20. A Complex GNU Autotools Project

This chapter polishes the worked example I introduced in 9. A Small GNU Autotools Project, and developed in 12. A Large GNU Autotools Project. As always, the ideas presented here are my own views and not necessarily the only way to do things. Everything I present here has, however, served me well for quite some time, and you should find plenty of interesting ideas for your own projects.

Herein, I will add a libltdl module loading system to Sic, as well as some sample modules to illustrate how extensible such a project can be. I will also explain how to integrate the `dmalloc' library into the development of a project, and show why this is important.

If you noticed that, as it stands, Sic is only useful as an interactive shell unable to read commands from a file, then go to the top of the class! In order for it to be of genuine use, I will extend it to interpret commands from a file too.