autoconf

I've been working for the last several days on adding lirc support 
directally into 'madplay' and am almost done, but I have a few questions 
that would make the finishing touches a lot easier.

Question:

I don't know anything about autoconf or automake or what a m4 macro is.
I have manually edited the Makefile to support my builds, but i'm trying 
for correct implementation.  The lirc web site says that only the 
following lines would be neded to add to the configuration process (files) 
to check for support.

here is the site for refereence.
http://www.lirc.org/html/technical.html#library

dnl Check for LIRC client support
dnl This really is not worth making a separate file for it.

have_lirc=yes
AC_REQUIRE_CPP
AC_CHECK_LIB(lirc_client,lirc_init,
  AC_CHECK_HEADER(lirc/lirc_client.h,true,have_lirc=no),have_lirc=no)

if test "$have_lirc" = "yes"; then
dnl  AC_DEFINE(HAVE_LIRC);
  true;
else
  AC_MSG_ERROR([*** LIRC client support not available ***]);
fi

Can someone plese tell me where and in which file to add these lines?  Or 
just forward to me directally a copy of the files in a fixed state.

I'm not sure that this is all that is actually needed I did have to add 
this line to the Makefile to correctly link the program

LDFLAGS += /usr/lib/liblirc_client.so

Hope this helps, and sorry I really don't understand automake and conf.