How to fix autoconf error: possibly undefined macro: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE

Problem

When running autoconf, you see an error message such as

autoconf_error_log.txt
configure.ac:15: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
configure.ac:29: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
configure.ac:36: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR
configure.ac:38: error: possibly undefined macro: AM_CONDITIONAL
configure.ac:55: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_CHECK_PTHREAD_SETNAME_NP

Solution

Before running autoconf, you need to run aclocal to generate the aclocal.m4 file.

example.sh
aclocal

After that, you can run autoconf again and the error should be gone.


Check out similar posts by category: Build Systems