BuildTools provides a set of macros and patches for projects that use the GNU autotools for their build system. Typically, but not necessarily, these are projects in COIN-OR.

The autoconf macros in coin*.m4, the automake include Makefile.inc, and the patches for autotools scripts (e.g., libtool, compile) provide additional functionality to simplify the setup of configure scripts, Makefiles, and configuration headers, and improve usability of a generated build system under Windows/MSys2.
Documentation for this main part of BuildTools is available in the docs/ subdirectory, which is the source for https://coin-or-tools.github.io/BuildTools.

Additionally, scripts are provided that prepare a project for a release or a new stable branch. These scripts mainly update the version number in configure.ac and configuration headers and create tags or branches. Run these scripts without options to get some help.

As BuildTools applies additional patches to autotools scripts, the autotools automatisms to regenerate the build scripts after a modification to configure.ac, Makefile.am, etc., should not be used. Additionally, we strongly suggest that all developers of a project use the exact same version of the autotools.

Detailed information on how to run the autotools can be found in the documentation. For the impatient, we repeat here the recommended steps to rerun the autotools for an already existing BuildTools-based project.

1. Set environment variable COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR to the prefix under which to install or find the autotools, e.g.,

   export COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR=$HOME/local
   

2. Run the script install_autotools.sh to (re)install autoconf, autoconf-archive, automake, and libtool under $COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR. If COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR has not been set, the default prefix will be used, which is usually /usr/local (so root permissions will be required for the make install step in the script; edit the script accordingly)
3. Run the script run_autotools with the path for the main directory of a project that uses this branch of BuildTools as argument, i.e.,

   ./run_autotools /path/to/project
   

   If COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR is set, then the script will prefix $PATH with $COIN_AUTOTOOLS_DIR/bin before running the autotools.

Run ./run_autotools with option -h to see available options.