12.1 Basics of installation

Naturally, Automake handles the details of actually installing your program once it has been built. All files named by the various primaries are automatically installed in the appropriate places when the user runs ‘make install’.

A file named in a primary is installed by copying the built file into the appropriate directory. The base name of the file is used when installing.

bin_PROGRAMS = hello subdir/goodbye

In this example, both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ will be installed in ‘$(bindir)’.

Sometimes it is useful to avoid the basename step at install time. For instance, you might have a number of header files in subdirectories of the source tree that are laid out precisely how you want to install them. In this situation you can use the nobase_ prefix to suppress the base name step. For example:

nobase_include_HEADERS = stdio.h sys/types.h

Will install ‘stdio.h’ in ‘$(includedir)’ and ‘types.h’ in ‘$(includedir)/sys’.