Automake's implicit copying semantics means that many problems can be
worked around by simply adding some make targets and rules to
`Makefile.in'. automake will ignore these additions.
There are some caveats to doing this. Although you can overload a
target already used by automake, it is often inadvisable,
particularly in the topmost directory of a non-flat package. However,
various useful targets have a `-local' version you can specify in your
`Makefile.in'. Automake will supplement the standard target with
these user-supplied targets.
The targets that support a local version are all, info,
dvi, check, install-data, install-exec,
uninstall, and the various clean targets
(mostlyclean, clean, distclean, and
maintainer-clean). Note that there are no
uninstall-exec-local or uninstall-data-local targets; just
use uninstall-local. It doesn't make sense to uninstall just
data or just executables.
For instance, here is one way to install a file in `/etc':
install-data-local:
$(INSTALL_DATA) $(srcdir)/afile /etc/afile
Some targets also have a way to run another target, called a hook,
after their work is done. The hook is named after the principal target,
with `-hook' appended. The targets allowing hooks are
install-data, install-exec, dist, and
distcheck.
For instance, here is how to create a hard link to an installed program:
install-exec-hook:
ln $(bindir)/program $(bindir)/proglink
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