automake-1.16: EXEEXT
8.20 Support for executable extensions
======================================
On some platforms, such as Windows, executables are expected to have an
extension such as ‘.exe’. On these platforms, some compilers (GCC among
them) will automatically generate ‘foo.exe’ when asked to generate
‘foo’.
Automake provides mostly-transparent support for this. Unfortunately
_mostly_ doesn’t yet mean _fully_. Until the English dictionary is
revised, you will have to assist Automake if your package must support
those platforms.
One thing you must be aware of is that, internally, Automake rewrites
something like this:
bin_PROGRAMS = liver
to this:
bin_PROGRAMS = liver$(EXEEXT)
The targets Automake generates are likewise given the ‘$(EXEEXT)’
extension.
The variables ‘TESTS’ and ‘XFAIL_TESTS’ (⇒Simple Tests) are
also rewritten if they contain filenames that have been declared as
programs in the same ‘Makefile’. (This is mostly useful when some
programs from ‘check_PROGRAMS’ are listed in ‘TESTS’.)
However, Automake cannot apply this rewriting to ‘configure’
substitutions. This means that if you are conditionally building a
program using such a substitution, then your ‘configure.ac’ must take
care to add ‘$(EXEEXT)’ when constructing the output variable.
Sometimes maintainers like to write an explicit link rule for their
program. Without executable extension support, this is easy—you simply
write a rule whose target is the name of the program. However, when
executable extension support is enabled, you must instead add the
‘$(EXEEXT)’ suffix.
This might be a nuisance for maintainers who know their package will
never run on a platform that has executable extensions. For those
maintainers, the ‘no-exeext’ option (⇒Options) will disable this
feature. This works in a fairly ugly way; if ‘no-exeext’ is seen, then
the presence of a rule for a target named ‘foo’ in ‘Makefile.am’ will
override an ‘automake’-generated rule for ‘foo$(EXEEXT)’. Without the
‘no-exeext’ option, this use will give a diagnostic.
Info Catalog
automake-1.16: Dependencies
automake-1.16: Programs