Usage
Obtaining software directly from the source code (a standard procedure on Unix computers) generally involves the following three steps: configuring the makefile, compiling the code, and finally installing the executable in the appropriate places. A configure script accomplishes the first of these steps. Using configure scripts is an automated method of generating makefiles 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 (dot slash configure) rather than simply configure to indicate to the shell that the script is in the current directory; ".". By default, for security reasons, Unix operating systems do not search the current directory for executables so one must give the full path explicitly to avoid an error.
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/myname/apps
The first line includes the mpfr and gmp libraries. The second line tells make to install the final version in /home/myname/apps. Note that if you have a space character in your argument, you will need to enclose the text in quotation marks as shown on the first line. The INSTALL file contains instructions should the prescribed steps fail.
Read more about this topic: Configure Script
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