9.1.1 Project Directory Structure
Before starting to write code for any project, you need to decide on
the directory structure you will use to organise the code. I like to
build each component of a project in its own subdirectory, and to keep
the configuration sources separate from the source code. The great
majority of GNU projects I have seen use a similar method, so
adopting it yourself will likely make your project more familiar to your
developers by association.
The top level directory is used for configuration files, such as
`configure' and `aclocal.m4', and for a few other sundry
files, `README' and a copy of the project license for example.
Any significant libraries will have a subdirectory of their own,
containing all of the sources and headers for that library along with a
`Makefile.am' and anything else that is specific to just that
library. Libraries that are part of a small like group, a set of
pluggable application modules for example, are kept together in a single
directory.
The sources and headers for the project's main application will be
stored in yet another subdirectory, traditionally named `src'. There
are other conventional directories your developers might expect too: A
`doc' directory for project documentation; and a `test'
directory for the project self test suite.
To keep the project top-level directory as uncluttered as possible, as I
like to do, you can take advantage of Autoconf's
`AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR' by creating another directory, say
`config', which will be used to store many of the GNU Autotools
intermediate files, such as install-sh . I always store all
project specific Autoconf M4 macros to this same subdirectory.
So, this is what you should start with:
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$ pwd
~/mypackage
$ ls -F
Makefile.am config/ configure.in lib/ test/
README configure* doc/ src/
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