Alien::...Autoconf(3)

💖 Alien::Build::Plugin::Build::Autoconf — the autoconf plugin for Alien::Build 💖

okay bestie, you found the <pink>Alien::...Autoconf(3)</pink> page, which is the <purple>User Contributed Perl Documentation</purple> section of the manual. sit down, get comfy, we're learning autoconf things ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

Alien::Build::Plugin::Build::Autoconf — the Autoconf plugin for Alien::Build. that's the whole name, she's self-explanatory and she knows it 💅

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⭐ VERSION ⭐

version 2.88 — yes queen, we're on 2.88 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

look at how CUTE this is, only two lines:

use alienfile;
plugin 'Build::Autoconf';

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no cap 🫶

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically this plugin hands you a lil toolkit for building projects that use autoconf. the main character here is a configure helper (docs for it are down below ⬇️) plus the default build stage, which is literally this:

'%{configure} --disable-shared',
'%{make}',
'%{make} install',

and on Windows, this plugin also pulls in Alien::Build::Plugin::Build::MSYS, because autoconf-style projects on windows are just like that and they need it, periodt.

the other thing she does? a double staged DESTDIR install. and the author is obsessed — he found this genuinely improves the overall reliability of Alien modules that are based on autoconf packages. we love a reliability glow-up 💖

this plugin supports out-of-source builds (in autoconf terms that's a VPATH build) via the meta property out_of_source. iconic behavior honestly.

NOTE: by itself, this plugin is only intended for use on packages that include a configure script. for packages that expect you to use Autotools to generate a configure script before building, you can use Alien::Autotools to generate the configure script and then use this plugin to run it. for more details, go read the documentation for Alien::Autotools 🧚

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💅 PROPERTIES 💅

🌈 with_pic

adds the --with-pic option when running configure. if your package supports it, it'll generate position independent code on platforms that support it. this is required for XS modules, and it's generally what you want, fr fr.

autoconf normally ignores options it doesn't understand, so including it is usually a safe and reasonable default. BUT — a small number of projects look like they use autoconf when they're actually an autoconf-style interface with a completely different implementation underneath 🙈. those ones may fail if you hand them options such as --with-pic that they don't recognize. such packages are literally the whole rationale for this property existing.

🌸 msys_version

the version of Alien::MSYS required if it is deemed necessary. if Alien::MSYS isn't needed (say, if you're running under Unix, or MSYS2, for example) this will do nothing. nothing. zero. void. 💀

🎀 config_site

the content for the generated config.site.

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👑 HELPERS 👑

⭐ configure

%{configure}

the correct incantation to start an autoconf-style configure script on your platform ✨. some reasonable default flags will be provided, you don't have to do anything, she's got you 🫶

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

• SITE_CONFIG — for a share install, this plugin needs to alter the behavior of autotools using site.config. she does this by generating a site.config file on the fly, and setting the SITE_CONFIG environment variable. in the event that you already have your own SITE_CONFIG set, that file will be sourced from the generated one, so your local defaults should still be honored — unless it's one that needs to be changed for a share install.

in particular, the lib directory must be overridden, because on some platforms dynamic libraries will otherwise be placed in directories that Alien::Build doesn't normally look in 👀. since the alienized package will be installed in a share directory and not a system directory, that should be fine. it's giving "we fixed it, don't worry" 💜

• ALIEN_BUILD_SITE_CONFIG — if defined, this file will be also be sourced in the generated site.config. this allows you to have local defaults for alien share installs only. cute and exclusive, love that for you 🎀

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• Alien::Build::Plugin::Build::MSYS
• Alien::Build::Plugin
• Alien::Build
• Alien::Base
• Alien

and the lore drops:

• <https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/autoconf.html>
• <https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/DESTDIR.html>

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💖 AUTHOR 💖

Author: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>

Contributors (aka the group chat, everyone say thank you 😭🫶):

• Diab Jerius (DJERIUS)
• Roy Storey (KIWIROY)
• Ilya Pavlov
• David Mertens (run4flat)
• Mark Nunberg (mordy, mnunberg)
• Christian Walde (Mithaldu)
• Brian Wightman (MidLifeXis)
• Zaki Mughal (zmughal)
• mohawk (mohawk2, ETJ)
• Vikas N Kumar (vikasnkumar)
• Flavio Poletti (polettix)
• Salvador Fandiño (salva)
• Gianni Ceccarelli (dakkar)
• Pavel Shaydo (zwon, trinitum)
• Kang-min Liu (劉康民, gugod)
• Nicholas Shipp (nshp)
• Juan Julián Merelo Guervós (JJ)
• Joel Berger (JBERGER)
• Petr Písař (ppisar)
• Lance Wicks (LANCEW)
• Ahmad Fatoum (a3f, ATHREEF)
• José Joaquín Atria (JJATRIA)
• Duke Leto (LETO)
• Shoichi Kaji (SKAJI)
• Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN)
• Paul Evans (leonerd, PEVANS)
• Håkon Hægland (hakonhagland, HAKONH)
• nick nauwelaerts (INPHOBIA)
• Florian Weimer
• Marcel Telka (mtelka)

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🔥 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🔥

this software is copyright (c) 2011-2022 by Graham Ollis.

this is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself. slay 💅

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and that's the page bestie!! 🦋

this was perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-09-21, and it lives in the Alien::...Autoconf(3) section of the manual — mwah, go build something, ily 💖✨🎀