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Configuring the build consists of running a series of tests to identify the build environment and the presence of the required tools and libraries. It is a crucial step in allowing portability between different operating systems to detect this build environment system. In the autotools chain, this is done by the autoconf tool.
The autoconf tool translates a
configure.ac file, written in a mixture of m4
and shell scripting, into a configure POSIX
shell script that executes the tests that determines what the build
environment is.