How To Install m4 on CentOS 8

m4 is The GNU macro processor

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install m4 on CentOS 8.

What is m4

A GNU implementation of the traditional UNIX macro processor. M4 is useful for writing text files which can be logically parsed, and is used by many programs as part of their build process. M4 has built-in functions for including files, running shell commands, doing arithmetic, etc. The autoconf program needs m4 for generating configure scripts, but not for running configure scripts. Install m4 if you need a macro processor.

We can use yum or dnf to install m4 on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install m4.

Install m4 on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

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

sudo dnf -y install m4

Install m4 on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

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

sudo yum -y install m4

How To Uninstall m4 on CentOS 8

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

sudo dnf remove m4

m4 Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/bin/m4
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/20
/usr/lib/.build-id/20/cd0becc3556620642ab3571c04371f1cc73529
/usr/share/doc/m4
/usr/share/doc/m4/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/m4/ChangeLog
/usr/share/doc/m4/NEWS
/usr/share/doc/m4/README
/usr/share/doc/m4/THANKS
/usr/share/doc/m4/TODO
/usr/share/info/m4.info-1.gz
/usr/share/info/m4.info-2.gz
/usr/share/info/m4.info.gz
/usr/share/licenses/m4
/usr/share/licenses/m4/COPYING
/usr/share/man/man1/m4.1.gz

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install m4 on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.