Bootstrapping the Package

If something goes wrong, or if it is simply the first time you create configure.ac or a Makefile.am, you need to set up the GNU Build System. That’s the goal of the simple script bootstrap, which most important action is invoking:

$ autoreconf -fvi

The various files (configure, Makefile.in, etc.) are created. There is no need to run make distclean, or aclocal or whatever, before running autoreconf: it knows what to do.

Then invoke configure and make (GCC, The GNU Compiler Collection):

$ mkdir _build
$ cd _build
$ ../configure CXX=g++
$ make

Alternatively you may set CC and CXX in your environment:

$ export CXX=g++
$ mkdir _build
$ cd _build
$ ../configure && make

This solution is preferred since the value of CC etc. will be used by the configure invocation from make distcheck (Making a Tarball).