SILC Autodist software helps in controlling and developing source distributions efficiently.
Autodist has file-level, directory-level, and file content-level distribution management options, which allows different distributions to include different portions of files. For instance, certain features can be excluded from specific distributions. However, anything not defined for the distribution will be removed automatically, including files, file content, and directories, ensuring nothing is accidentally included in the distribution.
Autodist creates 'Makefile.am' files from 'Makefile.ad' files, as well as 'configure.ac' files from one or more 'configure.ad' files. Other files ending with '.ad' suffix will also be processed and the '.ad' suffix will be removed. While Autodist controls the package creation process using a common GNU distribution creation process, specifically 'make dist,' it processes all the files in the distribution (except '*.ad' files, which have been processed earlier by Autodist) during the packaging phase. The resulting package is a processed source distribution package according to the rules specified in the distribution file(s).
Distdefs, or distribution defines, can be used in any file in the source tree and it allows specifying which files, directories, and file content should be included in the distribution. Any file, directory, or content in the file that is not inside a distdef will be removed. Autodist ensures that only the defined distdefs or anything outside of them gets delivered in the distribution.
Autodist ensures that any file, Makefile.am, configure.ac, or source file processed with the software is always compliant with the tools needed to process them. All files can even be processed with the corresponding tools before processing them with Autodist, making it possible to compile sources before they have been processed, and undefined lines are removed. Distdefs are respected in source files by the preprocessor.
While Autodist is not a binary packaging system, it is a reliable program for creating source distributions. However, if needed, a binary packaging system can be hooked to the distribution creation process. Overall, as a software program, SILC Autodist is an incredibly useful tool for managing and creating source distributions.
Version 1.3.1: N/A