How to approach nested autoconf package configuration

[Germán Diago Gómez]

Hello everyone,

I would like to ask a question I couldn't solve about autotools nested 
packages.

I have a project with subdirectories that use autoconf as well. The 
(simplified) structure is this one:


SuperProject/
    configure.ac...
    Libs/
        LibProject/
            configure.ac...
    Programs/
        ProjectBinary/
            configure.ac...

Actually they are separate projects (separate git repos) and I created a 
superproject (another git repo) that holds both. The problem I find is 
that configure checks for ProjectBinary should find LibProject. For that 
I want to use PKG_CHECK_MODULES([DEPS], [LibProject]) inside 
ProjectBinary/configure.ac but since ProjectBinary runs configure before 
LibProject is compiled and installed, ProjectBinary cannot find 
LibProject module.  I added an option to disable PKG_CHECK_MODULES and 
add the library to the linker manually in Makefile.am, but it looks like 
cheating to me. So my question is:

- Is there a well-known/standard way to avoid this? One idea I have (if 
possible) would be compiling and installing immediately after 
configuring LibProject, and, after this, go into ProjectBinary. But 
autoconf first executes all checks for all packages and later compiles 
and installs (at least by default).

Regards,

Germán Diago Gómez