2.1 Required macros

Several macros are required in configure.ac to use pyconfigure. These are:

     m4_include([m4/python.m4])

This macro imports all of the Python Autoconf macros. If you choose to write your own macros for other purposes, you would also include them in this manner.

     AC_INIT(project_name, project_version)

This initializes Autoconf and also substitutes your project name and version in any output that it generates.

     AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4])

Now that Autoconf is initialized, we inform it of the location of our macros.

     AC_PROG_PYTHON

This is the key macro. It finds the highest-version Python interpreter available on the system and saves its path in the PYTHON variable.

     PC_PYTHON_SITE_PACKAGE_DIR
     PC_PYTHON_EXEC_PACKAGE_DIR

These two macros figure out where Python expects packages to be installed (i.e. /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/) and saves them in the variables pkgpythondir and pkgpyexecdir, respectively, for use in Makefile.in