helplessness with the whole automake/autoconf/configure/makefile business. Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers!
You should not edit any generated files manually. This includes the final Makefile used to build the application.
In configure.ac, every dependency is listed, thus checking for GLib should go in there. From this file, your final configure shell script is generated.
GLib provides a pkgconfig description so you almost always want to use this to get the correct compile and link flags.
Combining pkgconfig and Autotools is just a matter of calling the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro. The Autotools Mythbuster is an excellent source that describes how to do it.
In the end it boils down to adding these lines to your configure.ac:
PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG
PKG_CHECK_MODULES([GLIB], [glib-2.0])
and these lines to your Makefile.am:
foo_CXXFLAGS = $(GLIB_CFLAGS)
foo_LIBS = $(GLIB_LIBS)

how to add a flag in any make file

I have a program and I want to measure it performance but using gprof.now I want to add a -pg flag in it. I have many different files makefile.am makefile.in configure
I install the program using following steps
./configure
make
make install
Now I have read somewhere that:
automake gererates Makefile.in from Makefile.am
configure generates Makefile from Makefile.in
I am totally confused and want to ask two question
In which file and where do I add -pg flag? In makefile.in or makefile.am as they both have different types of flag options?
If configure generates makefile from makefile.in and automake generates makefile.in from makefile.am then shoud'nt we be using make before ./configure? what the hierarchy?
man gcc:
-pg Generate extra code to write profile information suitable for the
analysis program gprof. You must use this option when compiling
the source files you want data about, and you must also use it when
linking.
It says it needs to be in CPPFLAGS (used for both C and C++ code) and LDFLAGS (unless non-standard variables are used). The standard way is to pass flags to configure script:
$ ./configure CPPFLAGS=-pg LDFLAGS=-pg

autotools: force make not to rebuild configure/Makefile

I have a project with autotools: automake, autoconf.
I want to prohibit make from remaking files configure, Makefile.in, etc; just to do compile job.
Some of files are edited by hand, and I know that I should not to do this. (Or the project was updated from CVS with all generated files stored in CVS).
But at the moment I have no correct version autotools installed.
What must be modification times of this files (which must be newer/older):
aclocal.m4
configure.in
confdb/ax_prefix_config_h.m4
Makefile.am
Makefile.in
Makefile
configure
config.status
Or: what sequence of touch commands must I do to achieve my goal?
First of all, if you edit a generated file directly, it wouldn't be rebuilt anyway, because it is then newer then its prerequisites.
Then, there are two separate things going on here: config.status and Makefile are created during the build. It's hard to prevent these from being remade during the build unless you make their timestamps newer.
The other files are generated by the various autotools. Recent versions of Automake do not create rules by default that remake them automatically. Depending on your package, you might want to use the configure option --disable-maintainer-mode. The Automake documentation contains some more interesting information about that option.
One trick I sometimes use with a package that I don't know much about or that has a pretty messed up build system is to run something like
make all AUTOCONF=: AUTOHEADER=: AUTOMAKE=: ACLOCAL=:
so that if these programs happen to be called, a noop would be substituted.
touch confdb/*.m4
touch configure.in
touch *.m4
touch *.am
touch Makefile.in */Makefile.in
touch *config.h.in */*config.h.in
touch configure
touch config.status
touch config.h
touch Makefile
Problems with automake & cvs are described here http://www.gnu.org/s/hello/manual/automake/CVS.html
Try to explicitly tell make those files should not be remade, via command-line
$ make -o configure -o Makefile.in
or by using MAKEFLAGS
$ MAKEFLAGS="-o configure -o Makefile.in" make
The excerpt from GNU make's manual
‘-o file’
‘--old-file=file’
‘--assume-old=file’
Do not remake the file file even if it is older than its prerequisites, and do not remake
anything on account of changes in file. Essentially the file is treated as very old and
its rules are ignored. See Avoiding Recompilation of Some Files.
If yours autotools template correctly uses $(MAKE) for subdirs, there should be no problems.

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