automake.info: Invoking aclocal

Auto-generating aclocal.m4

   Automake includes a number of Autoconf macros which can be used in
your package; some of them are actually required by Automake in certain
situations.  These macros must be defined in your `aclocal.m4';
otherwise they will not be seen by `autoconf'.

   The `aclocal' program will automatically generate `aclocal.m4' files
based on the contents of `configure.in'.  This provides a convenient
way to get Automake-provided macros, without having to search around.
Also, the `aclocal' mechanism allows other packages to supply their own
macros.

   At startup, `aclocal' scans all the `.m4' files it can find, looking
for macro definitions (*note Macro search path::).  Then it scans
`configure.in'.  Any mention of one of the macros found in the first
step causes that macro, and any macros it in turn requires, to be put
into `aclocal.m4'.

   The contents of `acinclude.m4', if it exists, are also automatically
included in `aclocal.m4'.  This is useful for incorporating local
macros into `configure'.

   `aclocal' tries to be smart about looking for new `AC_DEFUN's in the
files it scans.  It also tries to copy the full text of the scanned
file into `aclocal.m4', including both `#' and `dnl' comments.  If you
want to make a comment which will be completely ignored by `aclocal',
use `##' as the comment leader.

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