The mkdeps and pelconf tools are intended to provide a configuration and build system that is flexible and simple to use. In general terms mkdeps maintains the dependencies and helps to maintain the makefile, while the pelconf adapts the source code to the current compilation environment.
The mkdeps program expects that source files are organized in pairs of implementation and interface files. For instance, when using C++ for each file xxx.hpp that defines the public interface of the translation unit xxx there is an implementation file called xxx.cpp. Note that we talk about translation units in the sense of the C++ standard. Each translation unit may contain many classes. See the file mkdeps.md for details.
For the purposes of mkdeps you can use several directories to distribute the source files and you can specify the include directories. So if you wish you can have some of the include files in an include directory and some of the source files in another directory.
Letting mkdeps figure out which files are needed for each target simplifies the maintenance of the makefile. You must only define the pattern rules that compile each kind of source. The maintenance of the dependencies is done automatically by mkdeps.
The pelconf program examines the compilation environment and configures the program. pelconf creates the config.h header and modifies the makefile to adapt it to the compilation environment. The concept of pelconf is the same as autoconf. The main difference from autoconf is that the tests are written in C and not in M4 and bash. Therefore there is no need to learn a different language: you are already programming in C/C++ and you just write each test in C. The pelconflib.c file provides the support required to make this easy. Your tests are written in pelconf.c. The configure script just compiles pelconf.c and pelconflib.c together and runs pelconf. pelconf will run predefined tests and your own specific tests. It will create a config.h file and will modify an existing makefile.in file to create a makefile. For the user of the program there is no difference from autoconf. You just run the commands ./configure; make; make install. For the creator of the program pelconf is much easier due to the use of C to specify the tests. See pelconflib.md for details.
To install mkdeps just compile the source file mkdeps.cpp. For instance:
g++ -Wall -std=gnu++11 -O2 -o mkdeps mkdeps.cpp
sudo mv mkdeps /usr/local/bin
To use pelconf you first write the pelconf.c file with the list of tests that you
wish to run. You also write the makefile.in file. You copy the pelconflib.c,
configure and configure.bat files to the set of files that will be distributed.
When the user configures the program the only thin needed is to run ./configure.
This will compile pelconf.c and pelconflib.c and run the resulting program. The
configuration program will create the file config.h. It will also create makefile
by writing makefile variable assignments and then copying the contents of
makefile.in.