Caching Results

To avoid checking for the same features repeatedly in various configure scripts (or repeated runs of one script), configure saves the results of many of its checks in a cache file. If, when a configure script runs, it finds a cache file, it reads from it the results from previous runs and avoids rerunning those checks. As a result, configure can run much faster than if it had to perform all of the checks every time.

Macro: AC_CACHE_VAL (cache-id, commands-to-set-it)

Ensure that the results of the check identified by cache-id are available. If the results of the check were in the cache file that was read, and configure was not given the `--quiet' or `--silent' option, print a message saying that the result was cached; otherwise, run the shell commands commands-to-set-it. Those commands should have no side effects except for setting the variable cache-id. In particular, they should not call AC_DEFINE; the code that follows the call to AC_CACHE_VAL should do that, based on the cached value. Also, they should not print any messages, for example with AC_MSG_CHECKING; do that before calling AC_CACHE_VAL, so the messages are printed regardless of whether the results of the check are retrieved from the cache or determined by running the shell commands. If the shell commands are run to determine the value, the value will be saved in the cache file just before configure creates its output files. See section Cache Variable Names, for how to choose the name of the cache-id variable.

Macro: AC_CACHE_CHECK (message, cache-id, commands)

A wrapper for AC_CACHE_VAL that takes care of printing the messages. This macro provides a convenient shorthand for the most common way to use these macros. It calls AC_MSG_CHECKING for message, then AC_CACHE_VAL with the cache-id and commands arguments, and AC_MSG_RESULT with cache-id.

Macro: AC_CACHE_LOAD

Loads values from existing cache file, or creates a new cache file if a cache file is not found. Called automatically from AC_INIT.

Macro: AC_CACHE_SAVE

Flushes all cached values to the cache file. Called automatically from AC_OUTPUT, but it can be quite useful to call AC_CACHE_SAVE at key points in configure.in. Doing so checkpoints the cache in case of an early configure script abort.

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