Makefile.am is a programmer-defined file and is used by automake to generate the Makefile.in file (the .am stands for automake).
The configure script typically seen in source tarballs will use the Makefile.in to generate a Makefile.
The configure script itself is generated from a programmer-defined file named either configure.ac or configure.in (deprecated). I prefer .ac (for autoconf) since it differentiates it from the generated Makefile.in files and that way I can have rules such as make dist-clean which runs rm -f *.in. Since it is a generated file, it is not typically stored in a revision system such as Git, SVN, Mercurial or CVS, rather the .ac file would be.
Read more on GNU Autotools.
Read about make and Makefile first, then learn about automake, autoconf, libtool, etc.
Makefile.am is a programmer-defined file and is used by automake to generate the Makefile.in file (the .am stands for automake).
The configure script typically seen in source tarballs will use the Makefile.in to generate a Makefile.
The configure script itself is generated from a programmer-defined file named either configure.ac or configure.in (deprecated). I prefer .ac (for autoconf) since it differentiates it from the generated Makefile.in files and that way I can have rules such as make dist-clean which runs rm -f *.in. Since it is a generated file, it is not typically stored in a revision system such as Git, SVN, Mercurial or CVS, rather the .ac file would be.
Read more on GNU Autotools.
Read about make and Makefile first, then learn about automake, autoconf, libtool, etc.
Simple example
Shamelessly adapted from: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Creating-amhello.html and tested on Ubuntu 14.04 Automake 1.14.1.
Makefile.am
SUBDIRS = src
dist_doc_DATA = README.md
README.md
Some doc.
configure.ac
AC_INIT([automake_hello_world], [1.0], [[email protected]])
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([-Wall -Werror foreign])
AC_PROG_CC
AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])
AC_CONFIG_FILES([
Makefile
src/Makefile
])
AC_OUTPUT
src/Makefile.am
bin_PROGRAMS = autotools_hello_world
autotools_hello_world_SOURCES = main.c
src/main.c
#include <config.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main (void) {
puts ("Hello world from " PACKAGE_STRING);
return 0;
}
Usage
autoreconf --install
mkdir build
cd build
../configure
make
sudo make install
autotools_hello_world
sudo make uninstall
This outputs:
Hello world from automake_hello_world 1.0
Notes
autoreconf --installgenerates several template files which should be tracked by Git, includingMakefile.in. It only needs to be run the first time.make installinstalls:- the binary to
/usr/local/bin README.mdto/usr/local/share/doc/automake_hello_world
- the binary to
On GitHub for you to try it out.
These files are used with the Autotools suite. Makefile.am files are compiled to Makefiles using automake.
Have a look to see if there is a configure script in the directory. If there is, then type:
./configure
If not, then run:
autoreconf
in the directory, which should create the configure script (you will need to have the Autotools suite installed to run this).
After that, you should have a configure script that you can run.
After the configure is complete, you should have a normal Makefile in the directory, and will be able to run
make
What has been left out:
- Makefile.am are transformed to Makefile.in using automake.
- Makefile.in are transformed to Makefile by running configure.
Neither of these (Makefile.{am,in}) are supposed to be used with make -f.
If the tarball already ships with configure, just run that and make. If it does not, run ./autogen.sh or bootstrap(*). If that does not exist, use autoreconf instead.
(*) autogen/bootstrap: A convenience script added by developers that should just call autoreconf. Unfortunately there are some people that eschew autoreconf and unnecessarily call all the lowlevel commands themselves.
It's an automake script/makefile. You can learn everything about automake, autoconf, libtool and such through the called autobook.
Basically, the steps would be to run automake, then autoconf, then configure, then make to build the software you have. These steps are neccessary to build the configure script, that automatically search for needed libraries and such on your system.
The process is not easy, unless your software also includes an already generated "configure" file. If so, the only thing you have to do (mostly) is to just run ./configure, then make, then make install to install the software to a default location. If you want to change configure options, you can also look at ./configure --help.
You stumbled upon an automake file, which is used to create a Makefile from the source, in this case Makefile.am.
From http://developer.gnome.org/doc/GGAD/z70.html, they explain it as:
automake processes Makefile.am to produce a standards-compliant Makefile.in. automake does a lot of work for you: it keeps up with dependencies between source files, for example. It creates all the standard targets, such as install and clean. It also creates more complex targets: simply typing make dist creates a standard .tar.gz file if your Makefile.am is correct.
Basically, you should run 'automake' to make the Makefile, and you will probably run into the same situation with the configure script with 'autoconf'.
Automake: http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/ Wikipedia article on automake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automake