Conventions on build variables

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Dear all,

Are there some conventions about the properties a build system should
have regarding certain standard build variables?

For instance, regarding variables such as CC or CFLAGS, when they are
passed to configure, should they be recorded somewhere so that a future
invocation of make takes them into account?

Similarly, I seem to remember having read somewhere that the build
system should be able to handle different values of prefix during make
and make install.

Is there a document describing how a build system is expected to behave
with respect to these variables?

Many thanks in advance for any help,

Sébastien.