Autoconf
========

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1
   :caption: Contents:

About
-----

`Autoconf <https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/>`_ is an extensible package of M4 macros that produce shell scripts to automatically configure software source code packages. It is part of the GNU build system and is widely used for creating portable, configurable software packages. For more information, visit the `official Autoconf website <https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/>`_.

Autoconf is a tool for producing shell scripts that automatically configure software source code packages to adapt to many kinds of Unix-like systems. It is essential for building many open-source software packages that use the GNU build system.

.. note:: On Discoverer HPC, Autoconf is used as part of the build system for compiling various software packages and libraries. Note that the default verstion of Autoconf that comes with the Linux distribution installed on our compute nodes might be outdated, which is the reason we build the latest version of Autoconf and make it available in our software repository.

Available versions
------------------

In case your applications requite the use of another Autoconf version, you can install it by yourself, but **those builds will not be supported by the Discoverer HPC team.**

To check which Autoconf versions are currently supported on Discoverer, execute on the login node:

To view available Autoconf versions:

.. code:: bash

 module avail autoconf

.. note:: The recent versions of Autoconf may contain experimental features. Therefore, always check the producted configure files for compatibility with your application.

Access to the Autoconf
----------------------

To access the latest version of the Autoconf library, load the module without specifying the version:

.. code:: bash

 module load autoconf

In case you need to access a specific version of the Autoconf library, you can specify the version:

.. code:: bash 

 module load autoconf/<version>


Build recipes and tests
-----------------------

Autoconf requires Perl only and no compilers are needed. Our build recipe for Autoconf used the Perl version that comes with the Linux distribution installed on our compute nodes.

The recipe followed to build the source code is available at:

https://gitlab.discoverer.bg/vkolev/recipes/-/tree/main/autoconf

There are also logs that were collected during the compilation and testing processes.

Getting Help
------------

For additional assistance:

* See the :doc:`help` documentation