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I'm trying to learn how to use autotools and I can't seem to find a good beginner-friendly answer to this question. What's the difference between autoconf and autoreconf.

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autoconf generates the configure script from various input files, some of which are created using other tools like aclocal, automake, etc.

autoreconf is a helper that knows how to call all these tools in the right order

You'll usually just call autoreconf yourself and let it deal with all the lower level tools ....

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  • And autoconf is a low-level tool used by autoreconf?
    – x-yuri
    Commented Jun 15, 2020 at 22:37
  • Maybe bad wording on my side, autoconf, automake, libtool etc are the actual work horses. autoreconf is more like a wrapper that knows what the right order to call all the others in is. It is more like an orchestrator, similar to make, but with a fixed set of rules. Commented Jun 16, 2020 at 17:18
  • You're probably right. It's just that the naming seems weird. It seems to suggest that to generate (the first time) configure you run autoconf, but for regeneration you need autoreconf.
    – x-yuri
    Commented Jun 17, 2020 at 8:32
  • "autoreconf runs autoconf, autoheader, aclocal, automake, libtoolize, and autopoint (when appropriate) repeatedly to update the GNU Build System in the specified directories and their subdirectories" gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.68/html_node/… It is that simple. Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 22:23

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