AutoToolsBuildEnvironment (configure/make)

If you are using configure/make you can use AutoToolsBuildEnvironment helper. This helper sets LIBS, LDFLAGS, CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS and CPPFLAGS environment variables based on your requirements.

from conans import ConanFile, AutoToolsBuildEnvironment

class ExampleConan(ConanFile):
   settings = "os", "compiler", "build_type", "arch"
   requires = "poco/1.9.4"
   default_options = {"poco:shared": True, "openssl:shared": True}

   def imports(self):
      self.copy("*.dll", dst="bin", src="bin")
      self.copy("*.dylib*", dst="bin", src="lib")

   def build(self):
      autotools = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(self)
      autotools.configure()
      autotools.make()

It also works using the environment_append context manager applied to your configure and make commands, calling configure and make manually:

from conans import ConanFile, AutoToolsBuildEnvironment, tools

class ExampleConan(ConanFile):
    ...

    def build(self):
        env_build = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(self)
        with tools.environment_append(env_build.vars):
            self.run("./configure")
            self.run("make")

You can change some variables like fpic, libs, include_paths and defines before accessing the vars to override an automatic value or add new values:

 from conans import ConanFile, AutoToolsBuildEnvironment

 class ExampleConan(ConanFile):
     ...

     def build(self):
         env_build = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(self)
         env_build.fpic = True
         env_build.libs.append("pthread")
         env_build.defines.append("NEW_DEFINE=23")
         env_build.configure()
         env_build.make()

You can use it also with MSYS2/MinGW subsystems installed by setting the win_bash parameter in the constructor. It will run the the configure and make commands inside a bash that has to be in the path or declared in CONAN_BASH_PATH:

from conans import ConanFile, AutoToolsBuildEnvironment, tools

class ExampleConan(ConanFile):
   settings = "os", "compiler", "build_type", "arch"

   def imports(self):
     self.copy("*.dll", dst="bin", src="bin")
     self.copy("*.dylib*", dst="bin", src="lib")

   def build(self):
      env_build = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(self, win_bash=tools.os_info.is_windows)
      env_build.configure()
      env_build.make()

Constructor

class AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(object):

    def __init__(self, conanfile, win_bash=False)

Parameters:

conanfile (Required): Conanfile object. Usually self in a conanfile.py
win_bash: (Optional, Defaulted to False): When True, it will run the configure/make commands inside a bash.

Attributes

You can adjust the automatically filled values modifying the attributes like this:

 from conans import ConanFile, AutoToolsBuildEnvironment

 class ExampleConan(ConanFile):
     ...

     def build(self):
         autotools = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment(self)
         autotools.fpic = True
         autotools.libs.append("pthread")
         autotools.defines.append("NEW_DEFINE=23")
         autotools.configure()
         autotools.make()

fpic

Defaulted to: True if fPIC option exists and True or when fPIC exists and: False but option shared exists and True. Otherwise None.

Set it to True if you want to append the -fPIC flag.

libs

List with library names of the requirements (-l in LIBS).

include_paths

List with the include paths of the requires (-I in CPPFLAGS).

library_paths

List with library paths of the requirements (-L in LDFLAGS).

defines

List with variables that will be defined with -D in CPPFLAGS.

flags

List with compilation flags (CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS).

cxx_flags

List with only C++ compilation flags (CXXFLAGS).

link_flags

List with linker flags

Properties

vars

Environment variables CPPFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS generated by the build helper to use them in the configure, make and install steps. This variables are generated dynamically with the values of the attributes and can also be modified to be used in the following configure, make or install steps:

def build():
    autotools = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment()
    autotools.fpic = True
    env_build_vars = autotools.vars
    env_build_vars['RCFLAGS'] = '-O COFF'
    autotools.configure(vars=env_build_vars)
    autotools.make(vars=env_build_vars)
    autotools.install(vars=env_build_vars)

vars_dict

Same behavior as vars but this property returns each variable CPPFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, LIBS as dictionaries.

Methods

configure()

def configure(self, configure_dir=None, args=None, build=None, host=None, target=None,
              pkg_config_paths=None, vars=None)

Configures Autotools project with the given parameters.

Important

This method sets by default the --prefix argument to self.package_folder whenever --prefix is not provided in the args parameter during the configure step.

There are other flags set automatically to fix the install directories by default:

--bindir, --sbindir and --libexecdir set to bin folder.
--libdir set to lib folder.
--includedir, --oldincludedir set to include folder.
--datarootdir set to share folder.

These flags will be set on demand, so only the available options in the ./configure are actually set. They can also be totally skipped using use_default_install_dirs=False as described in the section below.

Warning

Since Conan 1.8 this build helper sets the output library directory via --libdir automatically to ${prefix}/lib. This means that if you are using the install() method to package with AutoTools, library artifacts will be stored in the lib directory unless indicated explicitly by the user.

This change was introduced in order to fix issues detected in some Linux distributions where libraries were being installed to the lib64 folder (instead of lib) when rebuilding a package from sources. In those cases, if package_info() was declaring self.cpp_info.libdirs as lib, the consumption of the package was broken.

This was considered a bug in the build helper, as it should be as much deterministic as possible when building the same package for the same settings and generally for any other user input.

If you were already modeling the lib64 folder in your recipe, make sure you use lib for self.cpp_info.libdirs or inject the argument in the Autotools’ configure() method:

atools = AutoToolsBuildEnvironment()
atools.configure(args=["--libdir=${prefix}/lib64"])
atools.install()

You can also skip its default value using the parameter use_default_install_dirs=False.

Parameters:

configure_dir (Optional, Defaulted to None): Directory where the configure script is. If None, it will use the current directory.
args (Optional, Defaulted to None): A list of additional arguments to be passed to the configure script. Each argument will be escaped according to the current shell. --prefix and --libdir, will be adjusted automatically if not indicated specifically.
build (Optional, Defaulted to None): To specify a value for the parameter --build. If None it will try to detect the value if cross-building is detected according to the settings. If False, it will not use this argument at all.
host (Optional, Defaulted to None): To specify a value for the parameter --host. If None it will try to detect the value if cross-building is detected according to the settings. If False, it will not use this argument at all.
target (Optional, Defaulted to None): To specify a value for the parameter --target. If None it will try to detect the value if cross-building is detected according to the settings. If False, it will not use this argument at all.
pkg_config_paths (Optional, Defaulted to None): Specify folders (in a list) of relative paths to the install folder or absolute ones where to find *.pc files (by using the env var PKG_CONFIG_PATH). If None is specified but the conanfile is using the pkg_config generator, the self.install_folder will be added to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH in order to locate the pc files of the requirements of the conanfile.
vars (Optional, Defaulted to None): Overrides custom environment variables in the configure step.
use_default_install_dirs (Optional, Defaulted to True): Use or not the defaulted installation dirs such as --libdir, --bindir…

make()

def make(self, args="", make_program=None, target=None, vars=None)

Builds Autotools project with the given parameters.

Parameters:

args (Optional, Defaulted to ""): A list of additional arguments to be passed to the make command. Each argument will be escaped accordingly to the current shell. No extra arguments will be added if args="".
make_program (Optional, Defaulted to None): Allows to specify a different make executable, e.g., mingw32-make. The environment variable CONAN_MAKE_PROGRAM can be used too.
target (Optional, Defaulted to None): Choose which target to build. This allows building of e.g., docs, shared libraries or install for some AutoTools projects.
vars (Optional, Defaulted to None): Overrides custom environment variables in the make step.

install()

def install(self, args="", make_program=None, vars=None)

Performs the install step of autotools calling make(target="install").

Parameters:

args (Optional, Defaulted to ""): A list of additional arguments to be passed to the make command. Each argument will be escaped accordingly to the current shell. No extra arguments will be added if args="".
make_program (Optional, Defaulted to None): Allows to specify a different make executable, e.g., mingw32-make. The environment variable CONAN_MAKE_PROGRAM can be used too.
vars (Optional, Defaulted to None): Overrides custom environment variables in the install step.

Environment variables

The following environment variables will also affect the AutoToolsBuildEnvironment helper class.

NAME	DESCRIPTION
LIBS	Library names to link
LDFLAGS	Link flags, (-L, -m64, -m32)
CFLAGS	Options for the C compiler (-g, -s, -m64, -m32, -fPIC)
CXXFLAGS	Options for the C++ compiler (-g, -s, -stdlib, -m64, -m32, -fPIC, -std)
CPPFLAGS	Preprocessor definitions (-D, -I)