Relevant GNU Documentation

A number of GNU manuals are relevant to the topics discussed in this chapter, and will give you a deeper understanding. It is worth reading the tutorial sections of each of these. GNU manuals come with the software, and are also available from http://www.gnu.org/doc/doc.html.

• The libtool manual explains the intermediate .lo and .la files created while your program or library is compiling; automake generates makefiles which use libtool.

• The autoconf manual explains how to write configure.in and its associated files.

• The automake manual explains how to write a Makefile.am.

• The gettext manual has sections titled "Programmers" and "Maintainers"; you should read these to learn how the intl and po subdirectories work.

• The GNU coding standards describe how GNU packages should behave; autoconf and automake try to implement these standards.

• The GNU hello package is intended to demonstrate the GNU packaging standards, and is an excellent source of examples. "GnomeHello" and other Gnome packages are a good source of Gnome-specific examples, of course.

• The manuals for make, the Bourne shell, and m4 are essential if you need to write custom configure checks or add Makefile targets outside of automake's capabilities.