How To Install m4 on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

2 minutes • 383 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install m4 on Ubuntu.

What is `m4`

m4 is:

GNU m4' is an implementation of the traditional UNIX macro processor. It is mostly SVR4 compatible, although it has some extensions (for example, handling more than 9 positional parameters to macros). m4’ also has builtin functions for including files, running shell commands, doing arithmetic, etc. Autoconf needs GNU m4' for generating configure’ scripts, but not for running them.

There are three methods to install m4 on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install m4 Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install m4 using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install m4

Install m4 Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install m4 using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install m4

Install m4 Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install m4 using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install m4

How To Uninstall m4 on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the m4 package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove m4

Uninstall m4 And Its Dependencies

To uninstall m4 and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove m4

Remove m4 Configurations and Data

To remove m4 configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge m4

Remove m4 configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove m4 configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge m4

Dependencies

m4 have the following dependencies:

References

m4 website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install m4 package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.