Autotools

Adding Nonstandard Targets

Adding a new nonstandard target is a little different than hooking an existing target. In the first place, you don't need to use AM_CONDITIONAL and other Autoconf tests to see if you have the tools you need. Instead, you can do all conditional testing from the Makefile.am file because you control the entire command set associated with the target, although this isn't recommended practice. (It's always preferable to ensure that the build environment is configured correctly from the configure script.) In cases were make targets can only be expected to work under certain conditions, or on certain platforms, it's a good idea to provide checks within the target to ensure that the operation requested can actually be performed. ...