Umm... Whats a bootstrap?

[jsbrowndog2013]

On the ogre website for the ogre library with c++ with linux, theres this line where they say you need to make this file "bootstrap" executeble. I understand the executible part, but what in the heck is a bootstrap?

from the page:

#!/bin/sh
 rm -rf autom4te.cache
 libtoolize --force --copy &&  aclocal &&  autoheader &&  automake --add-missing --force-missing --copy --foreign &&  autoconf

Make this file (bootstrap) executable.

[keskiverto]

That is a shell script. It seems that the author refers to it as "bootstrap".

Adding the executable attribute to the script file allows one to run the script like any command, but considering the content you could simply source the file in current shell.

The script removes old configuration and recreates it with GNU build system commands. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_autotools

When these are done, compiling the ogre should probably need only the usual

./configure && make