source: chapter06/m4.xml@ 673b0d8

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<sect1 id="ch-system-m4" xreflabel="M4">
<title>M4-&m4-version;</title>
<?dbhtml filename="m4.html"?>

<indexterm zone="ch-system-m4"><primary sortas="a-M4">M4</primary></indexterm>

<para>The M4 package contains a macro processor.</para>

<screen>&buildtime; 0.1 SBU
&diskspace; 3.0 MB</screen>

<para>M4 installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC,
Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Perl, Sed.</para>



<sect2>
<title>Installation of M4</title>

<para>Prepare M4 for compilation:</para>

<screen><userinput>./configure --prefix=/usr</userinput></screen>

<para>Compile the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make</userinput></screen>

<para>To test the results, issue:
<userinput>make check</userinput>.</para>

<para>And install the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>

</sect2>


<sect2 id="contents-m4"><title>Contents of M4</title>

<para><emphasis>Installed program</emphasis>: m4</para>

</sect2>

<sect2><title>Short description</title>

<indexterm zone="ch-system-m4 m4"><primary sortas="b-m4">m4</primary></indexterm>
<para id="m4"><command>m4</command> copies the given files
while expanding the macros that they contain. These macros are either built-in
or user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides just doing macro
expansion, m4 has built-in functions for including named files, running Unix
commands, doing integer arithmetic, manipulating text in various ways,
recursion, and so on. The m4 program can be used either as a front-end to a
compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.</para>

</sect2>



</sect1>