autostars, The auto* Sandbox ---------------------------- autostars was developed out of a ball to whack. The auto* tools (autoconf, automake, libtool) are very handy in case you want to write portable applications with lots of options out of the box. They're not always easy to understand or maintain, however. I think there is a straightforward reason for that : the feedback loop for these tools is so slow that you don't learn how everything works. Instead, you fix something, run it again, stay away for a few minutes and then return to see if it worked or not. By then you had forgotten what exactly it was you were trying to do. During a particularly intensive build-fix weekend on GStreamer (http://gstreamer.net), I got fed up with the long test cycles of running the autogen.sh script and waiting to see if that one little test you wanted to get running succeeded or not. The only thing I wanted to do was fix an arts.m4 file which had some buggy checks (in this case, it was trying to compile a test application for which it needed standard C++ headers, but they didn't show up in the test compile line). So here's autostars, which allows you to easily test specific checks for specific programs, as well as other options, with the smallest amount of fluff possible, and (hopefully) with enough comments to make you understand autotools by playing with them and examining them. At the start of this project, I am still relatively new to autotools. I don't consider this a problem; on the contrary, this will make *sure* that everything that goes into autostars is easily understandable by novice autotools users. I hope this helps you in understanding the basic autotools principles better, as well as allow you to work on bigger projects' configuration and build files. When to use this ---------------- Every time you're trying to fix a project's configure or build system, or try to write a new check or add a new feature, but you just can't get it right, you should consider using autostars. Instead of spending a whole day fixing, testing, reimplementing, consider how much time you'd win if you could concentrate on just getting the tests and features to work. Also consider that, by doing this test in a minimalistic way in the Autostar Sandbox, you pass on the knowledge you have gained to others who can see what you did to pull it off. In most cases, you'll also get it done quicker if you implement it in autostars first, and it'll probably be cleaner because you put your time and effort in getting the tests right instead of in waiting for the outcome. autostars --------- This script runs one particular test if you specify it on the command line, or all possible tests when launched without arguments. In the second case, it will give an overview of failed and passed tests.