CODEWITHSUNDEEP
makefilegnu-makeautotoolsautomake
explorer
explorer

Reputation: 12090

What language is the generated Makefile.in written in?

Here is what I think I know (please correct me if I'm wrong):
configure.ac --- macros
Makefile.am --- variable definitions
configure --- shell script
Makefile --- makefile's own syntax

Despite scanning gnu documentation on automake , I couldn't find out, written in plain words, what language the Makefile.in generated by automake is written in. Kindly help.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3543

Answers (1)

John Bollinger
John Bollinger

Reputation: 180361

The Makefile.in files generated by Automake are templates for the Makefiles that are ultimately to be generated at build time when configure is run.* As such, they are mostly written in make's language -- they are very similar to the Makefiles generated from them -- but they allow for, and in practice, they always contain, several tokens for configure to replace with values that it chooses.

To the extent that you want to consider the language in which Makefile.in files are written to be distinct from make's language, it is an unnamed custom template language specific to the Autotools. From that perspective, it is by no means limited to Makefiles, and only because of their role do Makefile.in files happen to so resemble Makefiles.

*Technically, configure writes another shell script, config.status, that performs the actual template processing.

Upvotes: 3

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