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6.3.1 aclocal options

aclocal accepts the following options:

--acdir=dir
Look for the macro files in dir instead of the installation directory. This is typically used for debugging.
--diff[=command]
Run command on M4 file that would be installed or overwritten by --install. The default command is ‘diff -u’. This option implies --install and --dry-run.
--dry-run
Do not actually overwrite (or create) aclocal.m4 and M4 files installed by --install.
--help
Print a summary of the command line options and exit.
-I dir
Add the directory dir to the list of directories searched for .m4 files.
--install
Install system-wide third-party macros into the first directory specified with ‘-I dir’ instead of copying them in the output file.

When this option is used, and only when this option is used, aclocal will also honor ‘#serial NUMBER’ lines that appear in macros: an M4 file is ignored if there exists another M4 file with the same basename and a greater serial number in the search path (see Serials).

--force
Always overwrite the output file. The default is to overwrite the output file only when really needed, i.e., when its contents changes or if one of its dependencies is younger.

This option forces the update of aclocal.m4 (or the file specified with --output below) and only this file, it has absolutely no influence on files that may need to be installed by --install.

--output=file
Cause the output to be put into file instead of aclocal.m4.
--print-ac-dir
Prints the name of the directory that aclocal will search to find third-party .m4 files. When this option is given, normal processing is suppressed. This option can be used by a package to determine where to install a macro file.
--verbose
Print the names of the files it examines.
--version
Print the version number of Automake and exit.
-W CATEGORY
--warnings=category
Output warnings falling in category. category can be one of:
syntax
dubious syntactic constructs, underquoted macros, unused macros, etc.
unsupported
unknown macros
all
all the warnings, this is the default
none
turn off all the warnings
error
treat warnings as errors

All warnings are output by default.

The environment variable WARNINGS is honored in the same way as it is for automake (see Invoking Automake).