Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool: Including files

| ### 21.4.6 Including files M4 permits you to include files into the input stream using the `include` and `sinclude` macros. They simply expand to the contents of the named file. Of course, the expansion will be rescanned as the normal rules dictate (21.3 Fundamentals of M4 processing). The difference between `include` and `sinclude` is subtle: if the filename given as an argument to `include` is not present, an error will be raised. The `sinclude` macro will instead expand to the empty string--presumably the `s' stands for `silent'. Older GNU Autotools macros that tried to be modular would use the `include` and `sinclude` macros to import libraries of macros from other sources. While this is still a workable mechanism, there is an active effort within the GNU Autotools development community to improve the packaging system for macros. An ``--install'` option is being developed to improve the mechanism for importing macros from a library.

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