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Invent wheels with Autotools & C

Posted
By Yi Cao
6 min read
Invent wheels with Autotools & C

This how-to guide will teach you how to invent wheels with Autotools & C. Note that it isn’t detailed, just to give you some ideas how the whole system works.

Introduction

Requirements

My Autotools versions are:

  • Automake 1.16.1
  • Autoconf 2.69
  • Libtool 2.4.6

And I’m on OS X. Installation guide will not be included.

Product

We’ll make a simple C lib (C++ compatible) called libts helps you to get time duration between two function calls.

Procedures

Time to actually make something!

A simple lib

Our project starts simply like this, including a header file and a source file:

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.
├── ts.c
└── ts.h

0 directories, 2 files

And codes are shown below:

ts.h

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#ifndef __TS_H__
#define __TS_H__

#include <sys/time.h>
#include "config.h" /* This file will be generated later */

/* For C++ compatiblity */
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

#define FIRST_CALL -1.0

/* 
* Returns the time passed in seconds before the latest call.
* If it's the first time called, return FIRST_CALL.
*/
extern double getTimeDuration(void);

/* End of the extern "C" above */
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif

#endif /* __TS_H__ */

ts.c

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#include "ts.h"

double getTimeDuration()
{
    static double latest = 0; /* Last call */
    double sec; /* Current time in second */
    double ret; /* Return value */

    #if HAVE_GETTIMEOFDAY /* This macro comes from config.h */

    /* In some specific OS, gettimeofday() is available */
    /* See https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/gettimeofday.2.html */

    struct timeval tv;
    gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
    sec = tv.tv_sec;
    sec += tv.tv_usec / 1000000.0;

    #else /* HAVE_GETTIMEOFDAY */

    /* Or we can use time() instead. */

    sec = time(NULL);

    #endif /* HAVE_GETTIMEOFDAY */

    ret = sec - latest; /* Calculate difference */
    latest = sec; /* Update latest */
    if (ret == sec) /* First call, return special value */
        return FIRST_CALL;
    else
        return ret;
}

Now the source code is done. Let’s setup Autotools!

Autotools

Autotools is a complicated build system. We have to create several files.

Note: The following commands are run at the root of the source code.

configure.ac

configure.ac is a file for Autoconf to generate an configure script. It checks availability (in our example, if gettimeofday() and time() are available) and generates Makefile from Makefile.in, which will be generated later.

Let’s start with an autoscan GNU provided. It scans your code and generates an configure.ac automatically.

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autoscan

The directory should be like this:

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.
├── autoscan.log
├── configure.scan
├── ts.c
└── ts.h

0 directories, 4 files

The autoscan.log can be removed safely. What matters is configure.scan. We have to rename it to configure.ac first:

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rm -f autoscan.log
mv configure.scan configure.ac

configure.ac looks like this:

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#                                               -*- Autoconf -*-
# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.

AC_PREREQ([2.69])
AC_INIT([FULL-PACKAGE-NAME], [VERSION], [BUG-REPORT-ADDRESS])
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([ts.c])
AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])

# Checks for programs.
AC_PROG_CC

# Checks for libraries.

# Checks for header files.
AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/time.h])

# Checks for typedefs, structures, and compiler characteristics.

# Checks for library functions.
AC_CHECK_FUNCS([gettimeofday])

AC_OUTPUT

It’s actually a piece of m4 language, and all those AC_XXX stuffs are macros and will be expanded into bash scripts. You can write bash in the configure.ac directly as well.

As you can see, it’s smart to include AC_CHECK_FUNCS([gettimeofday]). This will checks if gettimeofday is available. Magic! But, we have to modify it anyway.

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#                                               -*- Autoconf -*-
# Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.

AC_PREREQ([2.69]) # 1
AC_INIT([libts], [0.1], [username@example.com]) # 2
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([ts.c]) # 3
AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h]) # 4

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE # Modified 5

# Checks for programs.
AC_PROG_CC # 6

# Checks for libraries.

# Checks for header files.
AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/time.h]) # 7

# Checks for typedefs, structures, and compiler characteristics.

# Checks for library functions.
AC_CHECK_FUNCS([gettimeofday]) # 8

LT_INIT # Modified 9
AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile]) # Modified 10

AC_OUTPUT # 11
  • 1: Checks the minimal version of autoconf.
  • 2 & 11: Start and end of every configure.ac. It also includes some info for your project.
  • 3: Check if the source code exists.
  • 4: Generates the configuration header named config.h.
  • 5: Prepare for generating Makefile.
  • 6: Determine a C compiler to use.
  • 7: Check if header file sys/time.h is available.
  • 8: Check if function gettimeofday is available.
  • 9: Initialize Libtool. This will be used later.
  • 10: Generate Makefile from Makefile.in, which will be generated later.

And to generate the configure file:

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aclocal
autoconf
autoheader

And your project will be like this:

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.
├── aclocal.m4
├── autom4te.cache
│   ├── output.0
│   ├── output.1
│   ├── output.2
│   ├── output.3
│   ├── requests
│   ├── traces.0
│   ├── traces.1
│   ├── traces.2
│   └── traces.3
├── config.h.in
├── configure
├── configure.ac
├── ts.c
└── ts.h

Makefile.am

Makefile.am is a file for automake to generate the Makefile.in mentioned above. Now create a Makefile.am and write the following stuffs:

AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
include_HEADERS=ts.h
lib_LTLIBRARIES = libts.la
libts_la_SOURCES=ts.c

The build target is libts.la, containing the source file ts.c, which uses Libtool to sustain portability. It’s simpler than configure.ac.

Also, note that AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS is set to foreign, so it won’t force us to create those NEWS, AUTHOR, ChangeLog, etc.

To generate Makefile.in, run:

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libtoolize # Generate supporting files for Libtool
automake --add-missing

Tests

Tests are always needed. Let’s do this in Autotools’ way. First create test.c:

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#include "ts.h"
#include <assert.h>
#include <stdio.h>

/* Program exits with 0 means tests has passed */
int main(int args, char *argv[])
{
    double first = getTimeDuration();
    assert(first == FIRST_CALL);
    double second = getTimeDuration();
    assert(second != FIRST_CALL);
    puts("OK");
    return 0;
}

You can use modern test frameworks too.

Makefile.am:

# Lib
AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = foreign
include_HEADERS=ts.h
lib_LTLIBRARIES = libts.la
libts_la_SOURCES=ts.c

# Tests
TESTS = checkTS
check_PROGRAMS = checkTS
checkTS_SOURCES = test.c
checkTS_LDFLAGS = libts.la

Also, if you don’t want to type the above aclocal and stuff again:

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autoreconf -i

configure & build

Simple! Everything is ready now. Do this as usual:

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./configure
make

And to install:

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sudo make install

To test:

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make check

To make a distribution package:

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make dist

Whoa, you did that! To use this lib in your own programs, just #include <ts.h> and link this library (-lts)!

Product

This demo’s distribution can be found here.

programming
This post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by the author.