3 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
5 - Automake 1.14 will require Autoconf 2.70 or later (which is still
6 unreleased at the moment of writing, but is planned to be released
7 before Automake 1.14 is).
9 - Automake 1.14 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in'
10 name for the Autoconf input file. You are advised to start using
11 recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP.
13 - The long-obsolete (since automake 1.10) AM_PROG_MKDIR m4 macro will
14 be removed in Automake 1.14. The $(mkdir_p) make variable and the
15 @mkdir_p@ substitution will still remain available (as aliases of
16 $(MKDIR_P)) for the moment, for better backward compatibility; but
17 you are advised to stop using ASAP.
19 - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated
20 in Automake 1.14 (where it will raise warnings in the "obsolete"
21 category). You are advised to start relying on the new Automake
22 support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which was introduced in
25 - Support for IRIX and the SGI C/C++ compilers will be removed in
26 Automake 1.14: they have seen their last release in 2006, and SGI
27 is expected to retire support from them in December 2013; see
28 <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html> for
31 - Future versions of Automake might remove support for MS-DOS and
32 Windows 95/98/ME (support for them was offered by relying on the
33 DJGPP project). Note however that both Cygwin and MSYS/MinGW on
34 modern Windows versions will continue to be fully supported.
36 - Support for the long-deprecated INCLUDES variable will be removed
37 altogether in Automake 1.14. The AM_CPPFLAGS variable should be
40 - Automake-provided scripts and makefile recipes might (finally!)
41 start assuming a POSIX shell in Automake 1.14.
43 - Starting from Automake 1.14, third-party m4 files located in the
44 system-wide aclocal directory, as well as in any directory listed
45 in the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable, will take precedence
46 over "built-in" Automake macros. For example (assuming Automake
47 is installed in the /usr/local hierarchy), a definition of the
48 AM_PROG_VALAC macro found in '/usr/local/share/aclocal/my-vala.m4'
49 should take precedence over the same-named automake-provided macro
50 (defined in '/usr/local/share/aclocal-1.14/vala.m4').
52 * Obsolescent features:
54 - Use of suffix-less info files (that can be specified through the
55 '@setfilename' macro in Texinfo input files) is discouraged, and
56 its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete' category. Simply
57 use the '.info' extension for all your info files, transforming
60 @setfilename myprogram
64 @setfilename myprogram.info
66 - Use of Texinfo input files with '.txi' or '.texinfo' extensions
67 is discouraged, and its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete'
68 category. You are advised to simply use the '.texi' extension
71 * Documentation fixes:
73 - The long-deprecated but still supported two-arguments invocation form
74 of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is documented once again. This seems the sanest
75 thing to do, given that support for such an usage might need to remain
76 in place for a unspecified amount of time in order to cater for people
77 who want to define the version number for their package dynamically at
78 configure runtime (unfortunately, Autoconf does not yet support this
79 scenario, so we cannot delegate the work to it).
83 - Automake can now be instructed to place '.info' files generated from
84 Texinfo input in the builddir rather than in the srcdir; this is done
85 specifying the new automake option 'info-in-builddir'. This feature
86 was requested by the developers of GCC, GDB, GNU binutils and the GNU
87 bfd library. See the extensive discussion about automake bug#11034
90 - For quite a long time, Automake has been implementing an undocumented
91 hack which ensured that '.info' files which appeared to be cleaned
92 (by e.g. being listed in the CLEANFILES or DISTCLEANFILES variables)
93 were built in the builddir rather than in the srcdir; this hack was
94 introduced to ensure better backward-compatibility with packages such
95 as Texinfo, which did things like:
97 info_TEXINFOS = texinfo.txi info-stnd.texi info.texi
98 DISTCLEANFILES = texinfo texinfo-* info*.info*
99 # Do not create info files for distribution.
103 in order not to distribute generated '.info' files.
105 Now that we have the 'info-in-builddir' option that explicitly causes
106 generated '.info' files to be placed in the builddir, this hack should
107 be longer necessary, so we deprecate it with runtime warnings. It will
108 likely be removed altogether in Automake 1.14.
110 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
116 - Use of the obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC now
117 causes a clear and helpful error message, instead of obscure ones
118 (issue introduced in Automake 1.13).
120 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
126 - ylwrap renames properly header guards in generated header files
127 (*.h), instead of leaving Y_TAB_H.
129 - ylwrap now also converts header guards in implementation files
130 (*.c). Because ylwrap failed to rename properly #include in the
131 implementation files, current versions of Bison (e.g., 2.7)
132 duplicate the generated header file in the implementation file.
133 The header guard then protects the implementation file from
134 duplicate definitions from the header file.
136 * Version requirements:
138 - Autoconf 2.65 or greater is now required.
140 - The rules to build PDF and DVI output from Texinfo input now
141 require Texinfo 4.9 or later.
145 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (once enabled by the 'cygnus'
146 option) has been removed. See discussion about automake bug#11034
147 for more background: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/11034>.
149 - The deprecated aclocal option '--acdir' has been removed. You
150 should use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir'
151 instead (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
153 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros have been removed:
155 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
156 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
157 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
158 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
159 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
160 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
161 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
162 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
163 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
164 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
167 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' have been removed.
169 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
170 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is no longer documented. It's still supported
171 though (albeit with a warning in the 'obsolete' category), to cater
172 for people who want to define the version number for their package
173 dynamically (e.g., from the current VCS revision). We'll have to
174 continue this support until Autoconf itself is fixed to allow better
175 support for such dynamic version numbers.
177 * Elisp byte-compilation:
179 - The byte compilation of '.el' files into '.elc' files is now done
180 with a suffix rule. This has simplified the compilation process, and
181 more importantly made it less brittle. The downside is that emacs is
182 now invoked once for each '.el' files, which cause some noticeable
183 slowdowns. These should however be mitigated on multicore machines
184 (which are becoming the norm today) if concurrent make ("make -j")
187 - Elisp files placed in a subdirectory are now byte-compiled to '.elc'
188 files in the same subdirectory; for example, byte-compiling of file
189 'sub/foo.el' file will result in 'sub/foo.elc' rather than in
190 'foo.elc'. This behaviour is backward-incompatible with older
191 Automake versions, but it is more natural and more sane. See also
194 - The Emacs invocation performing byte-compilation of '.el' files honors
195 the $(AM_ELCFLAGS) and $(ELCFLAGS) variables; as typical, the former
196 one is developer-reserved and the latter one user-reserved.
198 - The 'elisp-comp' script, once provided by Automake, has been rendered
199 obsoleted by the just-described changes, and thus removed.
201 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
203 - The parallel testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the
204 'parallel-tests' option) is the default one; the older serial
205 testsuite harness will still be available through the use of the
206 'serial-tests' option (introduced in Automake 1.12).
208 - The 'color-tests' option is now unconditionally activated by default.
209 In particular, this means that testsuite output is now colorized by
210 default if the attached terminal seems to support ANSI escapes, and
211 that the user can force output colorization by setting the variable
212 AM_COLOR_TESTS to "always". The 'color-tests' is still recognized
213 for backward-compatibility, although it's a handled as a no-op now.
215 * Silent rules support:
217 - Support for silent rules is now always active in Automake-generated
218 Makefiles. So, although the verbose output is still the default,
219 the user can now always use "./configure --enable-silent-rules" or
220 "make V=0" to enable quieter output in the package he's building.
222 - The 'silent-rules' option has now become a no-op, preserved for
223 backward-compatibility only. In particular, its use no longer
224 disables the warnings in the 'portability-recursive' category.
228 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now require
229 Texinfo 4.9 or later.
231 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now use the
232 '--build-dir' option, to keep the auxiliary files used by texi2dvi
233 and texi2pdf around without cluttering the build directory, and to
234 make it possible to run the "dvi" and "pdf" recipes in parallel.
236 * Automatic remake rules and 'missing' script:
238 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to update the timestamp of
239 out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
240 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
241 of it). It just gives a useful warning, and in some cases also a
242 tip about how to obtain such a tool.
244 - The missing script has thus become useless as a (poor) way to work
245 around the sketched-timestamps issues that can happen for projects
246 that keep generated files committed in their VCS repository. Such
247 projects are now encouraged to write a custom "fix-timestamps.sh"
248 script to avoid such issues; a simple example is provided in the
249 "CVS and generated files" chapter of the automake manual.
253 - The user can now define his own recursive targets that recurse
254 in the directories specified in $(SUBDIRS). This can be done by
255 specifying the name of such targets in invocations of the new
256 'AM_EXTRA_RECURSIVE_TARGETS' m4 macro.
260 - Any failure in the recipe of the "tags", "ctags", "cscope" or
261 "cscopelist" targets in a subdirectory is now propagated to the
262 top-level make invocation.
264 - Tags are correctly computed also for files in _SOURCES variables that
265 only list files with non-standard suffixes (see automake bug#12372).
267 * Improvements to aclocal and related rebuilds rules:
269 - Autoconf-provided macros AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS
270 are now traced by aclocal, and can be used to declare the local m4
271 include directories. Formerly, one had to specify it with an explicit
272 '-I' option to the 'aclocal' invocation.
274 - The special make variable ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is deprecated; future
275 Automake versions will warn about its use, and later version will
276 remove support for it altogether.
278 * The depcomp script:
280 - Dropped support for libtool 1.4.
282 - Various internal refactorings. They should cause no visible change,
283 but the chance for regression is there anyway, so please report any
284 unexpected or suspicious behaviour.
286 - Support for pre-8.0 versions of the Intel C Compiler has been dropped.
287 This should cause no problem, since icc 8.0 has been released in
288 December 2003 -- almost nine years ago.
290 - Support for tcc (the Tiny C Compiler) has been improved, and is now
291 handled through a dedicated 'tcc' mode.
295 - ylwrap generates header guards with a single '_' for series of non
296 alphabetic characters, instead of several. This is what Bison >=
299 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
301 Bugs fixed in 1.12.6:
303 * Python-related bugs:
305 - The default installation location for python modules has been improved
306 for Python 3 on Debian and Ubuntu systems, changing from:
308 ${prefix}/lib/python3/dist-packages
312 ${prefix}/lib/python3.x/site-packages
314 This change should ensure modules installed using the default ${prefix}
315 "/usr/local" are found by default by system python 3.x installations.
316 See automake bug#10227.
318 - Python byte-compilation supports the new layout mandated by PEP-3147,
319 with its __pycache__ directory (automake bug#8847).
321 * Build system issues:
323 - The maintainer rebuild rules for Makefiles and aclocal.m4 in
324 Automake's own build system works correctly again (bug introduced
329 - The Vala-related tests has been changed to adjust to the removal of
330 the 'posix' profile in the valac compiler. See automake bug#12934
333 - Some spurious testsuite failures related to older tools and systems
336 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
342 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro has been enhanced to takes two further
343 optional arguments; it's signature now being
345 AM_PROG_VALAC([MINIMUM-VERSION], [ACTION-IF-FOUND],
346 [ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])
348 - By default, AM_PROG_VALAC no longer aborts the configure invocation
349 if the Vala compiler found is too old, but simply prints a warning
350 messages (as it did when the Vala compiler was not found). This
351 should avoid unnecessary difficulties for end users that just want
352 to compile the unmodified, distributed Vala-generated C sources,
353 but happens to have an old Vala compiler in their PATH. This fixes
356 - If no proper Vala compiler is found at configure runtime, AM_PROG_VALAC
357 will set the AC_SUBST'd variable 'VALAC' to 'valac' rather than to ':'.
358 This is a better default, because with it a triggered makefile rule
359 invoking a Vala compilation will clearly fail with an informative error
360 message like "valac: command not found", rather than silently, with
361 the error possibly going unnoticed or triggering harder-to-diagnose
362 fallout failures in later steps.
364 * Miscellaneous changes:
366 - automake and aclocal no longer honours the 'perllibdir' environment
367 variable. That had always been intended only as an hack required in
368 the testsuite, not meant for any use beyond that.
370 Bugs fixed in 1.12.5:
372 * Long-standing bugs:
374 - Automake no longer generates spurious remake rules invoking autoheader
375 to regenerate the template corresponding to header files specified after
376 the first one in AC_CONFIG_HEADERS (automake bug#12495).
378 - When wrapping Microsoft tools, the 'compile' script falls back to
379 finding classic 'libname.a' style libraries when 'name.lib' and
380 'name.dll.lib' aren't available.
382 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
386 * Warnings and deprecations:
388 - Warnings in the 'obsolete' category are enabled by default both in
389 automake and aclocal.
391 * Miscellaneous changes:
393 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
395 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
399 * Miscellaneous changes:
401 - The '.m4' files provided by Automake no longer define serial numbers.
402 This should cause no difference in the behaviour of aclocal though.
404 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
406 - There is initial support for automatic dependency tracking with the
407 Portland Group C/C++ compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'pgcc'.
409 Bugs fixed in 1.12.3:
411 * Long-standing bugs:
413 - Instead of renaming only self-references of files (typically for
414 #lines), ylwrap now also renames references to the other generated
415 files. This fixes support for GLR and C++ parsers from Bison (PR
416 automake/491 and automake bug#7648): 'parser.c' now properly
417 #includes 'parser.h' instead of 'y.tab.h'.
419 - Generated files unknown to ylwrap are now preserved. This fixes
420 C++ support for Bison (automake bug#7648): location.hh and the
421 like are no longer discarded.
423 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
427 * Warnings and deprecations:
429 - Automake now issues a warning (in the 'portability' category) if
430 'configure.in' is used instead of 'configure.ac' as the Autoconf
431 input file. Such a warning will also be present in the next
432 Autoconf version (2.70).
436 - Recursive cleaning rules descends into the $(SUBDIRS) in the natural
437 order (as done by the other recursive rules), rather than in the
438 inverse order. They used to do that in order to work a round a
439 limitation in an older implementation of the automatic dependency
440 tracking support, but that limitation had been lifted years ago
441 already, when the automatic dependency tracking based on side-effects
442 of compilation had been introduced.
444 - Cleaning rules for compiled objects (both "plain" and libtool) work
445 better when subdir objects are involved, not triggering a distinct
446 'rm' invocation for each such object. They do so by removing *any*
447 compiled object file that is in the same directory of a subdir
448 object. See automake bug#10697.
450 * Silent rules support:
452 - A new predefined $(AM_V_P) make variable is provided; it expands
453 to a shell conditional that can be used in recipes to know whether
454 make is being run in silent or verbose mode.
456 Bugs fixed in 1.12.2:
458 * SECURITY VULNERABILITIES!
460 - The 'distcheck' recipe no longer grants temporary world-write
461 permissions on the extracted distdir. Even if such rights were
462 only granted for a vanishingly small time window, the implied
463 race condition proved to be enough to allow a local attacker
464 to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
465 "make distcheck". This is CVE-2012-3386.
467 * Long-standing bugs:
469 - The "recheck" targets behaves better in the face of build failures
470 related to previously failed tests. For example, if a test is a
471 compiled program that must be rerun by "make recheck", and its
472 compilation fails, it will still be rerun by further "make recheck"
473 invocations. See automake bug#11791.
475 * Bugs introduced by 1.12.1:
477 - Automake provides once again the '$(mkdir_p)' make variable and the
478 '@mkdir_p@' substitution (both as simple aliases for '$(MKDIR_P)'),
479 for better backward-compatibility.
481 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
485 * New supported languages:
487 - Support for Objective C++ has been added; it should work similarly to
488 the support for Objective C.
490 * Deprecated obsolescent features:
492 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
493 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro now elicits a warning in the 'obsolete'
494 category. Starting from some future major Automake release (likely
495 post-1.13), such usages will no longer be allowed.
497 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (enabled by the 'cygnus' option) is
498 now deprecated (its use triggers a warning in the 'obsolete' category).
499 It will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
501 - The long-obsolete (since 1.10) automake-provided $(mkdir_p) make
502 variable, @mkdir_p@ configure-time substitution and AM_PROG_MKDIR
503 m4 macro are deprecated, eliciting a warning in the 'obsolete'
506 * Miscellaneous changes:
508 - The Automake test cases now require a proper POSIX-conforming shell.
509 Older non-POSIX Bourne shells (like Solaris 10 /bin/sh) will no longer
510 be accepted. In most cases, the user shouldn't have to specify such
511 POSIX shell explicitly, since it will be looked up at configure time.
512 Still, when this lookup fails, or when the user wants to override its
513 conclusion, the variable 'AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL' can be used (pointing
514 to the shell that will be used to run the Automake test cases).
516 Bugs fixed in 1.12.1:
518 * Bugs introduced by 1.12:
520 - Several weaknesses in Automake's own build system and test suite
523 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
525 - When given non-option arguments, aclocal rejects them, instead of
526 silently ignoring them.
528 * Long-standing bugs:
530 - When the 'color-tests' option is in use, forcing of colored testsuite
531 output through "AM_COLOR_TESTS=always" works even if the terminal is
532 a non-ANSI one, i.e., if the TERM environment variable has a value of
535 - Several inefficiencies and poor performances in the implementation
536 of the parallel-tests 'check' and 'recheck' targets have been fixed.
538 - The post-processing of output "#line" directives done the ylwrap
539 script is more faithful w.r.t. files in a subdirectory; for example,
540 if the processed file is "src/grammar.y", ylwrap will correctly
541 produce directives like:
542 #line 7 "src/grammar.y"
547 * Bugs with new Perl versions:
549 - Aclocal works correctly with perl 5.16.0 (automake bug#11543).
551 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
555 * Obsolete features removed:
557 - The never documented nor truly used script 'acinstall' has been
560 - Support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been removed.
562 - The support for the "obscure" multilib feature has been removed
563 from Automake core (but remains available in the 'contrib/'
564 directory of the Automake distribution).
566 - Support for ".log -> .html" conversion and the check-html and
567 recheck-html targets has been removed from Automake core (but
568 remains available in the 'contrib/' directory of the Automake
571 - The deprecated 'lzma' compression format for distribution archives
572 has been removed, in favor of 'xz' and 'lzip'.
574 - The obsolete AM_WITH_REGEX macro has been removed.
576 - The long-deprecated options '--output-dir', '--Werror' and
577 '--Wno-error' have been removed.
579 - The chapter on the history of Automake has been moved out of the
580 reference manual, into a new dedicated Texinfo file.
584 - New 'cscope' target to build a cscope database for the source tree.
586 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
588 - The new automake option 'serial-tests' has been introduced. It can
589 be used to explicitly instruct automake to use the older serial
590 testsuite harness. This is still the default at the moment, but it
591 might change in future versions.
593 - The 'recheck' target (provided by the parallel testsuite harness) now
594 depends on the 'all' target. This allows for a better user-experience
595 in test-driven development. See automake bug#11252.
597 - Test scripts that exit with status 99 to signal an "hard error" (e.g.,
598 and unexpected or internal error, or a failure to set up the test case
599 scenario) have their outcome reported as an 'ERROR' now. Previous
600 versions of automake reported such an outcome as a 'FAIL' (the only
601 difference with normal failures being that hard errors were counted
602 as failures even when the test originating them was listed in
605 - The testsuite summary displayed by the parallel-test harness has a
606 completely new format, that always list the numbers of passed, failed,
607 xfailed, xpassed, skipped and errored tests, even when these numbers
608 are zero (but using smart coloring when the color-tests option is in
611 - The default testsuite driver offered by the 'parallel-tests' option is
612 now implemented (partly at least) with the help of automake-provided
613 auxiliary scripts (e.g., 'test-driver'), instead of relying entirely
614 on code in the generated Makefile.in.
615 This has two noteworthy implications. The first one is that projects
616 using the 'parallel-tests' option should now either run automake with
617 the '--add-missing' option, or manually copy the 'test-driver' script
618 into their tree. The second, and more important, implication is that
619 now, when the 'parallel-tests' option is in use, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT can
620 no longer be used to define a test runner, and the command specified
621 in LOG_COMPILER (and <ext>_LOG_COMPILER) must be a *real* executable
622 program or script. For example, this is still a valid usage (albeit
625 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
626 if test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS)'; then \
627 maybe_errexit='-e'; \
631 LOG_COMPILER = $(SHELL) $$maybe_errexit
633 OTOH, this is no longer a valid usage:
635 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
636 $(SHELL) `test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS_CHECKING)' && echo ' -e'`
640 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
641 run_with_perl_or_shell () \
643 if grep -q '^#!.*perl' $$1; then
649 LOG_COMPILER = run_with_perl_or_shell
651 - The package authors can now use customary testsuite drivers within
652 the framework provided by the 'parallel-tests' testsuite harness.
653 Consistently with the existing syntax, this can be done by defining
654 special makefile variables 'LOG_DRIVER' and '<ext>_LOG_DRIVER'.
656 - A new developer-reserved variable 'AM_TESTS_FD_REDIRECT' can be used
657 to redirect/define file descriptors used by the test scripts.
659 - The parallel-tests harness generates now, in addition the '.log' files
660 holding the output produced by the test scripts, a new set of '.trs'
661 files, holding "metadata" derived by the execution of the test scripts;
662 among such metadata are the outcomes of the test cases run by a script.
664 - Initial and still experimental support for the TAP test protocol is
667 * Changes to Yacc and Lex support:
669 - C source and header files derived from non-distributed Yacc and/or
670 Lex sources are now removed by a simple "make clean" (while they were
671 previously removed only by "make maintainer-clean").
673 - Slightly backward-incompatible change, relevant only for use of Yacc
674 with C++: the extensions of the header files produced by the Yacc
675 rules are now modelled after the extension of the corresponding
676 sources. For example, yacc files named "foo.y++" and "bar.yy" will
677 produce header files named "foo.h++" and "bar.hh" respectively, where
678 they would have previously produced header files named simply "foo.h"
679 and "bar.h". This change offers better compatibility with 'bison -o'.
681 * Miscellaneous changes:
683 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro now causes configure to exit with status 77,
684 rather than 1, if the vala compiler found is too old.
686 - The build system of Automake itself now avoids the use of make
687 recursion as much as possible.
689 - Automake now prefers to quote 'like this' or "like this", rather
690 than `like this', in diagnostic message and generated Makefiles,
691 to accommodate the new GNU Coding Standards recommendations.
693 - Automake has a new option '--print-libdir' that prints the path of the
694 directory containing the Automake-provided scripts and data files.
696 - The 'dist' and 'dist-all' targets now can run compressors in parallel.
698 - The rules to create pdf, dvi and ps output from Texinfo files now
699 works better with modern 'texi2dvi' script, by explicitly passing
700 it the '--clean' option to ensure stray auxiliary files are not
701 left to clutter the build directory.
703 - Automake can now generate silenced rules for texinfo outputs.
705 - Some auxiliary files that are automatically distributed by Automake
706 (e.g., 'install-sh', or the 'depcomp' script for packages compiling
707 C sources) might now be listed in the DIST_COMMON variable in many
708 Makefile.in files, rather than in the top-level one.
710 - Messages of types warning or error from 'automake' and 'aclocal'
711 are now prefixed with the respective type, and presence of -Werror
714 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now tries to avoid
715 sleeping for a second, which slowed down cached configure runs
716 noticeably. In that case, it will check back at the end of the
717 configure script to ensure that at least one second has passed, to
718 avoid time stamp issues with makefile rules rerunning autotools
721 - The warnings in the category 'extra-portability' are now enabled by
722 '-Wall'. In previous versions, one has to use '-Wextra-portability'
727 - Various minor bugfixes for recent or long-standing bugs.
729 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
731 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
732 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
734 - The automake-provided parallel testsuite harness no longer fails
735 with BSD make used in parallel mode when there are test scripts in
736 a subdirectory, like in:
738 TESTS = sub/foo.test sub/bar.test
740 * Long-standing bugs:
742 - Automake's own build system finally have a real "installcheck" target.
744 - Vala-related cleanup rules are now more complete, and work better in
747 - Files listed with the AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE macro in configure.ac are
748 now automatically distributed also if the directory of the auxiliary
749 files coincides with the top-level directory.
751 - Automake now detects the presence of the '-d' flag in the various
752 '*YFLAGS' variables even when their definitions involve indirections
753 through other variables, such as in:
755 AM_YFLAGS = $(foo_opts)
757 - Automake now complains if a '*YFLAGS' variable has any conditional
758 content, not only a conditional definition.
760 - Explicit enabling and/or disabling of Automake warning categories
761 through the '-W...' options now always takes precedence over the
762 implicit warning level implied by Automake strictness (foreign, gnu
763 or gnits), regardless of the order in which such strictness and
764 warning flags appear. For example, a setting like:
765 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = -Wall --foreign
766 will cause the warnings in category 'portability' to be enabled, even
767 if those warnings are by default disabled in 'foreign' strictness.
769 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
771 Bugs fixed in 1.11.5:
773 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
775 - Vala files with '.vapi' extension are now recognized and handled
776 correctly again. See automake bug#11222.
778 - Vala support work again for projects that contain some program
779 built from '.vala' (and possibly '.c') sources and some other
780 program built from '.c' sources *only*. See automake bug#11229.
782 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
786 * Miscellaneous changes:
788 - The 'ar-lib' script now ignores the "s" (symbol index) and "S" (no
789 symbol index) modifiers as well as the "s" action, as the symbol index
790 is created unconditionally by Microsoft lib. Also, the "q" (quick)
791 action is now a synonym for "r" (replace). Also, the script has been
792 ignoring the "v" (verbose) modifier already since Automake 1.11.3.
794 - When the 'compile' script is used to wrap MSVC, it now accepts an
795 optional space between the -I, -L and -l options and their respective
796 arguments, for better POSIX compliance.
798 - There is an initial, experimental support for automatic dependency
799 tracking with tcc (the Tiny C Compiler). Its associated depmode is
800 currently recognized as "icc" (but this and other details are likely
801 to change in future versions).
803 - Automatic dependency tracking now works also with the IBM XL C/C++
804 compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'xlc'.
806 Bugs fixed in 1.11.4:
808 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
810 - A definition of 'noinst_PYTHON' before 'python_PYTHON' (or similar)
811 no longer cause spurious failures upon "make install".
813 - The user can now instruct the 'uninstall-info' rule not to update
814 the '${infodir}/dir' file by exporting the environment variable
815 'AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no". This is done for consistency
816 with how the 'install-info' rule operates since automake 1.11.2.
818 * Long-standing bugs:
820 - It is now possible for a foo_SOURCES variable to hold Vala sources
821 together with C header files, as well as with sources and headers for
822 other supported languages (e.g., C++). Previously, only mixing C and
823 Vala sources was supported.
825 - If "aclocal --install" is used, and the first directory specified with
826 '-I' is non-existent, aclocal will now create it before trying to copy
829 - An empty declaration of a "foo_PRIMARY" no longer cause the generated
830 install rules to create an empty $(foodir) directory; for example, if
831 Makefile.am contains something like:
835 pkglibexec_SCRIPTS += bar.sh
838 the $(pkglibexec) directory will not be created upon "make install".
840 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
844 * Miscellaneous changes:
846 - Automake's own build system is more silent by default, making use of
847 the 'silent-rules' option.
849 - The master copy of the 'gnupload' script is now maintained in gnulib,
852 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to wrap calls to 'tar'.
854 - "make dist" no longer wraps 'tar' invocations with the 'missing'
855 script. Similarly, the obsolescent variable '$(AMTAR)' (which you
856 shouldn't be using BTW ;-) no longer invokes the 'missing' script
857 to wrap tar, but simply invokes the 'tar' program itself.
859 - "make dist" can now create lzip-compressed tarballs.
861 - In the Automake info documentation, the Top node and the nodes about
862 the invocation of the automake and aclocal programs have been renamed;
863 now, calling "info automake" will open the Top node, while calling
864 "info automake-invocation" and "info aclocal-invocation" will access
865 the nodes about the invocation of respectively automake and aclocal.
867 - Automake is now distributed as a gzip-compressed and an xz-compressed
868 tarball. Previously, bzip2 was used instead of xz.
870 - The last relics of Python 1.5 support have been removed from the
871 AM_PATH_PYTHON macro.
873 - For programs and libraries, automake now detects EXTRA_foo_DEPENDENCIES
874 and adds them to the normal list of dependencies, but without
875 overwriting the foo_DEPENDENCIES variable, which is normally computed
878 Bugs fixed in 1.11.3:
880 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
882 - Automake now correctly recognizes the prefix/primary combination
883 'pkglibexec_SCRIPTS' as valid.
885 - The parallel-tests harness no longer trips on sed implementations
886 with stricter limits on the length of input lines (problem seen at
889 * Long-standing bugs:
891 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.am files is avoided by stub
892 rules. This allows 'make' to trigger a rerun of 'automake' also if
893 some previously needed '.am' file has been removed.
895 - The 'silent-rules' option now generates working makefiles even
896 for the uncommon 'make' implementations that do not support the
897 nested-variables extension to POSIX 2008. For such 'make'
898 implementations, whether a build is silent is determined at
899 configure time, and cannot be overridden at make time with
900 "make V=0" or "make V=1".
902 - Vala support now works better in VPATH setups.
904 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
908 * Changes to aclocal:
910 - The `--acdir' option is deprecated. Now you should use the new options
911 `--automake-acdir' and `--system-acdir' instead.
913 - The `ACLOCAL_PATH' environment variable is now interpreted as a
914 colon-separated list of additional directories to search after the
915 automake internal acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal-APIVERSION)
916 and before the system acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal).
918 * Miscellaneous changes:
920 - The Automake support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been
921 deprecated. It will probably be removed in the next major Automake
924 - The `lzma' compression scheme and associated automake option `dist-lzma'
925 is obsoleted by `xz' and `dist-xz' due to upstream changes.
927 - You may adjust the compression options used in dist-xz and dist-bzip2.
928 The default is now merely -e for xz, but still -9 for bzip; you may
929 specify a different level via the XZ_OPT and BZIP2 envvars respectively.
930 E.g., "make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-7" or "make dist-bzip2 BZIP2=-5"
932 - The `compile' script now converts some options for MSVC for a better
933 user experience. Similarly, the new `ar-lib' script wraps Microsoft lib.
935 - The py-compile script now accepts empty arguments passed to the options
936 `--destdir' and `--basedir', and complains about unrecognized options.
937 Moreover, a non-option argument or a special `--' argument terminates
940 - A developer that needs to pass specific flags to configure at "make
941 distcheck" time can now, and indeed is advised to, do so by defining
942 the developer-reserved makefile variable AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS,
943 instead of the old DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.
944 The DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable should now be reserved for the
945 user; still, the old Makefile.am files that used to define it will
946 still continue to work as before.
948 - New macro AM_PROG_AR that looks for an archiver and wraps it in the new
949 'ar-lib' auxiliary script if the selected archiver is Microsoft lib.
950 This new macro is required for LIBRARIES and LTLIBRARIES when automake
951 is run with -Wextra-portability and -Werror.
953 - When using DejaGnu-based testsuites, the user can extend the `site.exp'
954 file generated by automake-provided rules by defining the special make
955 variable `$(EXTRA_DEJAGNU_SITE_CONFIG)'.
957 - The `install-info' rule can now be instructed not to create/update
958 the `${infodir}/dir' file, by exporting the new environment variable
959 `AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no".
961 Bugs fixed in 1.11.2:
963 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
965 - The parallel-tests driver no longer produces erroneous results with
966 Tru64/OSF 5.1 sh upon unreadable log files.
968 - The `parallel-tests' test driver does not report spurious successes
969 when used with concurrent FreeBSD make (e.g., "make check -j3").
971 - When the parallel-tests driver is in use, automake now explicitly
972 rejects invalid entries and conditional contents in TEST_EXTENSIONS,
973 instead of issuing confusing and apparently unrelated error messages
974 (e.g., "non-POSIX variable name", "bad characters in variable name",
975 or "redefinition of TEST_EXTENSIONS), or even, in some situations,
976 silently producing broken `Makefile.in' files.
978 - The `silent-rules' option now truly silences all compile rules, even
979 when dependency tracking is disabled. Also, when `silent-rules' is
980 not used, `make' output no longer contains spurious backslash-only
981 lines, thus once again matching what Automake did before 1.11.
983 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
984 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
986 * Long-standing bugs:
988 - The order of Yacc and Lex flags is fixed to be consistent with other
989 languages: $(AM_YFLAGS) comes before $(YFLAGS), and $(AM_LFLAGS) before
990 $(LFLAGS), so that the user variables override the developer variables.
992 - "make distcheck" now correctly complains also when "make uninstall"
993 leaves one and only one file installed in $(prefix).
995 - A "make uninstall" issued before a "make install", or after a mere
996 "make install-data" or a mere "make install-exec" does not spuriously
999 - Automake now warns about more primary/directory invalid combinations,
1000 such as "doc_LIBRARIES" or "pkglib_PROGRAMS".
1002 - Rules generated by Automake now try harder to not change any files when
1003 `make -n' is invoked. Fixes include compilation of Emacs Lisp, Vala, or
1004 Yacc source files and the rule to update config.h.
1006 - Several scripts and the parallel-tests testsuite driver now exit with
1007 the right exit status upon receiving a signal.
1009 - A per-Makefile.am setting of -Werror does not erroneously carry over
1010 to the handling of other Makefile.am files.
1012 - The code for automatic dependency tracking works around a Solaris
1013 make bug triggered by sources containing repeated slashes when the
1014 `subdir-objects' option was used.
1016 - The makedepend and hp depmodes now work better with VPATH builds.
1018 - Java sources specified with check_JAVA are no longer compiled for
1019 "make all", but only for "make check".
1021 - An usage like "java_JAVA = foo.java" will now cause Automake to warn
1022 and error out if `javadir' is undefined, instead of silently producing
1023 a broken Makefile.in.
1025 - aclocal and automake now honour the configure-time definitions of
1026 AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE when they spawn autoconf or autom4te processes.
1028 - The `install-info' recipe no longer tries to guess whether the
1029 `install-info' program is from Debian or from GNU, and adaptively
1030 change its behaviour; this has proven to be frail and easy to
1033 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1035 Bugs fixed in 1.11.1:
1037 - Lots of minor bugfixes.
1039 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
1041 - The `parallel-tests' test driver works around a GNU make 3.80 bug with
1042 trailing white space in the test list (`TESTS = foo $(EMPTY)').
1044 * Long standing bugs:
1046 - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
1047 even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
1048 AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
1049 `get_python_lib' function if it points outside the configured prefix,
1050 unless the `--prefix' argument was either `/usr' or below `/System'.
1052 - The testsuite does not try to change the mode of `ltmain.sh' files from
1053 a Libtool installation (symlinked to test directories) any more.
1055 - AM_PROG_GCJ uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS to look for `gcj' now, so that prefixed
1056 tools are preferred in a cross-compile setup.
1058 - The distribution is tarred up with mode 755 now by the `dist*' targets.
1059 This fixes a race condition where untrusted users could modify files
1060 in the $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION) distdir before packing if the toplevel
1061 build directory was world-searchable. This is CVE-2009-4029.
1063 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1067 * Version requirements:
1069 - Autoconf 2.62 or greater is required.
1071 * Changes to aclocal:
1073 - The autoconf version check implemented by aclocal in aclocal.m4
1074 (and new in Automake 1.10) is degraded to a warning. This helps
1075 in the common case where the Autoconf versions used are compatible.
1077 * Changes to automake:
1079 - The automake program can run multiple threads for creating most
1080 Makefile.in files concurrently, if at least Perl 5.7.2 is available
1081 with interpreter-based threads enabled. Set the environment variable
1082 AUTOMAKE_JOBS to the maximum number of threads to use, in order to
1083 enable this experimental feature.
1085 * Changes to Libtool support:
1087 - Libtool generic flags are now passed to the install and uninstall
1090 - distcheck works with Libtool 2.x even when LT_OUTPUT is used, as
1091 config.lt is removed correctly now.
1093 * Languages changes:
1095 - subdir-object mode works now with Fortran (F77, FC, preprocessed
1096 Fortran, and Ratfor).
1098 - For files with extension .f90, .f95, .f03, or .f08, the flag
1099 $(FCFLAGS_f[09]x) computed by AC_FC_SRCEXT is now used in compile rules.
1101 - Files with extension .sx are also treated as preprocessed assembler.
1103 - The default source file extension (.c) can be overridden with
1104 AM_DEFAULT_SOURCE_EXT now.
1106 - Python 3.0 is supported now, Python releases prior to 2.0 are no
1109 - AM_PATH_PYTHON honors python's idea about the site directory.
1111 - There is initial support for the Vala programming language, when using
1112 Vala 0.7.0 or later.
1114 * Miscellaneous changes:
1116 - Automake development is done in a git repository on Savannah now, see
1118 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git
1120 A read-only CVS mirror is provided at
1122 cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@pserver.git.sv.gnu.org:/automake.git \
1123 checkout -d automake HEAD
1125 - "make dist" can now create xz-compressed tarballs,
1126 as well as (deprecated?) lzma-compressed tarballs.
1128 - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as
1129 COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file
1130 should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never
1131 overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing'
1134 - The manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
1136 - Automake ships and installs man pages for automake and aclocal now.
1138 - New shorthand `$(pkglibexecdir)' for `$(libexecdir)/@PACKAGE@'.
1140 - install-sh supports -C, which does not update the installed file
1141 (and its time stamps) if the contents did not change.
1143 - The `gnupload' script has been revamped.
1145 - The `depcomp' and `compile' scripts now work with MSVC under MSYS.
1147 - The targets `install' and `uninstall' are more efficient now, in that
1148 for example multiple files from one Automake variable such as
1149 `bin_SCRIPTS' are copied in one `install' (or `libtool --mode=install')
1150 invocation if they do not have to be renamed.
1152 Both install and uninstall may sometimes enter (`cd' into) the target
1153 installation directory now, when no build-local scripts are used.
1155 Both install and uninstall do not fail anymore but do nothing if an
1156 installation directory variable like `bindir' is set to the empty string.
1158 For built-in rules, `make install' now fails reliably if installation
1159 of a file failed. Conversely, `make uninstall' even succeeds when
1160 issued multiple times.
1162 These changes may need some adjustments from users: For example,
1163 some `install' programs refuse to install multiple copies of the
1164 same file in one invocation, so you may need to remove duplicate
1165 entries from file lists.
1167 Also, within one set of files, say, nobase_data_DATA, the order of
1168 installation may be changed, or even unstable among different hosts,
1169 due to the use of associative arrays in awk. The increased use of
1170 awk matches a similar move in Autoconf to provide for better scaling.
1172 Further, most undocumented per-rule install command variables such as
1173 binSCRIPT_INSTALL have been removed because they are not needed any
1174 more. Packages which use them should be using the appropriate one of
1175 INSTALL_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT} or their install_sh_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT}
1176 counterpart, depending on the type of files and the need for automatic
1177 target directory creation.
1179 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.m4 files is avoided by
1180 stub rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `aclocal'
1181 also if some previously needed macro file has been removed.
1183 - Rebuild rules now also work for a removed `subdir/Makefile.in' in
1184 an otherwise up to date tree.
1186 - The `color-tests' option causes colored test result output on terminals.
1188 - The `parallel-tests' option enables a new test driver that allows for
1189 parallel test execution, inter-test dependencies, lazy test execution
1190 for unit-testing, re-testing only failed tests, and formatted result output
1191 as RST (reStructuredText) and HTML. Enabling this option may require some
1192 changes to your test suite setup; see the manual for details.
1194 - The `silent-rules' option enables Linux kernel-style silent build output.
1195 This option requires the widely supported but non-POSIX `make' feature
1196 of recursive variable expansion, so do not use it if your package needs
1197 to build with `make' implementations that do not support it.
1199 To enable less verbose build output, the developer has to use the Automake
1200 option `silent-rules' in `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE', or call the `AM_SILENT_RULES'
1201 macro. The user may then set the default verbosity by passing the
1202 `--enable-silent-rules' option to `configure'. At `make' run time, this
1203 default may be overridden using `make V=0' for less verbose, and `make V=1'
1204 for backward-compatible verbose output.
1206 - New prefix `notrans_' for manpages which should not be transformed
1207 by --program-transform.
1209 - New macro AM_COND_IF for conditional evaluation and conditional
1212 - For AC_CONFIG_LINKS, if source and destination are equal, do not
1213 remove the file in a non-VPATH build. Such setups work with Autoconf
1216 - AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now allows for an optional argument specifying
1217 the default setting.
1219 - AM_SUBST_NOTMAKE may prevent substitution of AC_SUBSTed variables,
1220 useful especially for multi-line values.
1222 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now diagnoses an
1223 unsafe absolute source directory name and makes configure fail.
1225 - The Automake macros and rules cope better with whitespace in the
1226 current directory name, as long as the relative path to `configure'
1227 does not contain whitespace. To this end, the values of `$(MISSING)'
1228 and `$(install_sh)' may contain suitable quoting, and their expansion
1229 might need `eval'uation if used outside of a makefile. These
1230 undocumented variables may be used in several documented macros such
1231 as $(AUTOCONF) or $(MAKEINFO).
1235 * Long-standing bugs:
1237 - Fix aix dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1239 - Work around AIX sh quoting issue in AC_PROG_CC_C_O, leading to
1240 unnecessary use of the `compile' script.
1242 - For nobase_*_LTLIBRARIES with nonempty directory components, the
1243 correct `-rpath' argument is used now.
1245 - `config.status --file=Makefile depfiles' now also works with the
1246 extra quoting used internally by Autoconf 2.62 and newer
1247 (it used to work only without the `--file=' bit).
1249 - The `missing' script works better with versioned tool names.
1251 - Semantics for `missing help2man' have been revamped:
1253 Previously, if `help2man' was not present, `missing help2man' would have
1254 the following semantics: if some man page was out of date but present, then
1255 a warning would be printed, but the exit status was 0. If the man page was
1256 not present at all, then `missing' would create a replacement man page
1257 containing an error message, and exit with a status of 2. This does not play
1258 well with `make': the next run will see this particular man page as being up
1259 to date, and will only error out on the next generated man page, if any;
1260 repeat until all pages are done. This was not desirable.
1262 These are the new semantics: if some man page is not present, and help2man
1263 is not either, then `missing' will warn and generate the replacement page
1264 containing the error message, but exit successfully. However, `make dist'
1265 will ensure that no such bogus man pages are packaged into a tarball.
1267 - Targets provided by automake behave better with `make -n', in that they
1268 take care not to create files.
1270 - `config.status Makefile... depfiles' works fine again in the presence of
1271 disabled dependency tracking.
1273 - The default no-op recursive rules for these targets also work with BSD make
1274 now: html, install-html, install-dvi, install-pdf, install-pdf, install-info.
1276 - `make distcheck' works also when both a directory and some file below it
1277 have been added to a distribution variable, such as EXTRA_DIST or *_SOURCES.
1279 - Texinfo dvi, ps, pdf, and html output files are not removed upon
1280 `make mostlyclean' any more; only the LaTeX by-products are.
1282 - Renamed objects also work with the `subdir-objects' option and
1283 source file languages which Automake does not know itself.
1285 - `automake' now correctly complains about variable assignments which are
1286 preceded by a comment, extend over multiple lines with backslash-escaped
1287 newlines, and end in a comment sign. Previous versions would silently
1288 and wrongly ignore such assignments completely.
1290 * Bugs introduced by 1.10:
1292 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
1293 Makefile.in's again, but also cope with long lines.
1295 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of XFAIL_TESTS
1296 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1297 This is for consistency with the analogous change to TESTS in 1.10.
1299 - Fix order of standard includes to again be `-I. -I$(srcdir)',
1300 followed by directories containing config headers.
1302 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1306 * Version requirements:
1308 - Autoconf 2.60 or greater is required.
1310 - Perl 5.6 or greater is required.
1312 * Changes to aclocal:
1314 - aclocal now also supports -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble options.
1316 - `dirlist' entries (for the aclocal search path) may use shell
1317 wildcards such as `*', `?', or `[...]'.
1319 - aclocal supports an --install option that will cause system-wide
1320 third-party macros to be installed in the local directory
1321 specified with the first -I flag. This option also uses #serial
1322 lines in M4 files to upgrade local macros.
1324 The new aclocal options --dry-run and --diff help to review changes
1325 before they are installed.
1327 - aclocal now outputs an autoconf version check in aclocal.m4 in
1328 projects using automake.
1330 For a few years, automake and aclocal have been calling autoconf
1331 (or its underlying engine autom4te) to accurately retrieve the
1332 data they need from configure.ac and its siblings. Doing so can
1333 only work if all autotools use the same version of autoconf. For
1334 instance a Makefile.in generated by automake for one version of
1335 autoconf may stop working if configure is regenerated with another
1336 version of autoconf, and vice versa.
1338 This new version check ensures that the whole build system has
1339 been generated using the same autoconf version.
1341 * Support for new Autoconf macros:
1343 - The new AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE Autoconf macro is supported.
1345 - If `subdir-objects' is set, and AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR is specified,
1346 $(LIBOBJS), $(LTLIBOBJS), $(ALLOCA), and $(LTALLOCA) can be used
1347 in different directories. However, only one instance of such a
1348 library objects directory is supported.
1350 * Change to Libtool support:
1352 - Libtool generic flags (those that go before the --mode=MODE option)
1353 can be specified using AM_LIBTOOLFLAGS and target_LIBTOOLFLAGS.
1355 * Yacc and Lex changes:
1357 - The rebuild rules for distributed Yacc and Lex output will avoid
1358 overwriting existing files if AM_MAINTAINER_MODE and maintainer-mode
1361 - ylwrap is now always used for lex and yacc source files,
1362 regardless of whether there is more than one source per directory.
1364 * Languages changes:
1366 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now honors CPPFLAGS,
1367 AM_CPPFLAGS and per-target _CPPFLAGS, and supports dependency
1368 tracking, unlike non-preprocessed assembler (*.s).
1370 - subdir-object mode works now with Assembler. Automake assumes
1371 that the compiler understands `-c -o'.
1373 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now also honors
1374 $(DEFS) $(DEFAULT_INCLUDES) $(INCLUDES).
1376 - Improved support for Objective C:
1377 - Autoconf's new AC_PROG_OBJC will enable automatic dependency tracking.
1378 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1380 - New support for Unified Parallel C:
1381 - AM_PROG_UPC looks for a UPC compiler.
1382 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1384 - Per-target flags are now correctly handled in link rules.
1386 For instance maude_CFLAGS correctly overrides AM_CFLAGS; likewise
1387 for maude_LDFLAGS and AM_LDFLAGS. Previous versions bogusly
1388 preferred AM_CFLAGS over maude_CFLAGS while linking, and they
1389 used both AM_LDFLAGS and maude_LDFLAGS on the same link command.
1391 The fix for compiler flags (i.e., using maude_CFLAGS instead of
1392 AM_CFLAGS) should not hurt any package since that is how _CFLAGS
1393 is expected to work (and actually works during compilation).
1395 However using maude_LDFLAGS "instead of" AM_LDFLAGS rather than
1396 "in addition to" breaks backward compatibility with older versions.
1397 If your package used both variables, as in
1399 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1400 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1401 a_LDFLAGS = more flags
1404 and assumed *_LDFLAGS would sum up, you should rewrite it as
1406 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1407 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1408 a_LDFLAGS = $(AM_LDFLAGS) more flags
1411 This new behavior of *_LDFLAGS is more coherent with other
1412 per-target variables, and the way *_LDFLAGS variables were
1413 considered internally.
1415 * New installation targets:
1417 - New targets mandated by GNU Coding Standards:
1422 By default they will only install Texinfo manuals.
1423 You can customize them with *-local variants:
1429 - The undocumented recursive target `uninstall-info' no longer exists.
1430 (`uninstall' is in charge of removing all possible documentation
1431 flavors, including optional formats such as dvi, ps, or info even
1432 when `no-installinfo' is used.)
1434 * Miscellaneous changes:
1436 - Automake no longer complains if input files for AC_CONFIG_FILES
1437 are specified using shell variables.
1439 - clean, distribution, or rebuild rules are normally disabled for
1440 inputs and outputs of AC_CONFIG_FILES, AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, and
1441 AC_CONFIG_LINK specified using shell variables. However, if these
1442 variables are used as ${VAR}, and AC_SUBSTed, then Automake will
1443 be able to output rules anyway.
1444 (See the Automake documentation for AC_CONFIG_FILES.)
1446 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of TESTS
1447 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1448 This is mostly useful when some check_PROGRAMS are listed in TESTS.
1450 - `-Wportability' has finally been turned on by default for `gnu' and
1451 `gnits' strictness. This means, automake will complain about %-rules
1452 or $(GNU Make functions) unless you switch to `foreign' strictness or
1453 use `-Wno-portability'.
1455 - Automake now uses AC_PROG_MKDIR_P (new in Autoconf 2.60), and uses
1456 $(MKDIR_P) instead of $(mkdir_p) to create directories. The
1457 $(mkdir_p) variable is still defined (to the same value as
1458 $(MKDIR_P)) but should be considered obsolete. If you are using
1459 $(mkdir_p) in some of your rules, please plan to update them to
1460 $(MKDIR_P) at some point.
1462 - AM_C_PROTOTYPES and ansi2knr are now documented as being obsolete.
1463 They still work in this release, but may be withdrawn in a future one.
1465 - Inline compilation rules for gcc3-style dependency tracking are
1468 - Automake installs a "Hello World!" example package in $(docdir).
1469 This example is used throughout the new "Autotools Introduction"
1470 chapter of the manual.
1472 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1476 * Makefile.in bloat reduction:
1478 - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
1479 the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
1480 used. This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
1481 Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
1484 - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
1485 object that must be built with explicit rules. It just outputs
1486 the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
1487 the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
1490 * Change to Libtool support:
1492 - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
1493 (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)
1495 - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
1496 conditionally installed in different directories, as in
1499 lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1501 pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1503 liba_la_SOURCES = ...
1505 * Changes to aclocal:
1507 - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
1508 really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
1509 This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
1510 Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
1511 *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
1512 (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
1513 most famous instance of this bug.)
1515 - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
1516 that are not actually used. In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
1517 determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
1518 only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
1519 all of them to be present in order to run. This created
1520 situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
1521 all the macros it uses. For instance running aclocal on a project
1522 containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
1523 project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
1526 * Portability improvements:
1528 - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
1529 tar-pax. The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
1530 filenames that are too long for tar-v7. (PR/414)
1532 - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
1533 trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
1534 (adding trailing backslashes). In previous versions, a long series
1540 would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
1541 exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.
1543 Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
1548 - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
1549 Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
1550 F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
1551 Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).
1553 - Support for conditional _LISP.
1555 - Support for conditional -hook and -local rules (PR/428).
1557 - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)
1559 - Automake will not write any Makefile.ins after the first error it
1560 encounters. The previous Makefile.ins (if any) will be left in
1561 place. (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
1562 be turned into errors with -Werror.)
1564 - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
1567 - The manual tells more about SUBDIRS vs. DIST_SUBDIRS.
1568 It also gives an example of nested packages using AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS.
1570 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1572 Bugs fixed in 1.8.5:
1574 * Long-standing bugs:
1576 - Define DIST_SUBDIRS even when the `no-dist' or `cygnus' options are used
1577 so that `make distclean' and `make maintainer-clean' can work.
1579 - Define AR and ARFLAGS even when only EXTRA_LIBRARIES are defined.
1581 - Fix many rules to please FreeBSD make, which runs commands with `sh -e'.
1583 - Polish diagnostic when no input file is found.
1585 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1587 Bugs fixed in 1.8.4:
1589 * Long-standing bugs:
1591 - Fix AM_PATH_PYTHON to correctly display $PYTHON when it has been
1592 overridden by the user.
1594 - Honor PATH_SEPARATOR in various places of the Automake package, for
1597 - Adjust dependency tracking mode detection to ICC 8.0's new output.
1600 - Fix install-sh so it can install the `mv' binary... using `mv'.
1602 - Fix tru64 dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1604 - Work around Exuberant Ctags when creating a TAGS files in a directory
1605 without files to scan but with subdirectories to include.
1607 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1609 - Fix an "internal error" when @LIBOBJS@ is used in a variable that is
1610 not defined in the same conditions as the _LDADD that uses it.
1612 - Do not warn when JAVAROOT is overridden, this is legitimate.
1614 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1616 Bugs fixed in 1.8.3:
1618 * Long-standing bugs:
1620 - Quote filenames in installation rules, in case $DESTDIR, $prefix,
1621 or any of the other *dir variables contain a space.
1623 Please note that Automake does not and cannot support spaces in
1624 filenames that are involved during the build. This change affects
1625 only installation paths, so that `make install' does not bomb out
1626 in packages configured with
1627 ./configure --prefix '/c/Program Files'
1629 - Fix the depfiles output so it works with GNU sed (<4.1) even when
1630 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
1632 - Do not AC_SUBST(LIBOBJS) in AM_WITH_REGEX. This macro was unusable
1633 since Autoconf 2.54, which defines LIBOBJS itself.
1635 - Fix a potential (but unlikely) race condition in parallel elisp
1636 builds. (Introduced in 1.7.3.)
1638 - Do not assume that users override _DEPENDENCIES in all conditions
1639 where Automake will try to define them.
1641 - Do not use `mkdir -p' in mkinstalldirs, unless this is GNU mkdir.
1642 Solaris 8's `mkdir -p' is not thread-safe and can break parallel
1645 This fix also affects the $(mkdir_p) variable defined since
1646 Automake 1.8. It will be set to `mkdir -p' only if mkdir is GNU
1647 mkdir, and to `mkinstalldirs' or `install-sh -d' otherwise.
1649 - Secure temporary directory creation in `make distcheck'. (PR/413)
1651 - Do not generate two build rules for `parser.h' when the
1652 parser appears in two different conditionals.
1654 - Work around a Solaris 8 /bin/sh bug in the test for dependency
1655 checking. Usually ./configure will not pick this shell; so this
1656 fix only helps cases where the shell is forced to /bin/sh.
1658 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1660 - In some situations (hand-written `m4_include's), aclocal would
1661 call the `File::Spec->rel2abs' method, which was only introduced
1662 in Perl 5.6. This new version reestablish support Perl 5.005.
1664 It is likely that the next major Automake releases will require at
1665 least Perl 5.6. Consider upgrading your development environment
1666 if you are still using the five-year-old Perl 5.005.
1668 - Automake would sometimes fail to define rules for targets listed
1669 in variables defined in multiple conditions. For instance on
1675 it would define only the `a.$(OBJEXT): a.c' rule and omit the
1676 `b.$(OBJEXT): b.c' rule.
1678 * New sections in manual:
1680 - Third-Party Makefiles: how to interface third party Makefiles.
1681 - Upgrading: upgrading packages to newer Automake versions.
1682 - Multiple Outputs: handling tools that produce many outputs.
1684 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1688 * A (well known) portability bug slipped in the changes made to
1689 install-sh in Automake 1.8.1. The broken install-sh would refuse to
1690 install anything on Tru64.
1692 * Fix install rules for conditionally built python files. (This never
1695 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1699 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1701 - Fix Config.pm import error with old Perl versions (at least
1702 5.005_03). One symptom is that aclocal could not find its macro
1705 - Automake 1.8 used `mkdir -m 0755 -p --' to ensure that directories
1706 created by `make install' are always world readable, even if the
1707 installer happens to have an overly restrictive umask (e.g. 077).
1708 This was a mistake and has been reverted. There are at least two
1709 reasons why we must not use `-m 0755':
1710 - it causes special bits like SGID to be ignored,
1711 - it may be too restrictive (some setups expect 775 directories).
1713 - Fix aclocal to honor definitions located in files which have been
1714 m4_included manually. aclocal 1.8 had been updated to check
1715 m4_included files for new requirements, but forgot that these
1716 m4_included files can also provide new definitions.
1718 Note that if you have such a setup, we recommend you get rid of
1719 it. In the past, there was a reason to m4_include files manually:
1720 aclocal used to duplicate entire M4 files into aclocal.m4, even
1721 files that were distributed. Some packages were therefore
1722 m4_including the distributed file directly, and playing some
1723 tricks to ensure aclocal would not copy that file to aclocal.m4,
1724 in order to limit the amount of duplication. Since aclocal 1.8.x
1725 will precisely output m4_includes for local M4 files, we recommend
1726 that you clean up your setup, removing all manual m4_includes and
1727 letting aclocal output them.
1729 - Output detailed menus in the Info version if the Automake manual,
1730 so that Emacs can locate the indexes.
1732 - configure.ac and configure were listed twice in DIST_COMMON (an
1733 internal variable where Automake lists configury files to
1734 distribute). This was harmless, but unaesthetic.
1736 - Use `chmod a-w' instead of `chmod -w' as the latter honors umask.
1737 This was an issue only in the Automake package itself, not in
1740 - Automake assumed that all AC_CONFIG_LINKS arguments had the form
1741 DEST:SRC. This was wrong, as some packages do
1742 AC_CONFIG_LINKS($computedlinks). This version no longer abort in
1745 - Contrary to mkinstalldirs, $(mkdir_p) was expecting exactly one
1746 argument. This caused two kinds of failures:
1747 - Rules installing data in a conditionally defined directory
1748 failed when that directory was undefined. In this case no
1749 argument was supplied.
1750 - `make installdirs' failed, because several directories were
1751 passed to $(mkdir_p). This was an issue only on platform
1752 were $(mkdir_p) is implemented with `install-sh -d'.
1753 $(mkdir_p) as been changed to accept 0 or more arguments, as
1756 * Long-standing bugs:
1758 - Fix an unexpected diagnostic occurring when users attempt
1759 to override some internal variables that Automake appends to.
1761 - aclocal now scans configure.ac for macro definitions (PR/319).
1763 - Fix a portability issue with OSF1/Tru64 Make. If a directory
1764 distributes files which are outside itself (this usually occurs
1765 when using AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([../dir]) to use auxiliary files
1766 from a parent package), then `make distcheck' fails due to an
1767 optimization performed by OSF1/Tru64 Make in its VPATH handling.
1768 (tests/subpkg2.test failure)
1770 - Fix another portability issue with Sun and OSF1/Tru64 Make.
1771 In a VPATH-build configuration, `make install' would install
1772 nobase_ files to wrong locations.
1774 - Fix a Perl `uninitialized value' diagnostic occurring when
1775 automake complains that a Texinfo file does not have a
1776 @setfilename statement.
1778 - Erase config.status.lineno during `make distclean'. This file
1779 can be created by config.status. Automake already knew about
1780 configure.lineno, but forgot config.status.lineno.
1782 - Distribute all files, even those which are built and installed
1783 conditionally. This change affects files listed in conditionally
1784 defined *_HEADERS and *_PYTHON variable (unless they are nodist_*)
1785 as well as those listed in conditionally defined dist_*_DATA,
1786 dist_*_JAVA, dist_*_LISP, and dist_*_SCRIPTS variables.
1788 - Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to avoid \? in sed regular expressions; it
1789 doesn't conform to POSIX.
1791 - Normalize help strings for configure variables and options added
1796 - Check for python2.4 in AM_PATH_PYTHON.
1798 * Spurious failures in test suite:
1800 - tests/libtool5.test, tests/ltcond.test, tests/ltcond2.test,
1801 tests/ltconv.test: fix failures with CVS Libtool.
1802 - tests/aclocal6.test: fix failure if autom4te.cache is disabled.
1803 - tests/txinfo24.test, tests/txinfo25.test, tests/txinfo28.test:
1804 fix failures with old Texinfo versions.
1806 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1812 - The NEWS file is more verbose.
1816 - Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
1820 - Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES declaration
1821 are made by removing any target extension before appending `.c', so
1822 to make the libtool module `foo.la' from `foo.c', you only need to
1825 lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
1826 foo_la_LDFLAGS = -module
1828 For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
1829 foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
1830 However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.
1832 - AR's `cru' flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable instead
1833 of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can be
1834 substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
1835 dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
1837 - New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
1838 target or variable definitions which override Automake
1841 - Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo fails.
1843 - Texinfo rules now support the `html' target.
1844 Running this requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.
1846 `html' is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
1847 hand-crafted `Makefile.in's with Automake-generated
1848 `Makefile.in's, you should adjust the former to support (or
1849 ignore) this target so that `make html' recurses successfully. If
1850 you had a custom `html' rule in your `Makefile.am', it's better to
1851 rename it as `html-local', otherwise your rule will override
1852 Automake's new rule (you can check that by running `automake
1853 -Woverride') and that will stop the recursion to subdirectories.
1855 Last but not least, this `html' rule is declared PHONY, even when
1856 overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
1857 non-PHONY `html' rule.
1859 - Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as a
1860 configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
1863 - The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
1864 rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
1865 configure's dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
1866 than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
1867 were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
1868 change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
1869 friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
1870 rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
1871 tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
1873 - For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
1874 config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
1875 Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
1876 CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
1877 should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
1878 using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
1879 $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different
1880 levels of the build tree).
1882 - aclocal will now use `m4_include' instead of copying local m4
1883 files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with
1884 your project, other files will be copied as usual.)
1886 Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it means
1887 for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list of
1888 m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
1889 m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)
1891 - aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
1892 Autom4te's cache isn't needlessly invalidated. This behavior can
1893 be switched off with the new `--force' option.
1895 - aclocal now uses Autoconf's --trace to detect macros which are
1896 actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
1897 because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
1898 called conditionally.
1900 - New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
1902 - compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, mkinstalldirs,
1903 py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand --version and --help.
1905 - Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing created
1906 links as part of the distclean target and including source files in
1909 - AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND
1910 argument. The latter can be used to override the default behavior
1911 (which is to abort).
1913 - Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
1914 Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will
1915 emulate the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions
1916 of Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change
1917 will only be useful in projects generated with future versions of
1920 - When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
1921 generates the first ".in" input file for which a ".am" exists.
1922 (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
1924 - lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
1925 idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
1926 recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that
1927 this is not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp
1928 files even if emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not
1929 install anything unless emacs is found.
1931 - Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p' over mkinstalldirs if it is
1932 available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile
1933 variable $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either
1934 `mkdir -m 0755 -p --', `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755', or
1935 `$(install_sh) -m 0755 -d'.
1939 - Because `mkdir -p' is available on most platforms, and we can use
1940 `install-sh -d' when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
1941 script is being phased out. `automake --add-missing' no longer
1942 installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
1943 automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).
1945 Gettext 0.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
1946 gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake
1947 will continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
1948 mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.
1950 - AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
1951 merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cv_prog_cc_stdc, you
1952 should adjust it to use $ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc instead. (This
1953 renaming should be safe, even if you have to support several,
1954 versions of Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable
1955 since Autoconf 2.54.)
1957 - Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
1958 variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
1959 (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake
1960 now tracks configure's m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
1961 above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered
1962 obsolete and will be flagged as such when running `automake
1967 - Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
1968 longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following
1969 construct used to be troublesome when used with dozens of
1984 Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.
1986 - Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of Automake
1987 proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some variables
1997 All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected.
1998 This restriction has been lifted, and these variables now
1999 support multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.
2001 - Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
2002 $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution
2003 directory created during `make dist', as it did in Automake 1.4,
2004 not to the root of the build tree as it did in intervening
2005 versions. Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in
2006 the top level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running
2009 - The --no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in's
2010 dependencies before deciding not to update it.
2012 - Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning rules.
2014 - Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree. This
2015 is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
2016 used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
2017 it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
2018 from mere annoyance to portability issues.
2020 - COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer overwritten
2021 when --add-missing and --force-missing are used. For backward
2022 compatibility --add-missing will continue to install COPYING (in
2023 `gnu' strictness) when none of these three files exist, but this
2024 use is deprecated: you should better choose a license yourself and
2025 install it once for all in your source tree (and in your code
2028 - Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that haven't
2029 changed, as the inline rule already does.
2031 - User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
2032 targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new
2033 (and was documented), however some of the automake-generated
2034 rules have escaped this principle in former Automake versions.
2035 Rules for the following targets are affected by this fix:
2037 clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
2038 info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
2039 install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
2040 maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am,
2041 ps, ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man
2043 Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the dependencies
2044 of some target, as in
2046 clean: my-clean-rule
2048 will now *silently override* the automake definition of the
2049 rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride' will diagnose
2050 all such overriding definitions.
2052 It should be noted that almost all of these targets support a *-local
2053 variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined rule
2054 (See node `Extending' in the manual). The above rule should
2057 clean-local: my-clean-rule
2059 These *-local targets have been documented since at least
2060 Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have
2061 to support multiple automake versions.
2065 - The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2067 - Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always defined.
2069 - core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There are
2070 at least three reasons for this:
2071 1. These files should not be created by any build step,
2072 so their removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules.
2073 Actually, they may be precious to the developer.
2074 2. If such file is created during a build, then it's clearly a
2075 bug Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will
2076 cause `make distcheck' to complain about its presence.
2077 3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for
2078 core dump files. A core file on one system might be a
2079 completely legitimate data file on another system.
2081 - RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
2082 defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
2083 environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
2084 on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
2085 defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
2086 AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
2088 - CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
2089 documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have
2090 been there since at least Automake 1.4.)
2092 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2094 Bugs fixed in 1.7.9:
2095 * Fix install-strip to work with nobase_ binaries.
2096 * Fix renaming of #line directives in ylwrap.
2097 * Rebuild with Autoconf 2.59. (1.7.8 was not installable with pdksh.)
2099 Bugs fixed in 1.7.8:
2100 * Remove spurious blank lines in cleaning rules introduced in 1.7.7.
2101 * Fix detection of Debian's install-info, broken since version 1.5.
2102 (Debian bug #213524).
2103 * Honor -module if it appears in AM_LDFLAGS (i.e., relax name checking)
2104 This was only done for libfoo_LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS in previous versions.
2106 Bugs fixed in 1.7.7:
2107 * The implementation of automake's --no-force option is unreliable,
2108 so this option is ignored in this version. A real fix will appear in
2109 Automake 1.8. (Debian Bug #206299)
2110 * AM_PATH_PYTHON: really check the whole list of interpreters if no
2111 argument is given. (PR/399)
2112 * Do not warn about leading `_' in variable names, even with -Wportability.
2113 * Support user redefinitions of TEXINFO_TEX.
2114 * depcomp: support AIX Compiler version 6.
2115 * Fix missing rebuilds during `make dist' with BSD make.
2116 (Could produce tarballs containing out-of-date files.)
2117 * Resurrect multilib support.
2118 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2119 - Extending aclocal: how to write m4 macros that won't trigger warnings
2121 - A Shared Library: Rewrite and split into subsections.
2123 Bugs fixed in 1.7.6:
2124 * Fix depcomp's icc mode for ICC 7.1.
2125 * Diagnose calls to AC_CONFIG_FILES and friends with not enough arguments.
2126 * Fix maintainer-clean's removal of autom4te.cache in VPATH builds.
2127 * Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to work with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2128 * Fix the location reported in some diagnostics related to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
2129 * Remove Latin-1 characters from elisp-comp.
2130 * Update the manual's @dircategory to match the Free Software Directory.
2132 Bugs fixed in 1.7.5:
2133 * Update install-sh's license to remove an advertising clause.
2134 (Debian bug #191717)
2135 * Fix a bug introduced in 1.7.4, related to BUILT_SOURCE handling,
2136 that caused invalid Makefile.ins to be generated.
2137 * Make sure AM_MAKE_INCLUDE doesn't fail when a `doit' file exists.
2138 * New FAQ entry: renamed objects.
2140 Bugs fixed in 1.7.4:
2141 * Tweak the TAGS rule to support Exuberant Ctags (in addition to
2142 the Emacs implementation)
2143 * Fix output of aclocal.m4 dependencies in subdirectories.
2144 * Use `mv -f' instead of `mv' in fastdep rules.
2145 * Upgrade mdate-sh to work on OS/2.
2146 * Don't byte-compile elisp files when ELCFILES is set empty.
2147 (this documented feature was broken by 1.7.3)
2148 * Diagnose trailing backslashes on last line of Makefile.am.
2149 * Diagnose whitespace following trailing backslashes.
2150 * Multiple tests are now correctly supported in DEJATOOL. (PR/388)
2151 * Fix rebuilt rules for AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.bot])
2153 * `make install' will build `BUILT_SOURCES' first.
2154 * Minor documentation fixes.
2156 Bugs fixed in 1.7.3:
2157 * Fix stamp files numbering (when using multiple AC_CONFIG_HEADERS).
2158 * Query distutils for `pythondir' and `pythonexecdir', instead of
2159 using an hardcoded path. This should allow builds on 64-bit
2160 distributions that usually use lib64/ instead of lib/.
2161 * AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for python2.3.
2162 * elisp files are now built all at once instead of one by one. Besides
2163 incurring a speed-up, this is required to support interdependent elisp files.
2164 * Support for DJGPP:
2165 - `make distcheck' will now work in `_inst/' and `_build' instead
2166 of `=inst/' and `=build/'
2167 - use `_dirstamp' when the file-system doesn't support `.dirstamp'
2168 - install/uninstall `*.i[0-9][0-9]'-style info files
2169 - more changes that affect only the Automake package (not its output)
2170 * Fix some incompatibilities with upcoming perl-5.10.
2171 * Properly quote AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME and AC_PACKAGE_VERSION when defining
2172 PACKAGE and VERSION.
2174 - dashmstdout and dashXmstdout modes: don't use `-o /dev/null', this
2175 is troublesome with gcc and Solaris compilers. (PR/385)
2176 - makedepend mode: work with Libtool. (PR/385 too)
2178 * better support for unusual gettext setups, such as multiple po/ directories
2180 - Flag missing po/ and intl/ directories as warnings, not errors.
2181 - Disable these warnings if po/ does not exist.
2182 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2184 - Document how AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR interacts with missing files.
2186 - Document `AM_YFLAGS = -d'. (PR/382)
2188 Bugs fixed in 1.7.2:
2189 * Fix installation and uninstallation of Info files built in subdirectories.
2190 * Do not run `./configure --with-included-gettext' during `make distcheck'
2191 if AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) is used.
2192 * Correctly uninstall renamed man pages.
2193 * Do not strip escaped newline in variables defined in one condition
2194 and augmented in another condition.
2195 * Fix ansi2knr rules for LIBOBJS sources.
2196 * Clean all known Texinfo index files, not only those which appear to
2197 be used, because we cannot know which indexes are used in included files.
2198 (PR/375, Debian Bug #168671)
2199 * Honor only the first @setfilename seen in a Texinfo file.
2200 * Treat "required file X not found" diagnostics as errors (exit status 1).
2201 * Don't complain that a required file is not found when it is a Makefile
2203 * Don't use single suffix inference rules when building `.info'-less
2204 Info files, for the sake of Solaris make.
2205 * The `check' target now depends on `$(BUILT_SOURCES)'. (PR/359)
2206 * Recognize multiple inference rules such as `.a.b .c.d:'. (PR/371)
2207 * Warn about multiple inference rules when -Wportability is used. (PR/372)
2208 * Fix building of deansified files from subdirectories. (PR/370)
2209 * Add missing `fi' in the .c->.obj rules.
2210 * Improve install-sh to work even when names contain spaces or certain
2211 (but not all) shell metachars.
2212 * Fix the following spurious failures in the test suite:
2213 depcomp2.test, gnits2.test, gnits3.test, python3.test, texinfo13.test
2214 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2215 - Augment the section about BUILT_SOURCES.
2216 - Mention that AM_PROG_CC_STDC is a relic that is better avoided today.
2218 Bugs fixed in 1.7.1:
2219 * Honor `ansi2knr' for files built in subdirectories, or using per-targets
2221 * Aclocal should now recognize macro names containing parentheses, e.g.
2222 AC_DEFUN([AC_LANG_PREPROC(Fortran 90)], [...]).
2223 * Erase *.sum and *.log files created by DejaGnu, during `make distclean'.
2225 * Install Python files even if they were built. (PR/369)
2226 * Have stamp-vti dependent upon configure instead of configure.ac, as the
2227 version might not be defined in the latter. (PR/358)
2228 * Reorder arguments passed to a couple of commands, so things works
2229 when POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2230 * Fix a regex that can cause Perl to segfault on large input.
2232 * Fix distribution of packages that have some sources defined conditionally,
2233 as in the `Conditional compilation using Automake conditionals' example
2235 * Fix spurious test suite failures on IRIX.
2236 * Don't report a required variable as undefined if it has been
2237 defined conditionally for the "right" conditions.
2238 * Fix cleaning of the /tmp subdirectory used by `make distcheck', in case
2239 `make distcheck' fails.
2240 * Fix distribution of included Makefile fragment, so we don't create
2241 spurious directories in the distribution. (PR/366)
2242 * Don't complain that a target lacks `.$(EXEEXT)' when it has it.
2245 * Autoconf 2.54 is required.
2246 * `aclocal' and `automake' will no longer warn about obsolete
2247 configure macros. This is done by `autoconf -Wobsolete'.
2248 * AM_CONFIG_HEADER, AM_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS and
2249 AM_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ_NEEDS_SYS_IOCTL are obsolete (although still
2250 supported). You should use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS,
2251 and AC_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ instead. `autoupdate' can upgrade
2252 `configure.ac' for you.
2253 * Support for per-program and per-library `_CPPFLAGS'.
2254 * New `ctags' target (builds CTAGS files).
2255 * Support for -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble, where mumble is a warning category
2256 (see `automake --help' or the manual for a list of them).
2257 * Honor the WARNINGS environment variable.
2258 * Omit the call to depcomp when using gcc3: call the compiler directly.
2259 * A new option, std-options, tests that programs support --help and --version
2260 when `make installcheck' is run. This is enabled by --gnits.
2261 * Texinfo rules now support the `ps' and `pdf' targets.
2262 * Info files are now created in the build directory, not the source directory.
2263 * info_TEXINFOS supports files in subdirectories (this requires Texinfo 4.1
2265 * `make distcheck' will enforce DESTDIR support by attempting
2267 * `+=' can be used in conditionals, even if the augmented variable
2268 was defined for another condition.
2269 * Makefile fragments (inserted with `include') are always distributed.
2270 * Use Autoconf's --trace interface to inspect configure.ac and get
2271 a more accurate view of it.
2272 * Add support for extending aclocal's default macro search path
2273 using a `dirlist' file within the aclocal directory.
2274 * automake --output-dir is deprecated.
2275 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether uninstall actually
2276 removes all installed files has been moved in a separate target,
2277 distuninstallcheck, so it can be overridden easily.
2281 * Support for AM_INIT_GETTEXT([external])
2282 * Bug fixes, including:
2283 - Fix Automake's own `make install' so it works even if `ln' doesn't.
2284 - nobase_ programs and scripts honor --program-transform correctly.
2285 - Erase configure.lineno during `make distclean'.
2286 - Erase YACC and LEX outputs during `make maintainer-clean'.
2289 * Many bug fixes, including:
2290 - Requiring the current version works.
2291 - Fix "$@" portability issues (for Zsh).
2292 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
2294 - Don't compute dependencies in background to avoid races with libtool.
2295 - Fix handling of _OBJECTS variables for targets sharing source variables.
2296 - Check dependency mode for Java when AM_PROG_GCJ is used.
2299 * automake --output-dir is deprecated
2300 * Many bug fixes, including:
2301 - Don't choke on AM_LDFLAGS definitions.
2302 - Clean libtool objects from subdirectories.
2303 - Allow configure variables with reserved suffix and unknown prefix
2304 (e.g. AC_SUBST(mumble_LDFLAGS) when 'mumble' is not a target).
2305 - Fix the definition of AUTOMAKE and ACLOCAL in configure.
2308 * Autoconf 2.52 is required.
2309 * automake no longer run libtoolize.
2310 This is the job of autoreconf (from GNU Autoconf).
2311 * `dist' generates all the archive flavors, as did `dist-all'.
2312 * `dist-gzip' generates the Gzip tar file only.
2313 * Combining Automake Makefile conditionals no longer lead to a combinatorial
2314 explosion. Makefile.in's keep a reasonable size.
2315 * AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_STRTOD, AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, AM_PTRDIFF_T
2316 are no longer shipped, since Autoconf 2.52 provides them (both as AM_
2318 * `#line' of Lex and Yacc files are properly set.
2319 * EXTRA_DIST can contain generated directories.
2320 * Support for dot-less extensions in suffix rules.
2321 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether distclean actually
2322 cleans all built files has been moved in a separate target, distcleancheck,
2323 so it can be overridden easily.
2324 * `make distcheck' will pass additional options defined in
2325 $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) to configure.
2326 * Fixed CDPATH portability problems, in particular for MacOS X.
2327 * Fixed handling of nobase_ targets.
2328 * Fixed support of implicit rules leading to .lo objects.
2329 * Fixed late inclusion of --add-missing files (e.g. depcomp) in DIST_COMMON
2330 * Added uninstall-hook target
2331 * `AC_INIT AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tarname,version)' is an obsolete construct.
2332 You can now use `AC_INIT(pkgname,version) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE' instead.
2333 (Note that "pkgname" is not "tarname", see the manual for details.)
2334 It is also possible to pass a list of global Automake options as
2335 first argument to this new form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
2336 * Compiler-based assembler is now called `CCAS'; people expected `AS'
2337 to be a real assembler.
2338 * AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will set STRIP itself when it needs it. Adding
2339 AC_CHECK_TOOL([STRIP], [strip]) manually is no longer required.
2340 * aclocal and automake are also installed with the version number
2341 appended, and some of the install directory names have changed.
2342 This lets you have multiple versions installed simultaneously.
2343 * Support for parsers and lexers in subdirectories.
2346 * Support for `configure.ac'.
2347 * Support for `else COND', `endif COND' and negated conditions `!COND'.
2348 * `make dist-all' is much faster.
2349 * Allows '@' AC_SUBSTs in macro names.
2350 * Faster AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (requires update of `missing' script)
2351 * User-side dependency tracking. Developers no longer need GNU make
2353 * Uses DIST_SUBDIRS in some situations when SUBDIRS is conditional
2354 * Most files are correctly handled if they appear in subdirs
2355 For instance, a _DATA file can appear in a subdir
2356 * GNU tar is no longer required for `make dist'
2357 * Added support for `dist_' and `nodist_' prefixes
2358 * Added support for `nobase_' prefix
2359 * Compiled Java support
2360 * Support for per-executable and per-library compilation flags
2364 * Added support for the Fortran 77 programming language.
2365 * Re-indexed the Automake Texinfo manual.
2366 * Added `AM_FOOFLAGS' variable for each compiler invocation;
2367 e.g. AM_CFLAGS can be used in Makefile.am to set C compiler flags
2368 * Support for latest autoconf, including support for objext
2369 * Can now put `.' in SUBDIRS to control build order
2370 * `include' command and `+=' support for macro assignment
2371 * Dependency tracking no long susceptible to deleted header file problem
2372 * Maintainer mode now a conditional. @MAINT@ is now an anachronism.
2377 * Better Cygwin32 support
2378 * Support for suffix rules with _SOURCES variables
2379 * New options `readme-alpha' and `check-news'; Gnits mode sets these
2380 * @LEXLIB@ no longer required when lex source seen
2381 Lex support in `missing', and new lex macro. Update your missing script.
2382 * Built-in support for assembly
2383 * aclocal gives error if `AM_' macro not found
2384 * Passed YFLAGS, not YACCFLAGS, to yacc
2385 * AM_PROG_CC_STDC does not have to come before AC_PROG_CPP
2386 * Dependencies computed as a side effect of compilation
2387 * Preliminary support for Java
2388 * DESTDIR support at "make install" time
2389 * Improved ansi2knr support; you must use the latest ansi2knr.c (included)
2393 * Better DejaGnu support
2394 * Added no-installinfo option
2395 * Added Emacs Lisp support
2396 * Added --no-force option
2397 * Included `aclocal' program
2398 * Automake will now generate rules to regenerate aclocal.m4, if appropriate
2399 * Now uses `AM_' macro names everywhere
2400 * ansi2knr option can have directory prefix (eg `../lib/ansi2knr')
2401 ansi2knr now works correctly on K&R sources
2402 * Better C++, yacc, lex support
2403 * Will compute _DEPENDENCIES variables automatically if not supplied
2404 * Will interpolate $(...) and ${...} when examining contents of a variable
2405 * .deps files now in build directory, not source directory; dependency
2406 handling generally rewritten
2407 * DATA, MANS and BUILT_SOURCES no longer included in distribution
2408 * can now put config.h into a subdir
2409 * Added dist-all target
2410 * Support for install-info program (see texinfo 3.9)
2411 * Support for "yacc -d"
2412 * configure substitutions are automatically discovered and included
2413 in generated Makefile.in
2414 * Special --cygnus mode
2415 * OMIT_DEPENDENCIES can now hold list of dependencies to be omitted
2416 when making distribution. Some dependencies are auto-ignored.
2417 * Changed how libraries are specified in _LIBRARIES variable
2418 * Full libtool support, from Gord Matzigkeit
2419 * No longer have to explicitly touch stamp-h when using AC_CONFIG_HEADER;
2420 AM_CONFIG_HEADER handles it automatically
2421 * Texinfo output files no longer need .info extension
2422 * Added `missing' support
2424 * Conditionals in Makefile.am, from Ian Taylor
2428 * distcheck target runs install and installcheck targets
2429 * Added preliminary support for DejaGnu.
2434 * More libtool fixes from Gord Matzigkeit; libtool support is still
2436 * Added support for jm_MAINTAINER_MODE
2438 * New "distcheck" target
2442 * mkinstalldirs and mdate-sh now appear in directory specified by
2444 * Removed DIST_SUBDIRS, DIST_OTHER
2445 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM only required when an actual program exists
2446 * dist-hook target now run before distribution packaged up; idea from
2447 Dieter Baron. Other hooks exist, too.
2448 * Preliminary (unfinished) support for libtool
2449 * Added short option names.
2450 * Better "dist" support when gluing together multiple packages
2454 * Documentation updates (many from François Pinard)
2455 * strictness `normal' now renamed to `foreign'
2456 * Renamed --install-missing to --add-missing
2457 * Now handles AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR
2458 * Now handles TESTS macro
2459 * DIST_OTHER renamed to EXTRA_DIST
2460 * DIST_SUBDIRS is deprecated
2461 * @ALLOCA@ and @LIBOBJS@ now work in _LDADD variables
2462 * Better error messages in many cases
2463 * Program names are canonicalized
2464 * Added "check" prefix; from Gord Matzigkeit
2468 * configure.in scanner knows about AC_PATH_XTRA, AC_OUTPUT ":" syntax
2469 * Beginnings of a test suite
2470 * Automatically adds -I options for $(srcdir), ".", and path to config.h
2471 * Doesn't print anything when running
2472 * Beginnings of MAINT_CHARSET support
2473 * Can specify version in AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
2474 * Most errors recognizable by Emacs' M-x next-error
2475 * Added --verbose option
2476 * All "primary" variables now obsolete; use EXTRA_PRIMARY to supply
2477 configure-generated names
2478 * Required macros now distributed in aclocal.m4
2480 * --strictness=gnu is default
2484 * More sophisticated configure.in scanning; now understands ALLOCA and
2485 LIBOBJS directly, handles AC_CONFIG_HEADER more precisely, etc.
2486 * TEXINFOS and MANS now obsolete; use info_TEXINFOS and man_MANS instead.
2487 * CONFIG_HEADER variable now obsolete
2488 * Can handle multiple Texinfo sources
2489 * Allow hierarchies deeper than 2. From Gord Matzigkeit.
2490 * HEADERS variable no longer needed; now can put .h files directly into
2491 foo_SOURCES variable.
2492 * Automake automatically rebuilds files listed in AC_OUTPUT. The
2493 corresponding ".in" files are included in the distribution.
2496 * Added --gnu and --gnits options
2497 * More standards checking
2499 * Cleaned up 'dist' targets
2500 * Added AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable and several options
2501 * Now scans configure.in to get some information (preliminary)
2504 * Works with Perl 4 again
2507 * Added --install-missing option.
2508 * Pretty-prints generated macros and rules
2509 * Comments in Makefile.am are placed more intelligently in Makefile.in
2510 * Generates .PHONY target
2511 * Rule or macro in Makefile.am now overrides contents of Automake file
2512 * Substantial cleanups from François Pinard
2516 * Works with Perl 4 again.
2519 * New uniform naming scheme.
2520 * --strictness option
2522 * '.c' files corresponding to '.y' or '.l' files are automatically
2524 * Many bug fixes and cleanups
2527 * Allow objects to be conditionally included in libraries via lib_LIBADD.
2530 * Bug fixes in 'clean' code.
2531 * Now generates 'installdirs' target.
2532 * man page installation reworked.
2533 * 'make dist' no longer re-creates all Makefile.in's.
2536 * Reimplemented in Perl
2537 * Added --amdir option (for debugging)
2538 * Texinfo support cleaned up.
2539 * Automatic de-ANSI-fication cleaned up.
2540 * Cleaned up 'clean' targets.
2543 * Automatic dependency tracking
2544 * More documentation
2545 * New variables DATA and PACKAGEDATA
2546 * SCRIPTS installed using $(INSTALL_SCRIPT)
2547 * No longer uses double-colon rules
2549 * Changes in advance of internationalization
2553 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2555 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
2556 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2557 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
2560 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2561 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2562 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2563 GNU General Public License for more details.
2565 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2566 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.