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Let's create "Hello, world!"

First, we'll write a standard "Hello, world!" program:

/* hello.c: A standard "Hello, world!" program */#include <stdio.h>intmain(intargc, char* argv[]){printf("Hello, world!\n");
 
 return0;
}

With a simple Makefile:

# Makefile: A standard Makefile for hello.c
all: hello
clean:
 rm -f hello *.o

Let's try making our binaries:

$ ls
Makefile hello.c
$ make
cc hello.c -o hello
$ ls
Makefile hello* hello.c
$ ./hello 
Hello, world!
$

No problem!

Let's add Autoconf

Now, we'll add autoconf to this program. First, we create a file called "configure.ac". This file instructs Autoconf how to generate the "configure" script. (Autoconf 2.13 users: Create "configure.in" instead.)

Creating this file by hand can be tedious, though. So Autoconf provides a program to create the file for you. This program is "autoscan":

$ autoscan
$ ls
Makefile autoscan.log configure.scan hello* hello.c
$

"autoscan" scans your sources and creates an appropriate "configure.ac" file. But notice it doesn't create "configure.ac" file directly. Instead, it creates a file called "configure.scan". We need to rename this file to "configure.ac":

$ mv configure.scan configure.ac

Why doesn't "autoscan" create "configure.ac" directly? Well, you don't know this at the moment, but you'll be customizing "configure.ac" later. You don't want to accidentally overwrite "configure.ac", do you? So "autoscan" doesn't write to "configure.ac" directly.

Anyway, now you can run "autoconf" to generate "configure":

$ autoconf
$ ls
Makefile autoscan.log configure.ac hello.c
autom4te.cache/ configure* hello*
$

Ignore all those extra files Autoconf creates. They are just intermediary files we don't need. Don't erase them, though — Autoconf may use them later.

We could now type "./configure", but not yet: "configure" is supposed to generate a new Makefile. But "configure" uses a file called "Makefile.in" to generate the new Makefile. So now we need a "Makefile.in".

No sweat. "Makefile.in" is supposed to be a template for the new "Makefile". We'll simply rename "Makefile" to "Makefile.in" and worry about writing the proper version later:

$ mv Makefile Makefile.in
$ ls
Makefile.in autoscan.log configure.ac hello.c
autom4te.cache/ configure* hello*
$

Now we're ready to run "./configure" and "make":

$ ./configure
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating config.h
config.status: error: cannot find input file: config.h.in
$ make clean all
rm -f hello
cc hello.c -o hello
$ ls
Makefile autom4te.cache/ config.log configure* hello*
Makefile.in autoscan.log config.status* configure.ac hello.c
$ ./hello 
Hello, world!
$

Hey~ you did it! You've written your first Autoconf program!

Well, sort of...

You see, all you've done so far is making the program look like it's using Autoconf. In actuality, your program isn't any more portable than it was before. To do that, you'll need to customize your source files. That'll be the next chapter.

Let's review

Let's review what we've done so far:

1. Create the sources, Makefile, etc.
2. Run "autoscan" ("autoscan" creates "configure.scan")
3. Rename "configure.scan" to "configure.ac"
4. Run "autoconf" ("autoconf" uses "configure.ac" to create "configure")
5. Rename "Makefile" to "Makefile.in" ("configure" will use "Makefile.in" to create "Makefile")
6. Run "./configure" and "make"

Now, that seems like a lot. But in actuality, all you've learned to do is execute two programs in sequence, "autoscan" followed by "autoconf". The renaming of files is just a necessary evil.

What's next?

Now, let's try to make your program more portable by modifying your source files:

• Next: Chapter 3 — Let's make "Hello, world!" portable