Add one header from a different project to my project using automake

Question

I'm working on a relatively big project that is using automake build system.

Now the problem is that I need to link the project with a library from another project (this works fine), but I also need to include a header from the other project source tree (api.h).

INCLUDES = -I@REMOTE_PROJECT_DIR@

in Makefile.am doesn't work, because there are .h files with coliding names in the remote source directory. How can I add just the api.h?

I used a symlink into the include directory in the project, but now I need to push the sources into a public repo and everyone working with it has the other project in a different directory, so I need to use the configure param.

Answer 1

If you have headers with same names, you could put at least one of them into directory with different name and include it using directory name.

Here's a sample directory structure:

mylibrary/include/myblirary/api.h

myproject/api.h 
myproject/main.cpp 

In main.cpp:

#include "api.h"
#include "mylibrary/api.h"

#include <boost/regex.hpp>

When compiling:

g++ -I mylibrary/include

Answer 2

You do not want to tweak you Makefile.am or your configure.ac in any way. If api.h is installed in a standard location (eg /usr/include), then all you need is AC_CHECK_HEADERS([api.h]) in configure.ac. If api.h is installed in a non-standard location (eg /home/joe/include), the way to pick it up in your project is determined at configure time. When you run configure, you add the argument CPPFLAGS=-I/home/joe/include to the invocation of configure. You do not indicate the non-standard location in the build files themselves.

Another alternative is to use pkg-config, but the non-standard location of your header file will still be dealt with when you run configure. (This time by setting PKG_CONFIG_PATH rather than CPPFLAGS)