5.1 Configuration requirements

The one real requirement of Automake is that your `configure.in' call AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. This macro does several things which are required for proper Automake operation (see section 5.6 Autoconf macros supplied with Automake).

Here are the other macros which Automake requires but which are not run by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE:

AC_CONFIG_FILES

AC_OUTPUT

Automake uses these to determine which files to create (see section `Creating Output Files' in The Autoconf Manual). A listed file is considered to be an Automake generated `Makefile' if there exists a file with the same name and the `.am' extension appended. Typically, AC_CONFIG_FILES([foo/Makefile]) will cause Automake to generate `foo/Makefile.in' if `foo/Makefile.am' exists.

Other listed files are treated differently. Currently the only difference is that an Automake `Makefile' is removed by make distclean, while other files are removed by make clean.