DESCRIPTION
The dh-autoreconf package provides a sequence addon for debhelper 7 which can be used in the following way:
#!/usr/bin/make -f %: dh $@ --with autoreconf
This will call dh_autoreconf prior to dh_auto_configure and will call dh_autoreconf_clean before dh_clean.
For more information on how to control the autoreconf process or how to other possible options, read the dh_autoreconf(1) and dh_autoreconf_clean(1) manual pages.
CDBS INTEGRATION
This package also provides /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/autoreconf.mk for packages using CDBS. The variable "DEB_DH_AUTORECONF_ARGS" can be used to pass extra arguments to dh_autoreconf, and the variable "DEB_DH_AUTORECONF_CLEAN_ARGS" to pass arguments to dh_autoreconf_clean. See their manual pages for information on available arguments.TIPS AND EXAMPLES
PATCHING LTMAIN.SH FOR AS-NEEDED LINKER FLAGS
You can add support for -Wl,--as-needed to ltmain.sh (at least for those ltmain.sh scripts changed during autoreconf) by passing the argument --as-needed to dh_autoreconf, as demonstrated in the following example:
#!/usr/bin/make -f %: dh $@ --with autoreconf override_dh_autoreconf: dh_autoreconf --as-needed
and for CDBS, by adding it to the correct variable such as:
DEB_DH_AUTORECONF_ARGS = --as-needed
For more information about this feature, see dh_autoreconf(1)
RUNNING MULTIPLE COMMANDS WITH DH_AUTORECONF
Please note that you may run dh_autoreconf only once. If you need to run multiple commands, you can put the commands into a script or your debian/rules file and then pass the name of your script to dh_autoreconf. For example, if your script is called debian/autogen.sh, you can put the following into your debian/rules if you use dh:
override_dh_autoreconf: dh_autoreconf debian/autogen.sh
Or, if you use CDBS:
DEB_DH_AUTORECONF_ARGS += debian/autogen.sh
CAVEATS
dh_autoreconf is mostly a superset of the autotools-dev debhelper addons, so you do not need --with=autotools_dev if you use --with=autoreconf, as long as your autoreconf updates the config.guess and config.sub files. If it does not, feel free to use both together.From time to time, there might be a short breakage for those using automatic ltmain.sh patching, when the patch no longer applies to the ltmain.sh.
You can only run dh_autoreconf once. Future versions may be able to be run multiple times, but this requires slightly more planning.