Difference between autoconf and autoreconf

Question

I'm trying to learn how to use autotools and I can't seem to find a good beginner-friendly answer to this question. What's the difference between autoconf and autoreconf.

Answer 1

autoconf generates the configure script from various input files, some of which are created using other tools like aclocal, automake, etc.

autoreconf is a helper that knows how to call all these tools in the right order

You'll usually just call autoreconf yourself and let it deal with all the lower level tools ....