autoconf installs statistics
By maelvalais · VS Code Marketplace · Programming Languages
Syntax support for the Autoconf M4 and Automake files (Autotools)
autoconf has 132,932 recorded installs on VS Code Marketplace.
It ranks #2005 of 2,501 tracked VS Code Marketplace listings by installs.
It is rated 5.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings.
PluginStats has 4 daily observations since Oct 16, 2026; the latest is from Oct 19, 2026.
Rating: 5.00 / 5 from 3 ratings
About autoconf
Autotools syntax highlighting for VSCode
The extension is available on both vsce, and on ovsx.
This VSCode extension is a fork of the GitHub project [sublime_autotools][]. It includes syntax highlighting for Autoconf M4 (.m4, configure.ac...) and Automake files (e.g., Makefile.am). This extension uses the vscode's own Makefile syntax support for hghlighting makefile things in automake files. I chose to fork the [sublime project][sublime_autotools] in order to have an easy way of updating vscode_autotools (which is only a matter of git merge).
Note that the sublime fork also has a Makefile2 (an alternate grammar file for Makefiles) but the standard vscode's Makefile support works much better (actually, the sublime's one is kind of buggy).
See [DEVELOPMENT.md][] for more information on how to debug and improve vscode_autotools.
Changelog
v0.2.0 (5 March 2023)
Since ptomato/sublime_autotools has moved to a YAML-based grammar and that most of the bugs that were fixed in my fork have been ported back to ptomato/sublime_autotools, I decided to revert to ptomato/sublime_autotools's YAML grammar. This means that the grammar may change a bit. Please let me know if it does.
v0.1.0
• complete PKG macro family. Change proposed by jannick0 (initially proposed at )
v0.0.9
• Add [AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS] provided by automake which surprisingly exists together with autoconf's [AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR]. Change proposed by jannick0. • (internal) add the npm start -- --json feature that allows people more familiar with json to generate tmLanguage from the json file instead of the yaml one.
v0.0.7
• Autoconf M4 (configure.ac): fix \" not being properly escaped in a string. Note for now, that variables won't (for some reason) be highlighted in strings. I couldn't find why.
v0.0.6
• Automake: fix comments not being highlighted when it starts at the beginning of a line and is interleaved with a recipe.
v0.0.5
• Automake grammar: fixed bug with foo: $(VAR:%.h=%.h) • Makefile2: re-include it into the extension. The Automake grammar is actually working better using makefile2. • Many small improvements to Makefile2 and Automake, e.g., $(if a,b) properly colored. • Moved from JSON grammar files to YAML.
v0.0.4
• Use vscode's default Makefile syntax grammar file instead of the sublime's one (Makefile2). This is because Makefile2 was buggy and vscode's one works just fine.
v0.0.3
• Automake: fix a bug with assigments followed by a comment • added 'npm start'for rebuilding the tmLanguage files from the JSON-tmLanguage files. You may observe some changes in grammar because of this, please tell me if it is the case!
v0.0.2
• Fixed the VSCode-version of Makefile that was shadowed by Makefile2, thus making it impossible to select the VSCode-provided Makefile highlighting. • Fixed line comments (# instead of //) • Removed block comments (block comments are not available in makefiles) • added an icon, because we all kind of like nice icons (Twitter, CC 3.0 BY)
v0.0.1
• Initial release. I disabled the Makefile2 part that was developped in the upstream project ([sublime_autotools]) because the Makefile support of vscode seems better (but I didn't really dig much to understand why).
Note: For Autoconf M4 macros, the arguments may need to be highlighted in several different ways; some are shell code, some are plain text, and a few are C code. There are definitions for the builtin ones, but custom macros may not be highlighted correctly.
Description from the VS Code Marketplace listing.
- Autoconf M4
- automake
- m4
- makefile2
Charts
Images: 30d · 1y · all time · 1600×900 dark
Adoption over time
7/30/90-day growth
Ratings over time
Listing placement
Filled points are observed values; hollow points come from Internet Archive snapshots of the listing page. Dashed segments span periods with no observations — values between points are not interpolated.
Each band is one page of 20. Installs on a log scale. Placement is projected from installs, so it can differ from the marketplace's own sort order. Hover a dot to see the listing.
Recent observations
Full history (4)Similar VS Code Marketplace Programming Languages plugins
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Install counts, average rating, and rating counts come from the public Visual Studio Marketplace gallery API. Installs are cumulative and exclude updates.
Listing: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=maelvalais.autoconf. First seen Oct 16, 2026; last successful collection Oct 19, 2026. See the methodology.