A configure script is an executable script designed to aid in developing a
program
Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to:
Business and management
* Program management, the process of managing several related projects
* Time management
* Program, a part of planning
Arts and entertainment Audio
* Programm ...
to be run on a wide number of different computers. It matches the
libraries
A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...
on the user's computer, with those required by the program before
compiling
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
it from its
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
.
As a common practice, all configure scripts are named
configure
. Usually, configure scripts are written for the
Bourne shell
The Bourne shell (sh) is a shell command-line interpreter for computer operating systems.
The Bourne shell was the default shell for Version 7 Unix. Unix-like systems continue to have /bin/sh—which will be the Bourne shell, or a symbolic l ...
, but they may be written for execution in any desired shell.
Usage
Obtaining software directly from the source code is a common procedure on
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
computers, and generally involves the following three steps: configuring the
makefile
In software development, Make is a build automation tool that automatically builds executable programs and libraries from source code by reading files called ''Makefiles'' which specify how to derive the target program. Though integrated ...
, compiling the code, and finally installing the executable to standard locations. A configure script accomplishes the first of these steps. Using configure scripts is an automated method of generating
makefile
In software development, Make is a build automation tool that automatically builds executable programs and libraries from source code by reading files called ''Makefiles'' which specify how to derive the target program. Though integrated ...
s before compilation to tailor the software to the system on which the executable is to be compiled and run. The final executable software is most commonly obtained by executing the following commands in a shell that is currently pointing to the directory containing the source code:
./configure
make
make install
One must type
./configure
rather than simply
configure
to indicate to the shell that the script is in the current directory. This is because, as a security precaution,
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
configurations don't search the current directory for executables. So, to execute programs in that directory, one must explicitly specify their location.
Upon its completion,
configure
prints a report to
config.log
. Running
./configure --help
gives a list of command line arguments, for enabling or disabling additional features such as:
./configure --libs="-lmpfr -lgmp"
./configure --prefix=/home/user/local
The first line includes the
mpfr
and
gmp
libraries. The second line tells
make
to install the final version in
/home/user/local
.
Often, a document with instructions is included. This can be helpful if
configure
fails. This file is commonly named
INSTALL
.
Generating configure
Software developers simplify the challenge of
cross-platform
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...
software development by using
GNU Autotools. These scripts query the system on which they run for environment settings, platform architecture, and the existence and location of required build and runtime dependencies. They store the gathered information in
configure.ac
or the now deprecated
configure.in
to be read by
configure
during the installation phase.
Dependency checking
In new development, library dependency checking has been done in great part using
pkg-config via the
m4 macro, PKG_CHECK_MODULES. Before pkg-config gained popularity, separate m4 macros were created to locate files known to be included in the distribution of libraries depended upon.
History
The first program to come with a configure script was
rn by
Larry Wall
Larry Arnold Wall (born September 27, 1954) is an American computer programmer and author. He created the Perl programming language.
Personal life
Wall grew up in Los Angeles and then Bremerton, Washington, before starting higher education at ...
in 1984. The script was written by hand and produced a jocular running commentary when executed. It still survives as part of the build system of the trn program.
Since then, an ecosystem of programs has grown up to automate the creation of configure scripts as far as possible, of which the most common is the
GNU Autoconf system.
See also
*
Autoconf
*
Software build
In software development, a build is the process of converting source code files into standalone software artifact(s) that can be run on a computer, or the result of doing so.
Functions
Building software is an end-to-end process that involves ...
*
GNU Build System
References
{{Reflist
Compiling tools
Linux configuration utilities
Unix programming tools
configure