---
name: "dh_autoreconf"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "dh-autoreconf"
version: "20"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dh_autoreconf"
---

# dh\_autoreconf(1)

Call autoreconf -f -i and keep track of the changed files.

## NAME

dh\_autoreconf - Call autoreconf -f -i and keep track of the changed files.

## SYNOPSIS

**dh\_autoreconf** \[*debhelper options*\] \[**-X***item*\] \[**--mode=***mode*\] \[*program* **--** *params*\]

## DESCRIPTION

dh\_autoreconf is responsible for calling autoreconf and creating the files debian/autoreconf.before and debian/autoreconf.after which contain checksums of all files before/after the build. It is complemented by dh\_autoreconf\_clean which creates a list of all changed and added files and removes them.

Please note that dh\_autoreconf can only be run once. Thus, if you need to run multiple commands, use a script or similar. An example is given in [**dh-autoreconf**(7)](/dh-autoreconf/7.md).

## FILES

- debian/autoreconf

  This file can contain a list of directories. If present, dh\_autoreconf will only scan the given directories for changes. If no special command is given to dh\_autoreconf, it will also forward the directory list to autoreconf which causes it to be run only on those sub directories.

## OPTIONS

- **-X***item* **--exclude=***item*

  Exclude files that contain "item" anywhere in their filename from being checked for changes. This means that those files won't be deleted by `"dh_autoreconf_clean"` even if there are changes. You may use this option multiple times to build up a list of things to exclude.

  Starting with version 3, the directories of common version control systems such as cvs, git, hg, svn, and bzr are excluded automatically.

- **--mode=***mode*

  Change the way in which modifications to files are detected. The default mode is *md5* for using MD5 checksums, but there is also *timesize* for using the time of the last modification and the file size.

- **--as-needed**

  Enable support for -Wl,--as-needed in all ltmain.sh files identical to the one of the libtool package. This only works in the MD5 mode (the default one). The changes are reverted in dh\_autoreconf\_clean. You should not prevent LIBTOOLIZE from running with this, as it only works correctly with libtoolize running.

- **-D***dir* **--sourcedirectory**=*dir*

  Run everything in the source directory. Supported only in debhelper compat level 10 for backwards compatibility.

- *program* **--** *params*

  Run the program given by *program* with the arguments given by *params* instead of autoreconf -f -i. If you need to run multiple commands, put them in a script and pass the script instead (or add a target to debian/rules).

## ENVIRONMENT

For each tool executed by [**autoreconf**(1)](/autoreconf/1.md), one can export a variable with the uppercase name of the tool to the specific program which shall be run, including **true** to prevent the tool in question from being run. The following example shows the beginning of a debian/rules for a package where automake 1.11 shall be run instead of the default automake version and libtoolize shall not be run:

```
    #!/usr/bin/make -f
    export AUTOMAKE = automake-1.11
    export LIBTOOLIZE = true
```

## SEE ALSO

[**debhelper**(7)](/debhelper/7.md), [**dh\_autoreconf\_clean**(1)](/dh_autoreconf_clean/1.md), [**dh-autoreconf**(7)](/dh-autoreconf/7.md)

## AUTHOR

Julian Andres Klode \<jak@debian.org\>