1 * WARNING: New versioning scheme for Automake.
3 - Starting with this version onward, Automake will use an update and
4 more rational versioning scheme, one that will allow users to know
5 which kind of changes can be expected from a new version, based on
8 + Micro versions (e.g., 1.13.3, 2.0.1, 3.2.8) will introduce only
9 documentation updates and bug and regression fixes; they will
10 not introduce new features, nor any backward-incompatibility (any
11 such incompatibility would be considered a bug, to be fixed with
12 a further micro release).
14 + Minor versions (e.g., 1.14, 2.1) can introduce new backward
15 compatible features; the only backward-incompatibilities allowed
16 in such a release are new *non-fatal* deprecations and warnings,
17 and possibly fixes for old or non-trivial bugs (or even inefficient
18 behaviours) that could unfortunately have been seen, and used, by
19 some developers as "corner case features". This kind of fixes
20 should hopefully be quite rare.
22 + Major versions (now expected to be released every 18 or 24 months,
23 and not more often) can introduce new big features (possibly with
24 rough edges and not-fully-stabilized APIs), removal of deprecated
25 features, backward-incompatible changes of behaviour, and possibly
26 major refactorings (that, while ideally transparent to the user,
27 could introduce new bugs). Incompatibilities should however not
28 be introduced gratuitously and abruptly; a proper deprecation path
29 should be duly implemented in the preceding minor releases.
31 - According to this new scheme, the next major version of Automake
32 (the one that has until now been labelled as '1.14') will actually
33 become "Automake 2.0". Automake 1.14 will be the next minor version,
34 which will introduce new features and deprecation, but no backward
37 - See discussion about automake bug#13578 for more details and
38 background: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13578>
40 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
42 - Automake 2.0 will require Autoconf 2.70 or later (which is still
43 unreleased at the moment of writing, but is planned to be released
44 before Automake 2.0 is).
46 - Automake 2.0 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in'
47 name for the Autoconf input file. You are advised to start using the
48 recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP.
50 - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated
51 in Automake 2.0 (where it will raise warnings in the "obsolete"
52 category). You are advised to start relying on the new Automake
53 support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which was introduced in
56 - Automake 2.0 will remove support for automatic dependency tracking
57 with the SGI C/C++ compilers on IRIX. The SGI depmode has been
58 reported broken "in the wild" already, and we don't think investing
59 time in debugging and fixing is worthwhile, especially considering
60 that SGI has last updated those compilers in 2006, and is expected
61 to retire support for them in December 2013:
62 <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html>
64 - Future versions of Automake might remove support for MS-DOS and
65 Windows 95/98/ME (support for them was offered by relying on the
66 DJGPP project). Note however that both Cygwin and MSYS/MinGW on
67 modern Windows versions will continue to be fully supported.
69 - Automake-provided scripts and makefile recipes might (finally!)
70 start assuming a POSIX shell in Automake 2.0.
72 - Starting from Automake 2.0, third-party m4 files located in the
73 system-wide aclocal directory, as well as in any directory listed
74 in the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable, will take precedence
75 over "built-in" Automake macros. For example (assuming Automake
76 is installed in the /usr/local hierarchy), a definition of the
77 AM_PROG_VALAC macro found in '/usr/local/share/aclocal/my-vala.m4'
78 should take precedence over the same-named automake-provided macro
79 (defined in '/usr/local/share/aclocal-2.0/vala.m4').
81 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
85 * Obsolescent features:
87 - Use of suffix-less info files (that can be specified through the
88 '@setfilename' macro in Texinfo input files) is discouraged, and
89 its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete' category.
91 - Use of Texinfo input files with '.txi' or '.texinfo' extensions
92 is discouraged, and its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete'
93 category. You are advised to simply use the '.texi' extension
96 * Documentation fixes:
98 - The long-deprecated but still supported two-arguments invocation form
99 of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is documented once again. This seems the sanest
100 thing to do, given that support for such an usage might need to remain
101 in place for a unspecified amount of time in order to cater for people
102 who want to define the version number for their package dynamically at
103 configure runtime (unfortunately, Autoconf does not yet support this
104 scenario, so we cannot delegate the work to it).
106 - The serial testsuite harness is no longer reported as "deprecated",
107 but as "discouraged". We have no plan to remove it, not to make its
108 use cause runtime warnings.
110 - The parallel testsuite is no longer reported as "experimental"; it
111 is well tested, and should be stable now.
113 - The 'shar' and 'tarZ' distribution formats and the 'dist-shar' and
114 'dist-tarZ' options are obsolescent, and their use is deprecated
115 in the documentation.
117 - Other minor miscellaneous fixes and improvements; in particular,
118 some improvements in cross-references.
122 - The obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC work once
123 again, as they did in Automake 1.12.x (albeit printing runtime
124 warnings in the 'obsolete' category). Removing them has turned
125 out to be a very bad idea, because it complicated distro packing
126 enormously. Making them issue fatal warnings, as we did in
127 Automake 1.13, has turned out to be a similarly very bad idea,
128 for exactly the same reason.
130 - Aclocal no longer error out if the first local m4 directory (as
131 specified by the '-I' option or the 'AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS' or
132 'AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR' macros) doesn't exist; it merely report a
133 warning in the 'unsupported' category. This is done to support
134 some pre-existing real-world usages; refer to automake bug#13514
137 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
143 - Use of the obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC now
144 causes a clear and helpful error message, instead of obscure ones
145 (issue introduced in Automake 1.13).
147 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
153 - ylwrap renames properly header guards in generated header files
154 (*.h), instead of leaving Y_TAB_H.
156 - ylwrap now also converts header guards in implementation files
157 (*.c). Because ylwrap failed to rename properly #include in the
158 implementation files, current versions of Bison (e.g., 2.7)
159 duplicate the generated header file in the implementation file.
160 The header guard then protects the implementation file from
161 duplicate definitions from the header file.
163 * Version requirements:
165 - Autoconf 2.65 or greater is now required.
167 - The rules to build PDF and DVI output from Texinfo input now
168 require Texinfo 4.9 or later.
172 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (once enabled by the 'cygnus'
173 option) has been removed. See discussion about automake bug#11034
174 for more background: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/11034>.
176 - The deprecated aclocal option '--acdir' has been removed. You
177 should use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir'
178 instead (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
180 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros have been removed:
182 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
183 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
184 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
185 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
186 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
187 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
188 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
189 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
190 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
191 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
194 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' have been removed.
196 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
197 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is no longer documented. It's still supported
198 though (albeit with a warning in the 'obsolete' category), to cater
199 for people who want to define the version number for their package
200 dynamically (e.g., from the current VCS revision). We'll have to
201 continue this support until Autoconf itself is fixed to allow better
202 support for such dynamic version numbers.
204 * Elisp byte-compilation:
206 - The byte compilation of '.el' files into '.elc' files is now done
207 with a suffix rule. This has simplified the compilation process, and
208 more importantly made it less brittle. The downside is that emacs is
209 now invoked once for each '.el' files, which cause some noticeable
210 slowdowns. These should however be mitigated on multicore machines
211 (which are becoming the norm today) if concurrent make ("make -j")
214 - Elisp files placed in a subdirectory are now byte-compiled to '.elc'
215 files in the same subdirectory; for example, byte-compiling of file
216 'sub/foo.el' file will result in 'sub/foo.elc' rather than in
217 'foo.elc'. This behaviour is backward-incompatible with older
218 Automake versions, but it is more natural and more sane. See also
221 - The Emacs invocation performing byte-compilation of '.el' files honors
222 the $(AM_ELCFLAGS) and $(ELCFLAGS) variables; as typical, the former
223 one is developer-reserved and the latter one user-reserved.
225 - The 'elisp-comp' script, once provided by Automake, has been rendered
226 obsoleted by the just-described changes, and thus removed.
228 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
230 - The parallel testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the
231 'parallel-tests' option) is the default one; the older serial
232 testsuite harness will still be available through the use of the
233 'serial-tests' option (introduced in Automake 1.12).
235 - The 'color-tests' option is now unconditionally activated by default.
236 In particular, this means that testsuite output is now colorized by
237 default if the attached terminal seems to support ANSI escapes, and
238 that the user can force output colorization by setting the variable
239 AM_COLOR_TESTS to "always". The 'color-tests' is still recognized
240 for backward-compatibility, although it's a handled as a no-op now.
242 * Silent rules support:
244 - Support for silent rules is now always active in Automake-generated
245 Makefiles. So, although the verbose output is still the default,
246 the user can now always use "./configure --enable-silent-rules" or
247 "make V=0" to enable quieter output in the package he's building.
249 - The 'silent-rules' option has now become a no-op, preserved for
250 backward-compatibility only. In particular, its use no longer
251 disables the warnings in the 'portability-recursive' category.
255 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now require
256 Texinfo 4.9 or later.
258 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now use the
259 '--build-dir' option, to keep the auxiliary files used by texi2dvi
260 and texi2pdf around without cluttering the build directory, and to
261 make it possible to run the "dvi" and "pdf" recipes in parallel.
263 * Automatic remake rules and 'missing' script:
265 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to update the timestamp of
266 out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
267 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
268 of it). It just gives a useful warning, and in some cases also a
269 tip about how to obtain such a tool.
271 - The missing script has thus become useless as a (poor) way to work
272 around the sketched-timestamps issues that can happen for projects
273 that keep generated files committed in their VCS repository. Such
274 projects are now encouraged to write a custom "fix-timestamps.sh"
275 script to avoid such issues; a simple example is provided in the
276 "CVS and generated files" chapter of the automake manual.
280 - The user can now define his own recursive targets that recurse
281 in the directories specified in $(SUBDIRS). This can be done by
282 specifying the name of such targets in invocations of the new
283 'AM_EXTRA_RECURSIVE_TARGETS' m4 macro.
287 - Any failure in the recipe of the "tags", "ctags", "cscope" or
288 "cscopelist" targets in a subdirectory is now propagated to the
289 top-level make invocation.
291 - Tags are correctly computed also for files in _SOURCES variables that
292 only list files with non-standard suffixes (see automake bug#12372).
294 * Improvements to aclocal and related rebuilds rules:
296 - Autoconf-provided macros AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS
297 are now traced by aclocal, and can be used to declare the local m4
298 include directories. Formerly, one had to specify it with an explicit
299 '-I' option to the 'aclocal' invocation.
301 - The special make variable ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is deprecated; future
302 Automake versions will warn about its use, and later version will
303 remove support for it altogether.
305 * The depcomp script:
307 - Dropped support for libtool 1.4.
309 - Various internal refactorings. They should cause no visible change,
310 but the chance for regression is there anyway, so please report any
311 unexpected or suspicious behaviour.
313 - Support for pre-8.0 versions of the Intel C Compiler has been dropped.
314 This should cause no problem, since icc 8.0 has been released in
315 December 2003 -- almost nine years ago.
317 - Support for tcc (the Tiny C Compiler) has been improved, and is now
318 handled through a dedicated 'tcc' mode.
322 - ylwrap generates header guards with a single '_' for series of non
323 alphabetic characters, instead of several. This is what Bison >=
326 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
328 Bugs fixed in 1.12.6:
330 * Python-related bugs:
332 - The default installation location for python modules has been improved
333 for Python 3 on Debian and Ubuntu systems, changing from:
335 ${prefix}/lib/python3/dist-packages
339 ${prefix}/lib/python3.x/site-packages
341 This change should ensure modules installed using the default ${prefix}
342 "/usr/local" are found by default by system python 3.x installations.
343 See automake bug#10227.
345 - Python byte-compilation supports the new layout mandated by PEP-3147,
346 with its __pycache__ directory (automake bug#8847).
348 * Build system issues:
350 - The maintainer rebuild rules for Makefiles and aclocal.m4 in
351 Automake's own build system works correctly again (bug introduced
356 - The Vala-related tests has been changed to adjust to the removal of
357 the 'posix' profile in the valac compiler. See automake bug#12934
360 - Some spurious testsuite failures related to older tools and systems
363 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
369 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro has been enhanced to takes two further
370 optional arguments; it's signature now being
372 AM_PROG_VALAC([MINIMUM-VERSION], [ACTION-IF-FOUND],
373 [ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])
375 - By default, AM_PROG_VALAC no longer aborts the configure invocation
376 if the Vala compiler found is too old, but simply prints a warning
377 messages (as it did when the Vala compiler was not found). This
378 should avoid unnecessary difficulties for end users that just want
379 to compile the unmodified, distributed Vala-generated C sources,
380 but happens to have an old Vala compiler in their PATH. This fixes
383 - If no proper Vala compiler is found at configure runtime, AM_PROG_VALAC
384 will set the AC_SUBST'd variable 'VALAC' to 'valac' rather than to ':'.
385 This is a better default, because with it a triggered makefile rule
386 invoking a Vala compilation will clearly fail with an informative error
387 message like "valac: command not found", rather than silently, with
388 the error possibly going unnoticed or triggering harder-to-diagnose
389 fallout failures in later steps.
391 * Miscellaneous changes:
393 - automake and aclocal no longer honours the 'perllibdir' environment
394 variable. That had always been intended only as an hack required in
395 the testsuite, not meant for any use beyond that.
397 Bugs fixed in 1.12.5:
399 * Long-standing bugs:
401 - Automake no longer generates spurious remake rules invoking autoheader
402 to regenerate the template corresponding to header files specified after
403 the first one in AC_CONFIG_HEADERS (automake bug#12495).
405 - When wrapping Microsoft tools, the 'compile' script falls back to
406 finding classic 'libname.a' style libraries when 'name.lib' and
407 'name.dll.lib' aren't available.
409 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
413 * Warnings and deprecations:
415 - Warnings in the 'obsolete' category are enabled by default both in
416 automake and aclocal.
418 * Miscellaneous changes:
420 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
422 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
426 * Miscellaneous changes:
428 - The '.m4' files provided by Automake no longer define serial numbers.
429 This should cause no difference in the behaviour of aclocal though.
431 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
433 - There is initial support for automatic dependency tracking with the
434 Portland Group C/C++ compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'pgcc'.
436 Bugs fixed in 1.12.3:
438 * Long-standing bugs:
440 - Instead of renaming only self-references of files (typically for
441 #lines), ylwrap now also renames references to the other generated
442 files. This fixes support for GLR and C++ parsers from Bison (PR
443 automake/491 and automake bug#7648): 'parser.c' now properly
444 #includes 'parser.h' instead of 'y.tab.h'.
446 - Generated files unknown to ylwrap are now preserved. This fixes
447 C++ support for Bison (automake bug#7648): location.hh and the
448 like are no longer discarded.
450 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
454 * Warnings and deprecations:
456 - Automake now issues a warning (in the 'portability' category) if
457 'configure.in' is used instead of 'configure.ac' as the Autoconf
458 input file. Such a warning will also be present in the next
459 Autoconf version (2.70).
463 - Recursive cleaning rules descends into the $(SUBDIRS) in the natural
464 order (as done by the other recursive rules), rather than in the
465 inverse order. They used to do that in order to work a round a
466 limitation in an older implementation of the automatic dependency
467 tracking support, but that limitation had been lifted years ago
468 already, when the automatic dependency tracking based on side-effects
469 of compilation had been introduced.
471 - Cleaning rules for compiled objects (both "plain" and libtool) work
472 better when subdir objects are involved, not triggering a distinct
473 'rm' invocation for each such object. They do so by removing *any*
474 compiled object file that is in the same directory of a subdir
475 object. See automake bug#10697.
477 * Silent rules support:
479 - A new predefined $(AM_V_P) make variable is provided; it expands
480 to a shell conditional that can be used in recipes to know whether
481 make is being run in silent or verbose mode.
483 Bugs fixed in 1.12.2:
485 * SECURITY VULNERABILITIES!
487 - The 'distcheck' recipe no longer grants temporary world-write
488 permissions on the extracted distdir. Even if such rights were
489 only granted for a vanishingly small time window, the implied
490 race condition proved to be enough to allow a local attacker
491 to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
492 "make distcheck". This is CVE-2012-3386.
494 * Long-standing bugs:
496 - The "recheck" targets behaves better in the face of build failures
497 related to previously failed tests. For example, if a test is a
498 compiled program that must be rerun by "make recheck", and its
499 compilation fails, it will still be rerun by further "make recheck"
500 invocations. See automake bug#11791.
502 * Bugs introduced by 1.12.1:
504 - Automake provides once again the '$(mkdir_p)' make variable and the
505 '@mkdir_p@' substitution (both as simple aliases for '$(MKDIR_P)'),
506 for better backward-compatibility.
508 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
512 * New supported languages:
514 - Support for Objective C++ has been added; it should work similarly to
515 the support for Objective C.
517 * Deprecated obsolescent features:
519 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
520 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro now elicits a warning in the 'obsolete'
521 category. Starting from some future major Automake release (likely
522 post-1.13), such usages will no longer be allowed.
524 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (enabled by the 'cygnus' option) is
525 now deprecated (its use triggers a warning in the 'obsolete' category).
526 It will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
528 - The long-obsolete (since 1.10) automake-provided $(mkdir_p) make
529 variable, @mkdir_p@ configure-time substitution and AM_PROG_MKDIR
530 m4 macro are deprecated, eliciting a warning in the 'obsolete'
533 * Miscellaneous changes:
535 - The Automake test cases now require a proper POSIX-conforming shell.
536 Older non-POSIX Bourne shells (like Solaris 10 /bin/sh) will no longer
537 be accepted. In most cases, the user shouldn't have to specify such
538 POSIX shell explicitly, since it will be looked up at configure time.
539 Still, when this lookup fails, or when the user wants to override its
540 conclusion, the variable 'AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL' can be used (pointing
541 to the shell that will be used to run the Automake test cases).
543 Bugs fixed in 1.12.1:
545 * Bugs introduced by 1.12:
547 - Several weaknesses in Automake's own build system and test suite
550 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
552 - When given non-option arguments, aclocal rejects them, instead of
553 silently ignoring them.
555 * Long-standing bugs:
557 - When the 'color-tests' option is in use, forcing of colored testsuite
558 output through "AM_COLOR_TESTS=always" works even if the terminal is
559 a non-ANSI one, i.e., if the TERM environment variable has a value of
562 - Several inefficiencies and poor performances in the implementation
563 of the parallel-tests 'check' and 'recheck' targets have been fixed.
565 - The post-processing of output "#line" directives done the ylwrap
566 script is more faithful w.r.t. files in a subdirectory; for example,
567 if the processed file is "src/grammar.y", ylwrap will correctly
568 produce directives like:
569 #line 7 "src/grammar.y"
574 * Bugs with new Perl versions:
576 - Aclocal works correctly with perl 5.16.0 (automake bug#11543).
578 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
582 * Obsolete features removed:
584 - The never documented nor truly used script 'acinstall' has been
587 - Support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been removed.
589 - The support for the "obscure" multilib feature has been removed
590 from Automake core (but remains available in the 'contrib/'
591 directory of the Automake distribution).
593 - Support for ".log -> .html" conversion and the check-html and
594 recheck-html targets has been removed from Automake core (but
595 remains available in the 'contrib/' directory of the Automake
598 - The deprecated 'lzma' compression format for distribution archives
599 has been removed, in favor of 'xz' and 'lzip'.
601 - The obsolete AM_WITH_REGEX macro has been removed.
603 - The long-deprecated options '--output-dir', '--Werror' and
604 '--Wno-error' have been removed.
606 - The chapter on the history of Automake has been moved out of the
607 reference manual, into a new dedicated Texinfo file.
611 - New 'cscope' target to build a cscope database for the source tree.
613 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
615 - The new automake option 'serial-tests' has been introduced. It can
616 be used to explicitly instruct automake to use the older serial
617 testsuite harness. This is still the default at the moment, but it
618 might change in future versions.
620 - The 'recheck' target (provided by the parallel testsuite harness) now
621 depends on the 'all' target. This allows for a better user-experience
622 in test-driven development. See automake bug#11252.
624 - Test scripts that exit with status 99 to signal an "hard error" (e.g.,
625 and unexpected or internal error, or a failure to set up the test case
626 scenario) have their outcome reported as an 'ERROR' now. Previous
627 versions of automake reported such an outcome as a 'FAIL' (the only
628 difference with normal failures being that hard errors were counted
629 as failures even when the test originating them was listed in
632 - The testsuite summary displayed by the parallel-test harness has a
633 completely new format, that always list the numbers of passed, failed,
634 xfailed, xpassed, skipped and errored tests, even when these numbers
635 are zero (but using smart coloring when the color-tests option is in
638 - The default testsuite driver offered by the 'parallel-tests' option is
639 now implemented (partly at least) with the help of automake-provided
640 auxiliary scripts (e.g., 'test-driver'), instead of relying entirely
641 on code in the generated Makefile.in.
642 This has two noteworthy implications. The first one is that projects
643 using the 'parallel-tests' option should now either run automake with
644 the '--add-missing' option, or manually copy the 'test-driver' script
645 into their tree. The second, and more important, implication is that
646 now, when the 'parallel-tests' option is in use, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT can
647 no longer be used to define a test runner, and the command specified
648 in LOG_COMPILER (and <ext>_LOG_COMPILER) must be a *real* executable
649 program or script. For example, this is still a valid usage (albeit
652 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
653 if test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS)'; then \
654 maybe_errexit='-e'; \
658 LOG_COMPILER = $(SHELL) $$maybe_errexit
660 OTOH, this is no longer a valid usage:
662 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
663 $(SHELL) `test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS_CHECKING)' && echo ' -e'`
667 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
668 run_with_perl_or_shell () \
670 if grep -q '^#!.*perl' $$1; then
676 LOG_COMPILER = run_with_perl_or_shell
678 - The package authors can now use customary testsuite drivers within
679 the framework provided by the 'parallel-tests' testsuite harness.
680 Consistently with the existing syntax, this can be done by defining
681 special makefile variables 'LOG_DRIVER' and '<ext>_LOG_DRIVER'.
683 - A new developer-reserved variable 'AM_TESTS_FD_REDIRECT' can be used
684 to redirect/define file descriptors used by the test scripts.
686 - The parallel-tests harness generates now, in addition the '.log' files
687 holding the output produced by the test scripts, a new set of '.trs'
688 files, holding "metadata" derived by the execution of the test scripts;
689 among such metadata are the outcomes of the test cases run by a script.
691 - Initial and still experimental support for the TAP test protocol is
694 * Changes to Yacc and Lex support:
696 - C source and header files derived from non-distributed Yacc and/or
697 Lex sources are now removed by a simple "make clean" (while they were
698 previously removed only by "make maintainer-clean").
700 - Slightly backward-incompatible change, relevant only for use of Yacc
701 with C++: the extensions of the header files produced by the Yacc
702 rules are now modelled after the extension of the corresponding
703 sources. For example, yacc files named "foo.y++" and "bar.yy" will
704 produce header files named "foo.h++" and "bar.hh" respectively, where
705 they would have previously produced header files named simply "foo.h"
706 and "bar.h". This change offers better compatibility with 'bison -o'.
708 * Miscellaneous changes:
710 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro now causes configure to exit with status 77,
711 rather than 1, if the vala compiler found is too old.
713 - The build system of Automake itself now avoids the use of make
714 recursion as much as possible.
716 - Automake now prefers to quote 'like this' or "like this", rather
717 than `like this', in diagnostic message and generated Makefiles,
718 to accommodate the new GNU Coding Standards recommendations.
720 - Automake has a new option '--print-libdir' that prints the path of the
721 directory containing the Automake-provided scripts and data files.
723 - The 'dist' and 'dist-all' targets now can run compressors in parallel.
725 - The rules to create pdf, dvi and ps output from Texinfo files now
726 works better with modern 'texi2dvi' script, by explicitly passing
727 it the '--clean' option to ensure stray auxiliary files are not
728 left to clutter the build directory.
730 - Automake can now generate silenced rules for texinfo outputs.
732 - Some auxiliary files that are automatically distributed by Automake
733 (e.g., 'install-sh', or the 'depcomp' script for packages compiling
734 C sources) might now be listed in the DIST_COMMON variable in many
735 Makefile.in files, rather than in the top-level one.
737 - Messages of types warning or error from 'automake' and 'aclocal'
738 are now prefixed with the respective type, and presence of -Werror
741 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now tries to avoid
742 sleeping for a second, which slowed down cached configure runs
743 noticeably. In that case, it will check back at the end of the
744 configure script to ensure that at least one second has passed, to
745 avoid time stamp issues with makefile rules rerunning autotools
748 - The warnings in the category 'extra-portability' are now enabled by
749 '-Wall'. In previous versions, one has to use '-Wextra-portability'
754 - Various minor bugfixes for recent or long-standing bugs.
756 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
758 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
759 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
761 - The automake-provided parallel testsuite harness no longer fails
762 with BSD make used in parallel mode when there are test scripts in
763 a subdirectory, like in:
765 TESTS = sub/foo.test sub/bar.test
767 * Long-standing bugs:
769 - Automake's own build system finally have a real "installcheck" target.
771 - Vala-related cleanup rules are now more complete, and work better in
774 - Files listed with the AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE macro in configure.ac are
775 now automatically distributed also if the directory of the auxiliary
776 files coincides with the top-level directory.
778 - Automake now detects the presence of the '-d' flag in the various
779 '*YFLAGS' variables even when their definitions involve indirections
780 through other variables, such as in:
782 AM_YFLAGS = $(foo_opts)
784 - Automake now complains if a '*YFLAGS' variable has any conditional
785 content, not only a conditional definition.
787 - Explicit enabling and/or disabling of Automake warning categories
788 through the '-W...' options now always takes precedence over the
789 implicit warning level implied by Automake strictness (foreign, gnu
790 or gnits), regardless of the order in which such strictness and
791 warning flags appear. For example, a setting like:
792 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = -Wall --foreign
793 will cause the warnings in category 'portability' to be enabled, even
794 if those warnings are by default disabled in 'foreign' strictness.
796 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
798 Bugs fixed in 1.11.5:
800 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
802 - Vala files with '.vapi' extension are now recognized and handled
803 correctly again. See automake bug#11222.
805 - Vala support work again for projects that contain some program
806 built from '.vala' (and possibly '.c') sources and some other
807 program built from '.c' sources *only*. See automake bug#11229.
809 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
813 * Miscellaneous changes:
815 - The 'ar-lib' script now ignores the "s" (symbol index) and "S" (no
816 symbol index) modifiers as well as the "s" action, as the symbol index
817 is created unconditionally by Microsoft lib. Also, the "q" (quick)
818 action is now a synonym for "r" (replace). Also, the script has been
819 ignoring the "v" (verbose) modifier already since Automake 1.11.3.
821 - When the 'compile' script is used to wrap MSVC, it now accepts an
822 optional space between the -I, -L and -l options and their respective
823 arguments, for better POSIX compliance.
825 - There is an initial, experimental support for automatic dependency
826 tracking with tcc (the Tiny C Compiler). Its associated depmode is
827 currently recognized as "icc" (but this and other details are likely
828 to change in future versions).
830 - Automatic dependency tracking now works also with the IBM XL C/C++
831 compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'xlc'.
833 Bugs fixed in 1.11.4:
835 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
837 - A definition of 'noinst_PYTHON' before 'python_PYTHON' (or similar)
838 no longer cause spurious failures upon "make install".
840 - The user can now instruct the 'uninstall-info' rule not to update
841 the '${infodir}/dir' file by exporting the environment variable
842 'AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no". This is done for consistency
843 with how the 'install-info' rule operates since automake 1.11.2.
845 * Long-standing bugs:
847 - It is now possible for a foo_SOURCES variable to hold Vala sources
848 together with C header files, as well as with sources and headers for
849 other supported languages (e.g., C++). Previously, only mixing C and
850 Vala sources was supported.
852 - If "aclocal --install" is used, and the first directory specified with
853 '-I' is non-existent, aclocal will now create it before trying to copy
856 - An empty declaration of a "foo_PRIMARY" no longer cause the generated
857 install rules to create an empty $(foodir) directory; for example, if
858 Makefile.am contains something like:
862 pkglibexec_SCRIPTS += bar.sh
865 the $(pkglibexec) directory will not be created upon "make install".
867 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
871 * Miscellaneous changes:
873 - Automake's own build system is more silent by default, making use of
874 the 'silent-rules' option.
876 - The master copy of the 'gnupload' script is now maintained in gnulib,
879 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to wrap calls to 'tar'.
881 - "make dist" no longer wraps 'tar' invocations with the 'missing'
882 script. Similarly, the obsolescent variable '$(AMTAR)' (which you
883 shouldn't be using BTW ;-) no longer invokes the 'missing' script
884 to wrap tar, but simply invokes the 'tar' program itself.
886 - "make dist" can now create lzip-compressed tarballs.
888 - In the Automake info documentation, the Top node and the nodes about
889 the invocation of the automake and aclocal programs have been renamed;
890 now, calling "info automake" will open the Top node, while calling
891 "info automake-invocation" and "info aclocal-invocation" will access
892 the nodes about the invocation of respectively automake and aclocal.
894 - Automake is now distributed as a gzip-compressed and an xz-compressed
895 tarball. Previously, bzip2 was used instead of xz.
897 - The last relics of Python 1.5 support have been removed from the
898 AM_PATH_PYTHON macro.
900 - For programs and libraries, automake now detects EXTRA_foo_DEPENDENCIES
901 and adds them to the normal list of dependencies, but without
902 overwriting the foo_DEPENDENCIES variable, which is normally computed
905 Bugs fixed in 1.11.3:
907 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
909 - Automake now correctly recognizes the prefix/primary combination
910 'pkglibexec_SCRIPTS' as valid.
912 - The parallel-tests harness no longer trips on sed implementations
913 with stricter limits on the length of input lines (problem seen at
916 * Long-standing bugs:
918 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.am files is avoided by stub
919 rules. This allows 'make' to trigger a rerun of 'automake' also if
920 some previously needed '.am' file has been removed.
922 - The 'silent-rules' option now generates working makefiles even
923 for the uncommon 'make' implementations that do not support the
924 nested-variables extension to POSIX 2008. For such 'make'
925 implementations, whether a build is silent is determined at
926 configure time, and cannot be overridden at make time with
927 "make V=0" or "make V=1".
929 - Vala support now works better in VPATH setups.
931 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
935 * Changes to aclocal:
937 - The `--acdir' option is deprecated. Now you should use the new options
938 `--automake-acdir' and `--system-acdir' instead.
940 - The `ACLOCAL_PATH' environment variable is now interpreted as a
941 colon-separated list of additional directories to search after the
942 automake internal acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal-APIVERSION)
943 and before the system acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal).
945 * Miscellaneous changes:
947 - The Automake support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been
948 deprecated. It will probably be removed in the next major Automake
951 - The `lzma' compression scheme and associated automake option `dist-lzma'
952 is obsoleted by `xz' and `dist-xz' due to upstream changes.
954 - You may adjust the compression options used in dist-xz and dist-bzip2.
955 The default is now merely -e for xz, but still -9 for bzip; you may
956 specify a different level via the XZ_OPT and BZIP2 envvars respectively.
957 E.g., "make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-7" or "make dist-bzip2 BZIP2=-5"
959 - The `compile' script now converts some options for MSVC for a better
960 user experience. Similarly, the new `ar-lib' script wraps Microsoft lib.
962 - The py-compile script now accepts empty arguments passed to the options
963 `--destdir' and `--basedir', and complains about unrecognized options.
964 Moreover, a non-option argument or a special `--' argument terminates
967 - A developer that needs to pass specific flags to configure at "make
968 distcheck" time can now, and indeed is advised to, do so by defining
969 the developer-reserved makefile variable AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS,
970 instead of the old DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.
971 The DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable should now be reserved for the
972 user; still, the old Makefile.am files that used to define it will
973 still continue to work as before.
975 - New macro AM_PROG_AR that looks for an archiver and wraps it in the new
976 'ar-lib' auxiliary script if the selected archiver is Microsoft lib.
977 This new macro is required for LIBRARIES and LTLIBRARIES when automake
978 is run with -Wextra-portability and -Werror.
980 - When using DejaGnu-based testsuites, the user can extend the `site.exp'
981 file generated by automake-provided rules by defining the special make
982 variable `$(EXTRA_DEJAGNU_SITE_CONFIG)'.
984 - The `install-info' rule can now be instructed not to create/update
985 the `${infodir}/dir' file, by exporting the new environment variable
986 `AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no".
988 Bugs fixed in 1.11.2:
990 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
992 - The parallel-tests driver no longer produces erroneous results with
993 Tru64/OSF 5.1 sh upon unreadable log files.
995 - The `parallel-tests' test driver does not report spurious successes
996 when used with concurrent FreeBSD make (e.g., "make check -j3").
998 - When the parallel-tests driver is in use, automake now explicitly
999 rejects invalid entries and conditional contents in TEST_EXTENSIONS,
1000 instead of issuing confusing and apparently unrelated error messages
1001 (e.g., "non-POSIX variable name", "bad characters in variable name",
1002 or "redefinition of TEST_EXTENSIONS), or even, in some situations,
1003 silently producing broken `Makefile.in' files.
1005 - The `silent-rules' option now truly silences all compile rules, even
1006 when dependency tracking is disabled. Also, when `silent-rules' is
1007 not used, `make' output no longer contains spurious backslash-only
1008 lines, thus once again matching what Automake did before 1.11.
1010 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
1011 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
1013 * Long-standing bugs:
1015 - The order of Yacc and Lex flags is fixed to be consistent with other
1016 languages: $(AM_YFLAGS) comes before $(YFLAGS), and $(AM_LFLAGS) before
1017 $(LFLAGS), so that the user variables override the developer variables.
1019 - "make distcheck" now correctly complains also when "make uninstall"
1020 leaves one and only one file installed in $(prefix).
1022 - A "make uninstall" issued before a "make install", or after a mere
1023 "make install-data" or a mere "make install-exec" does not spuriously
1026 - Automake now warns about more primary/directory invalid combinations,
1027 such as "doc_LIBRARIES" or "pkglib_PROGRAMS".
1029 - Rules generated by Automake now try harder to not change any files when
1030 `make -n' is invoked. Fixes include compilation of Emacs Lisp, Vala, or
1031 Yacc source files and the rule to update config.h.
1033 - Several scripts and the parallel-tests testsuite driver now exit with
1034 the right exit status upon receiving a signal.
1036 - A per-Makefile.am setting of -Werror does not erroneously carry over
1037 to the handling of other Makefile.am files.
1039 - The code for automatic dependency tracking works around a Solaris
1040 make bug triggered by sources containing repeated slashes when the
1041 `subdir-objects' option was used.
1043 - The makedepend and hp depmodes now work better with VPATH builds.
1045 - Java sources specified with check_JAVA are no longer compiled for
1046 "make all", but only for "make check".
1048 - An usage like "java_JAVA = foo.java" will now cause Automake to warn
1049 and error out if `javadir' is undefined, instead of silently producing
1050 a broken Makefile.in.
1052 - aclocal and automake now honour the configure-time definitions of
1053 AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE when they spawn autoconf or autom4te processes.
1055 - The `install-info' recipe no longer tries to guess whether the
1056 `install-info' program is from Debian or from GNU, and adaptively
1057 change its behaviour; this has proven to be frail and easy to
1060 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1062 Bugs fixed in 1.11.1:
1064 - Lots of minor bugfixes.
1066 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
1068 - The `parallel-tests' test driver works around a GNU make 3.80 bug with
1069 trailing white space in the test list (`TESTS = foo $(EMPTY)').
1071 * Long standing bugs:
1073 - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
1074 even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
1075 AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
1076 `get_python_lib' function if it points outside the configured prefix,
1077 unless the `--prefix' argument was either `/usr' or below `/System'.
1079 - The testsuite does not try to change the mode of `ltmain.sh' files from
1080 a Libtool installation (symlinked to test directories) any more.
1082 - AM_PROG_GCJ uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS to look for `gcj' now, so that prefixed
1083 tools are preferred in a cross-compile setup.
1085 - The distribution is tarred up with mode 755 now by the `dist*' targets.
1086 This fixes a race condition where untrusted users could modify files
1087 in the $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION) distdir before packing if the toplevel
1088 build directory was world-searchable. This is CVE-2009-4029.
1090 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1094 * Version requirements:
1096 - Autoconf 2.62 or greater is required.
1098 * Changes to aclocal:
1100 - The autoconf version check implemented by aclocal in aclocal.m4
1101 (and new in Automake 1.10) is degraded to a warning. This helps
1102 in the common case where the Autoconf versions used are compatible.
1104 * Changes to automake:
1106 - The automake program can run multiple threads for creating most
1107 Makefile.in files concurrently, if at least Perl 5.7.2 is available
1108 with interpreter-based threads enabled. Set the environment variable
1109 AUTOMAKE_JOBS to the maximum number of threads to use, in order to
1110 enable this experimental feature.
1112 * Changes to Libtool support:
1114 - Libtool generic flags are now passed to the install and uninstall
1117 - distcheck works with Libtool 2.x even when LT_OUTPUT is used, as
1118 config.lt is removed correctly now.
1120 * Languages changes:
1122 - subdir-object mode works now with Fortran (F77, FC, preprocessed
1123 Fortran, and Ratfor).
1125 - For files with extension .f90, .f95, .f03, or .f08, the flag
1126 $(FCFLAGS_f[09]x) computed by AC_FC_SRCEXT is now used in compile rules.
1128 - Files with extension .sx are also treated as preprocessed assembler.
1130 - The default source file extension (.c) can be overridden with
1131 AM_DEFAULT_SOURCE_EXT now.
1133 - Python 3.0 is supported now, Python releases prior to 2.0 are no
1136 - AM_PATH_PYTHON honors python's idea about the site directory.
1138 - There is initial support for the Vala programming language, when using
1139 Vala 0.7.0 or later.
1141 * Miscellaneous changes:
1143 - Automake development is done in a git repository on Savannah now, see
1145 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git
1147 A read-only CVS mirror is provided at
1149 cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@pserver.git.sv.gnu.org:/automake.git \
1150 checkout -d automake HEAD
1152 - "make dist" can now create xz-compressed tarballs,
1153 as well as (deprecated?) lzma-compressed tarballs.
1155 - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as
1156 COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file
1157 should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never
1158 overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing'
1161 - The manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
1163 - Automake ships and installs man pages for automake and aclocal now.
1165 - New shorthand `$(pkglibexecdir)' for `$(libexecdir)/@PACKAGE@'.
1167 - install-sh supports -C, which does not update the installed file
1168 (and its time stamps) if the contents did not change.
1170 - The `gnupload' script has been revamped.
1172 - The `depcomp' and `compile' scripts now work with MSVC under MSYS.
1174 - The targets `install' and `uninstall' are more efficient now, in that
1175 for example multiple files from one Automake variable such as
1176 `bin_SCRIPTS' are copied in one `install' (or `libtool --mode=install')
1177 invocation if they do not have to be renamed.
1179 Both install and uninstall may sometimes enter (`cd' into) the target
1180 installation directory now, when no build-local scripts are used.
1182 Both install and uninstall do not fail anymore but do nothing if an
1183 installation directory variable like `bindir' is set to the empty string.
1185 For built-in rules, `make install' now fails reliably if installation
1186 of a file failed. Conversely, `make uninstall' even succeeds when
1187 issued multiple times.
1189 These changes may need some adjustments from users: For example,
1190 some `install' programs refuse to install multiple copies of the
1191 same file in one invocation, so you may need to remove duplicate
1192 entries from file lists.
1194 Also, within one set of files, say, nobase_data_DATA, the order of
1195 installation may be changed, or even unstable among different hosts,
1196 due to the use of associative arrays in awk. The increased use of
1197 awk matches a similar move in Autoconf to provide for better scaling.
1199 Further, most undocumented per-rule install command variables such as
1200 binSCRIPT_INSTALL have been removed because they are not needed any
1201 more. Packages which use them should be using the appropriate one of
1202 INSTALL_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT} or their install_sh_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT}
1203 counterpart, depending on the type of files and the need for automatic
1204 target directory creation.
1206 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.m4 files is avoided by
1207 stub rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `aclocal'
1208 also if some previously needed macro file has been removed.
1210 - Rebuild rules now also work for a removed `subdir/Makefile.in' in
1211 an otherwise up to date tree.
1213 - The `color-tests' option causes colored test result output on terminals.
1215 - The `parallel-tests' option enables a new test driver that allows for
1216 parallel test execution, inter-test dependencies, lazy test execution
1217 for unit-testing, re-testing only failed tests, and formatted result output
1218 as RST (reStructuredText) and HTML. Enabling this option may require some
1219 changes to your test suite setup; see the manual for details.
1221 - The `silent-rules' option enables Linux kernel-style silent build output.
1222 This option requires the widely supported but non-POSIX `make' feature
1223 of recursive variable expansion, so do not use it if your package needs
1224 to build with `make' implementations that do not support it.
1226 To enable less verbose build output, the developer has to use the Automake
1227 option `silent-rules' in `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE', or call the `AM_SILENT_RULES'
1228 macro. The user may then set the default verbosity by passing the
1229 `--enable-silent-rules' option to `configure'. At `make' run time, this
1230 default may be overridden using `make V=0' for less verbose, and `make V=1'
1231 for backward-compatible verbose output.
1233 - New prefix `notrans_' for manpages which should not be transformed
1234 by --program-transform.
1236 - New macro AM_COND_IF for conditional evaluation and conditional
1239 - For AC_CONFIG_LINKS, if source and destination are equal, do not
1240 remove the file in a non-VPATH build. Such setups work with Autoconf
1243 - AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now allows for an optional argument specifying
1244 the default setting.
1246 - AM_SUBST_NOTMAKE may prevent substitution of AC_SUBSTed variables,
1247 useful especially for multi-line values.
1249 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now diagnoses an
1250 unsafe absolute source directory name and makes configure fail.
1252 - The Automake macros and rules cope better with whitespace in the
1253 current directory name, as long as the relative path to `configure'
1254 does not contain whitespace. To this end, the values of `$(MISSING)'
1255 and `$(install_sh)' may contain suitable quoting, and their expansion
1256 might need `eval'uation if used outside of a makefile. These
1257 undocumented variables may be used in several documented macros such
1258 as $(AUTOCONF) or $(MAKEINFO).
1262 * Long-standing bugs:
1264 - Fix aix dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1266 - Work around AIX sh quoting issue in AC_PROG_CC_C_O, leading to
1267 unnecessary use of the `compile' script.
1269 - For nobase_*_LTLIBRARIES with nonempty directory components, the
1270 correct `-rpath' argument is used now.
1272 - `config.status --file=Makefile depfiles' now also works with the
1273 extra quoting used internally by Autoconf 2.62 and newer
1274 (it used to work only without the `--file=' bit).
1276 - The `missing' script works better with versioned tool names.
1278 - Semantics for `missing help2man' have been revamped:
1280 Previously, if `help2man' was not present, `missing help2man' would have
1281 the following semantics: if some man page was out of date but present, then
1282 a warning would be printed, but the exit status was 0. If the man page was
1283 not present at all, then `missing' would create a replacement man page
1284 containing an error message, and exit with a status of 2. This does not play
1285 well with `make': the next run will see this particular man page as being up
1286 to date, and will only error out on the next generated man page, if any;
1287 repeat until all pages are done. This was not desirable.
1289 These are the new semantics: if some man page is not present, and help2man
1290 is not either, then `missing' will warn and generate the replacement page
1291 containing the error message, but exit successfully. However, `make dist'
1292 will ensure that no such bogus man pages are packaged into a tarball.
1294 - Targets provided by automake behave better with `make -n', in that they
1295 take care not to create files.
1297 - `config.status Makefile... depfiles' works fine again in the presence of
1298 disabled dependency tracking.
1300 - The default no-op recursive rules for these targets also work with BSD make
1301 now: html, install-html, install-dvi, install-pdf, install-pdf, install-info.
1303 - `make distcheck' works also when both a directory and some file below it
1304 have been added to a distribution variable, such as EXTRA_DIST or *_SOURCES.
1306 - Texinfo dvi, ps, pdf, and html output files are not removed upon
1307 `make mostlyclean' any more; only the LaTeX by-products are.
1309 - Renamed objects also work with the `subdir-objects' option and
1310 source file languages which Automake does not know itself.
1312 - `automake' now correctly complains about variable assignments which are
1313 preceded by a comment, extend over multiple lines with backslash-escaped
1314 newlines, and end in a comment sign. Previous versions would silently
1315 and wrongly ignore such assignments completely.
1317 * Bugs introduced by 1.10:
1319 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
1320 Makefile.in's again, but also cope with long lines.
1322 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of XFAIL_TESTS
1323 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1324 This is for consistency with the analogous change to TESTS in 1.10.
1326 - Fix order of standard includes to again be `-I. -I$(srcdir)',
1327 followed by directories containing config headers.
1329 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1333 * Version requirements:
1335 - Autoconf 2.60 or greater is required.
1337 - Perl 5.6 or greater is required.
1339 * Changes to aclocal:
1341 - aclocal now also supports -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble options.
1343 - `dirlist' entries (for the aclocal search path) may use shell
1344 wildcards such as `*', `?', or `[...]'.
1346 - aclocal supports an --install option that will cause system-wide
1347 third-party macros to be installed in the local directory
1348 specified with the first -I flag. This option also uses #serial
1349 lines in M4 files to upgrade local macros.
1351 The new aclocal options --dry-run and --diff help to review changes
1352 before they are installed.
1354 - aclocal now outputs an autoconf version check in aclocal.m4 in
1355 projects using automake.
1357 For a few years, automake and aclocal have been calling autoconf
1358 (or its underlying engine autom4te) to accurately retrieve the
1359 data they need from configure.ac and its siblings. Doing so can
1360 only work if all autotools use the same version of autoconf. For
1361 instance a Makefile.in generated by automake for one version of
1362 autoconf may stop working if configure is regenerated with another
1363 version of autoconf, and vice versa.
1365 This new version check ensures that the whole build system has
1366 been generated using the same autoconf version.
1368 * Support for new Autoconf macros:
1370 - The new AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE Autoconf macro is supported.
1372 - If `subdir-objects' is set, and AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR is specified,
1373 $(LIBOBJS), $(LTLIBOBJS), $(ALLOCA), and $(LTALLOCA) can be used
1374 in different directories. However, only one instance of such a
1375 library objects directory is supported.
1377 * Change to Libtool support:
1379 - Libtool generic flags (those that go before the --mode=MODE option)
1380 can be specified using AM_LIBTOOLFLAGS and target_LIBTOOLFLAGS.
1382 * Yacc and Lex changes:
1384 - The rebuild rules for distributed Yacc and Lex output will avoid
1385 overwriting existing files if AM_MAINTAINER_MODE and maintainer-mode
1388 - ylwrap is now always used for lex and yacc source files,
1389 regardless of whether there is more than one source per directory.
1391 * Languages changes:
1393 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now honors CPPFLAGS,
1394 AM_CPPFLAGS and per-target _CPPFLAGS, and supports dependency
1395 tracking, unlike non-preprocessed assembler (*.s).
1397 - subdir-object mode works now with Assembler. Automake assumes
1398 that the compiler understands `-c -o'.
1400 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now also honors
1401 $(DEFS) $(DEFAULT_INCLUDES) $(INCLUDES).
1403 - Improved support for Objective C:
1404 - Autoconf's new AC_PROG_OBJC will enable automatic dependency tracking.
1405 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1407 - New support for Unified Parallel C:
1408 - AM_PROG_UPC looks for a UPC compiler.
1409 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1411 - Per-target flags are now correctly handled in link rules.
1413 For instance maude_CFLAGS correctly overrides AM_CFLAGS; likewise
1414 for maude_LDFLAGS and AM_LDFLAGS. Previous versions bogusly
1415 preferred AM_CFLAGS over maude_CFLAGS while linking, and they
1416 used both AM_LDFLAGS and maude_LDFLAGS on the same link command.
1418 The fix for compiler flags (i.e., using maude_CFLAGS instead of
1419 AM_CFLAGS) should not hurt any package since that is how _CFLAGS
1420 is expected to work (and actually works during compilation).
1422 However using maude_LDFLAGS "instead of" AM_LDFLAGS rather than
1423 "in addition to" breaks backward compatibility with older versions.
1424 If your package used both variables, as in
1426 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1427 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1428 a_LDFLAGS = more flags
1431 and assumed *_LDFLAGS would sum up, you should rewrite it as
1433 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1434 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1435 a_LDFLAGS = $(AM_LDFLAGS) more flags
1438 This new behavior of *_LDFLAGS is more coherent with other
1439 per-target variables, and the way *_LDFLAGS variables were
1440 considered internally.
1442 * New installation targets:
1444 - New targets mandated by GNU Coding Standards:
1449 By default they will only install Texinfo manuals.
1450 You can customize them with *-local variants:
1456 - The undocumented recursive target `uninstall-info' no longer exists.
1457 (`uninstall' is in charge of removing all possible documentation
1458 flavors, including optional formats such as dvi, ps, or info even
1459 when `no-installinfo' is used.)
1461 * Miscellaneous changes:
1463 - Automake no longer complains if input files for AC_CONFIG_FILES
1464 are specified using shell variables.
1466 - clean, distribution, or rebuild rules are normally disabled for
1467 inputs and outputs of AC_CONFIG_FILES, AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, and
1468 AC_CONFIG_LINK specified using shell variables. However, if these
1469 variables are used as ${VAR}, and AC_SUBSTed, then Automake will
1470 be able to output rules anyway.
1471 (See the Automake documentation for AC_CONFIG_FILES.)
1473 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of TESTS
1474 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1475 This is mostly useful when some check_PROGRAMS are listed in TESTS.
1477 - `-Wportability' has finally been turned on by default for `gnu' and
1478 `gnits' strictness. This means, automake will complain about %-rules
1479 or $(GNU Make functions) unless you switch to `foreign' strictness or
1480 use `-Wno-portability'.
1482 - Automake now uses AC_PROG_MKDIR_P (new in Autoconf 2.60), and uses
1483 $(MKDIR_P) instead of $(mkdir_p) to create directories. The
1484 $(mkdir_p) variable is still defined (to the same value as
1485 $(MKDIR_P)) but should be considered obsolete. If you are using
1486 $(mkdir_p) in some of your rules, please plan to update them to
1487 $(MKDIR_P) at some point.
1489 - AM_C_PROTOTYPES and ansi2knr are now documented as being obsolete.
1490 They still work in this release, but may be withdrawn in a future one.
1492 - Inline compilation rules for gcc3-style dependency tracking are
1495 - Automake installs a "Hello World!" example package in $(docdir).
1496 This example is used throughout the new "Autotools Introduction"
1497 chapter of the manual.
1499 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1503 * Makefile.in bloat reduction:
1505 - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
1506 the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
1507 used. This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
1508 Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
1511 - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
1512 object that must be built with explicit rules. It just outputs
1513 the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
1514 the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
1517 * Change to Libtool support:
1519 - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
1520 (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)
1522 - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
1523 conditionally installed in different directories, as in
1526 lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1528 pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1530 liba_la_SOURCES = ...
1532 * Changes to aclocal:
1534 - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
1535 really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
1536 This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
1537 Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
1538 *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
1539 (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
1540 most famous instance of this bug.)
1542 - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
1543 that are not actually used. In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
1544 determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
1545 only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
1546 all of them to be present in order to run. This created
1547 situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
1548 all the macros it uses. For instance running aclocal on a project
1549 containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
1550 project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
1553 * Portability improvements:
1555 - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
1556 tar-pax. The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
1557 filenames that are too long for tar-v7. (PR/414)
1559 - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
1560 trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
1561 (adding trailing backslashes). In previous versions, a long series
1567 would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
1568 exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.
1570 Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
1575 - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
1576 Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
1577 F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
1578 Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).
1580 - Support for conditional _LISP.
1582 - Support for conditional -hook and -local rules (PR/428).
1584 - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)
1586 - Automake will not write any Makefile.ins after the first error it
1587 encounters. The previous Makefile.ins (if any) will be left in
1588 place. (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
1589 be turned into errors with -Werror.)
1591 - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
1594 - The manual tells more about SUBDIRS vs. DIST_SUBDIRS.
1595 It also gives an example of nested packages using AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS.
1597 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1599 Bugs fixed in 1.8.5:
1601 * Long-standing bugs:
1603 - Define DIST_SUBDIRS even when the `no-dist' or `cygnus' options are used
1604 so that `make distclean' and `make maintainer-clean' can work.
1606 - Define AR and ARFLAGS even when only EXTRA_LIBRARIES are defined.
1608 - Fix many rules to please FreeBSD make, which runs commands with `sh -e'.
1610 - Polish diagnostic when no input file is found.
1612 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1614 Bugs fixed in 1.8.4:
1616 * Long-standing bugs:
1618 - Fix AM_PATH_PYTHON to correctly display $PYTHON when it has been
1619 overridden by the user.
1621 - Honor PATH_SEPARATOR in various places of the Automake package, for
1624 - Adjust dependency tracking mode detection to ICC 8.0's new output.
1627 - Fix install-sh so it can install the `mv' binary... using `mv'.
1629 - Fix tru64 dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1631 - Work around Exuberant Ctags when creating a TAGS files in a directory
1632 without files to scan but with subdirectories to include.
1634 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1636 - Fix an "internal error" when @LIBOBJS@ is used in a variable that is
1637 not defined in the same conditions as the _LDADD that uses it.
1639 - Do not warn when JAVAROOT is overridden, this is legitimate.
1641 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1643 Bugs fixed in 1.8.3:
1645 * Long-standing bugs:
1647 - Quote filenames in installation rules, in case $DESTDIR, $prefix,
1648 or any of the other *dir variables contain a space.
1650 Please note that Automake does not and cannot support spaces in
1651 filenames that are involved during the build. This change affects
1652 only installation paths, so that `make install' does not bomb out
1653 in packages configured with
1654 ./configure --prefix '/c/Program Files'
1656 - Fix the depfiles output so it works with GNU sed (<4.1) even when
1657 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
1659 - Do not AC_SUBST(LIBOBJS) in AM_WITH_REGEX. This macro was unusable
1660 since Autoconf 2.54, which defines LIBOBJS itself.
1662 - Fix a potential (but unlikely) race condition in parallel elisp
1663 builds. (Introduced in 1.7.3.)
1665 - Do not assume that users override _DEPENDENCIES in all conditions
1666 where Automake will try to define them.
1668 - Do not use `mkdir -p' in mkinstalldirs, unless this is GNU mkdir.
1669 Solaris 8's `mkdir -p' is not thread-safe and can break parallel
1672 This fix also affects the $(mkdir_p) variable defined since
1673 Automake 1.8. It will be set to `mkdir -p' only if mkdir is GNU
1674 mkdir, and to `mkinstalldirs' or `install-sh -d' otherwise.
1676 - Secure temporary directory creation in `make distcheck'. (PR/413)
1678 - Do not generate two build rules for `parser.h' when the
1679 parser appears in two different conditionals.
1681 - Work around a Solaris 8 /bin/sh bug in the test for dependency
1682 checking. Usually ./configure will not pick this shell; so this
1683 fix only helps cases where the shell is forced to /bin/sh.
1685 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1687 - In some situations (hand-written `m4_include's), aclocal would
1688 call the `File::Spec->rel2abs' method, which was only introduced
1689 in Perl 5.6. This new version reestablish support Perl 5.005.
1691 It is likely that the next major Automake releases will require at
1692 least Perl 5.6. Consider upgrading your development environment
1693 if you are still using the five-year-old Perl 5.005.
1695 - Automake would sometimes fail to define rules for targets listed
1696 in variables defined in multiple conditions. For instance on
1702 it would define only the `a.$(OBJEXT): a.c' rule and omit the
1703 `b.$(OBJEXT): b.c' rule.
1705 * New sections in manual:
1707 - Third-Party Makefiles: how to interface third party Makefiles.
1708 - Upgrading: upgrading packages to newer Automake versions.
1709 - Multiple Outputs: handling tools that produce many outputs.
1711 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1715 * A (well known) portability bug slipped in the changes made to
1716 install-sh in Automake 1.8.1. The broken install-sh would refuse to
1717 install anything on Tru64.
1719 * Fix install rules for conditionally built python files. (This never
1722 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1726 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1728 - Fix Config.pm import error with old Perl versions (at least
1729 5.005_03). One symptom is that aclocal could not find its macro
1732 - Automake 1.8 used `mkdir -m 0755 -p --' to ensure that directories
1733 created by `make install' are always world readable, even if the
1734 installer happens to have an overly restrictive umask (e.g. 077).
1735 This was a mistake and has been reverted. There are at least two
1736 reasons why we must not use `-m 0755':
1737 - it causes special bits like SGID to be ignored,
1738 - it may be too restrictive (some setups expect 775 directories).
1740 - Fix aclocal to honor definitions located in files which have been
1741 m4_included manually. aclocal 1.8 had been updated to check
1742 m4_included files for new requirements, but forgot that these
1743 m4_included files can also provide new definitions.
1745 Note that if you have such a setup, we recommend you get rid of
1746 it. In the past, there was a reason to m4_include files manually:
1747 aclocal used to duplicate entire M4 files into aclocal.m4, even
1748 files that were distributed. Some packages were therefore
1749 m4_including the distributed file directly, and playing some
1750 tricks to ensure aclocal would not copy that file to aclocal.m4,
1751 in order to limit the amount of duplication. Since aclocal 1.8.x
1752 will precisely output m4_includes for local M4 files, we recommend
1753 that you clean up your setup, removing all manual m4_includes and
1754 letting aclocal output them.
1756 - Output detailed menus in the Info version if the Automake manual,
1757 so that Emacs can locate the indexes.
1759 - configure.ac and configure were listed twice in DIST_COMMON (an
1760 internal variable where Automake lists configury files to
1761 distribute). This was harmless, but unaesthetic.
1763 - Use `chmod a-w' instead of `chmod -w' as the latter honors umask.
1764 This was an issue only in the Automake package itself, not in
1767 - Automake assumed that all AC_CONFIG_LINKS arguments had the form
1768 DEST:SRC. This was wrong, as some packages do
1769 AC_CONFIG_LINKS($computedlinks). This version no longer abort in
1772 - Contrary to mkinstalldirs, $(mkdir_p) was expecting exactly one
1773 argument. This caused two kinds of failures:
1774 - Rules installing data in a conditionally defined directory
1775 failed when that directory was undefined. In this case no
1776 argument was supplied.
1777 - `make installdirs' failed, because several directories were
1778 passed to $(mkdir_p). This was an issue only on platform
1779 were $(mkdir_p) is implemented with `install-sh -d'.
1780 $(mkdir_p) as been changed to accept 0 or more arguments, as
1783 * Long-standing bugs:
1785 - Fix an unexpected diagnostic occurring when users attempt
1786 to override some internal variables that Automake appends to.
1788 - aclocal now scans configure.ac for macro definitions (PR/319).
1790 - Fix a portability issue with OSF1/Tru64 Make. If a directory
1791 distributes files which are outside itself (this usually occurs
1792 when using AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([../dir]) to use auxiliary files
1793 from a parent package), then `make distcheck' fails due to an
1794 optimization performed by OSF1/Tru64 Make in its VPATH handling.
1795 (tests/subpkg2.test failure)
1797 - Fix another portability issue with Sun and OSF1/Tru64 Make.
1798 In a VPATH-build configuration, `make install' would install
1799 nobase_ files to wrong locations.
1801 - Fix a Perl `uninitialized value' diagnostic occurring when
1802 automake complains that a Texinfo file does not have a
1803 @setfilename statement.
1805 - Erase config.status.lineno during `make distclean'. This file
1806 can be created by config.status. Automake already knew about
1807 configure.lineno, but forgot config.status.lineno.
1809 - Distribute all files, even those which are built and installed
1810 conditionally. This change affects files listed in conditionally
1811 defined *_HEADERS and *_PYTHON variable (unless they are nodist_*)
1812 as well as those listed in conditionally defined dist_*_DATA,
1813 dist_*_JAVA, dist_*_LISP, and dist_*_SCRIPTS variables.
1815 - Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to avoid \? in sed regular expressions; it
1816 doesn't conform to POSIX.
1818 - Normalize help strings for configure variables and options added
1823 - Check for python2.4 in AM_PATH_PYTHON.
1825 * Spurious failures in test suite:
1827 - tests/libtool5.test, tests/ltcond.test, tests/ltcond2.test,
1828 tests/ltconv.test: fix failures with CVS Libtool.
1829 - tests/aclocal6.test: fix failure if autom4te.cache is disabled.
1830 - tests/txinfo24.test, tests/txinfo25.test, tests/txinfo28.test:
1831 fix failures with old Texinfo versions.
1833 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1839 - The NEWS file is more verbose.
1843 - Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
1847 - Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES declaration
1848 are made by removing any target extension before appending `.c', so
1849 to make the libtool module `foo.la' from `foo.c', you only need to
1852 lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
1853 foo_la_LDFLAGS = -module
1855 For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
1856 foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
1857 However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.
1859 - AR's `cru' flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable instead
1860 of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can be
1861 substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
1862 dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
1864 - New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
1865 target or variable definitions which override Automake
1868 - Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo fails.
1870 - Texinfo rules now support the `html' target.
1871 Running this requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.
1873 `html' is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
1874 hand-crafted `Makefile.in's with Automake-generated
1875 `Makefile.in's, you should adjust the former to support (or
1876 ignore) this target so that `make html' recurses successfully. If
1877 you had a custom `html' rule in your `Makefile.am', it's better to
1878 rename it as `html-local', otherwise your rule will override
1879 Automake's new rule (you can check that by running `automake
1880 -Woverride') and that will stop the recursion to subdirectories.
1882 Last but not least, this `html' rule is declared PHONY, even when
1883 overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
1884 non-PHONY `html' rule.
1886 - Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as a
1887 configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
1890 - The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
1891 rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
1892 configure's dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
1893 than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
1894 were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
1895 change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
1896 friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
1897 rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
1898 tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
1900 - For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
1901 config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
1902 Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
1903 CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
1904 should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
1905 using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
1906 $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different
1907 levels of the build tree).
1909 - aclocal will now use `m4_include' instead of copying local m4
1910 files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with
1911 your project, other files will be copied as usual.)
1913 Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it means
1914 for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list of
1915 m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
1916 m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)
1918 - aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
1919 Autom4te's cache isn't needlessly invalidated. This behavior can
1920 be switched off with the new `--force' option.
1922 - aclocal now uses Autoconf's --trace to detect macros which are
1923 actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
1924 because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
1925 called conditionally.
1927 - New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
1929 - compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, mkinstalldirs,
1930 py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand --version and --help.
1932 - Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing created
1933 links as part of the distclean target and including source files in
1936 - AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND
1937 argument. The latter can be used to override the default behavior
1938 (which is to abort).
1940 - Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
1941 Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will
1942 emulate the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions
1943 of Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change
1944 will only be useful in projects generated with future versions of
1947 - When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
1948 generates the first ".in" input file for which a ".am" exists.
1949 (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
1951 - lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
1952 idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
1953 recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that
1954 this is not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp
1955 files even if emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not
1956 install anything unless emacs is found.
1958 - Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p' over mkinstalldirs if it is
1959 available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile
1960 variable $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either
1961 `mkdir -m 0755 -p --', `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755', or
1962 `$(install_sh) -m 0755 -d'.
1966 - Because `mkdir -p' is available on most platforms, and we can use
1967 `install-sh -d' when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
1968 script is being phased out. `automake --add-missing' no longer
1969 installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
1970 automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).
1972 Gettext 0.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
1973 gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake
1974 will continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
1975 mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.
1977 - AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
1978 merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cv_prog_cc_stdc, you
1979 should adjust it to use $ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc instead. (This
1980 renaming should be safe, even if you have to support several,
1981 versions of Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable
1982 since Autoconf 2.54.)
1984 - Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
1985 variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
1986 (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake
1987 now tracks configure's m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
1988 above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered
1989 obsolete and will be flagged as such when running `automake
1994 - Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
1995 longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following
1996 construct used to be troublesome when used with dozens of
2011 Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.
2013 - Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of Automake
2014 proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some variables
2024 All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected.
2025 This restriction has been lifted, and these variables now
2026 support multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.
2028 - Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
2029 $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution
2030 directory created during `make dist', as it did in Automake 1.4,
2031 not to the root of the build tree as it did in intervening
2032 versions. Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in
2033 the top level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running
2036 - The --no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in's
2037 dependencies before deciding not to update it.
2039 - Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning rules.
2041 - Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree. This
2042 is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
2043 used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
2044 it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
2045 from mere annoyance to portability issues.
2047 - COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer overwritten
2048 when --add-missing and --force-missing are used. For backward
2049 compatibility --add-missing will continue to install COPYING (in
2050 `gnu' strictness) when none of these three files exist, but this
2051 use is deprecated: you should better choose a license yourself and
2052 install it once for all in your source tree (and in your code
2055 - Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that haven't
2056 changed, as the inline rule already does.
2058 - User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
2059 targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new
2060 (and was documented), however some of the automake-generated
2061 rules have escaped this principle in former Automake versions.
2062 Rules for the following targets are affected by this fix:
2064 clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
2065 info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
2066 install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
2067 maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am,
2068 ps, ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man
2070 Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the dependencies
2071 of some target, as in
2073 clean: my-clean-rule
2075 will now *silently override* the automake definition of the
2076 rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride' will diagnose
2077 all such overriding definitions.
2079 It should be noted that almost all of these targets support a *-local
2080 variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined rule
2081 (See node `Extending' in the manual). The above rule should
2084 clean-local: my-clean-rule
2086 These *-local targets have been documented since at least
2087 Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have
2088 to support multiple automake versions.
2092 - The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2094 - Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always defined.
2096 - core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There are
2097 at least three reasons for this:
2098 1. These files should not be created by any build step,
2099 so their removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules.
2100 Actually, they may be precious to the developer.
2101 2. If such file is created during a build, then it's clearly a
2102 bug Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will
2103 cause `make distcheck' to complain about its presence.
2104 3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for
2105 core dump files. A core file on one system might be a
2106 completely legitimate data file on another system.
2108 - RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
2109 defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
2110 environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
2111 on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
2112 defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
2113 AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
2115 - CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
2116 documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have
2117 been there since at least Automake 1.4.)
2119 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2121 Bugs fixed in 1.7.9:
2122 * Fix install-strip to work with nobase_ binaries.
2123 * Fix renaming of #line directives in ylwrap.
2124 * Rebuild with Autoconf 2.59. (1.7.8 was not installable with pdksh.)
2126 Bugs fixed in 1.7.8:
2127 * Remove spurious blank lines in cleaning rules introduced in 1.7.7.
2128 * Fix detection of Debian's install-info, broken since version 1.5.
2129 (Debian bug #213524).
2130 * Honor -module if it appears in AM_LDFLAGS (i.e., relax name checking)
2131 This was only done for libfoo_LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS in previous versions.
2133 Bugs fixed in 1.7.7:
2134 * The implementation of automake's --no-force option is unreliable,
2135 so this option is ignored in this version. A real fix will appear in
2136 Automake 1.8. (Debian Bug #206299)
2137 * AM_PATH_PYTHON: really check the whole list of interpreters if no
2138 argument is given. (PR/399)
2139 * Do not warn about leading `_' in variable names, even with -Wportability.
2140 * Support user redefinitions of TEXINFO_TEX.
2141 * depcomp: support AIX Compiler version 6.
2142 * Fix missing rebuilds during `make dist' with BSD make.
2143 (Could produce tarballs containing out-of-date files.)
2144 * Resurrect multilib support.
2145 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2146 - Extending aclocal: how to write m4 macros that won't trigger warnings
2148 - A Shared Library: Rewrite and split into subsections.
2150 Bugs fixed in 1.7.6:
2151 * Fix depcomp's icc mode for ICC 7.1.
2152 * Diagnose calls to AC_CONFIG_FILES and friends with not enough arguments.
2153 * Fix maintainer-clean's removal of autom4te.cache in VPATH builds.
2154 * Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to work with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2155 * Fix the location reported in some diagnostics related to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
2156 * Remove Latin-1 characters from elisp-comp.
2157 * Update the manual's @dircategory to match the Free Software Directory.
2159 Bugs fixed in 1.7.5:
2160 * Update install-sh's license to remove an advertising clause.
2161 (Debian bug #191717)
2162 * Fix a bug introduced in 1.7.4, related to BUILT_SOURCE handling,
2163 that caused invalid Makefile.ins to be generated.
2164 * Make sure AM_MAKE_INCLUDE doesn't fail when a `doit' file exists.
2165 * New FAQ entry: renamed objects.
2167 Bugs fixed in 1.7.4:
2168 * Tweak the TAGS rule to support Exuberant Ctags (in addition to
2169 the Emacs implementation)
2170 * Fix output of aclocal.m4 dependencies in subdirectories.
2171 * Use `mv -f' instead of `mv' in fastdep rules.
2172 * Upgrade mdate-sh to work on OS/2.
2173 * Don't byte-compile elisp files when ELCFILES is set empty.
2174 (this documented feature was broken by 1.7.3)
2175 * Diagnose trailing backslashes on last line of Makefile.am.
2176 * Diagnose whitespace following trailing backslashes.
2177 * Multiple tests are now correctly supported in DEJATOOL. (PR/388)
2178 * Fix rebuilt rules for AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.bot])
2180 * `make install' will build `BUILT_SOURCES' first.
2181 * Minor documentation fixes.
2183 Bugs fixed in 1.7.3:
2184 * Fix stamp files numbering (when using multiple AC_CONFIG_HEADERS).
2185 * Query distutils for `pythondir' and `pythonexecdir', instead of
2186 using an hardcoded path. This should allow builds on 64-bit
2187 distributions that usually use lib64/ instead of lib/.
2188 * AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for python2.3.
2189 * elisp files are now built all at once instead of one by one. Besides
2190 incurring a speed-up, this is required to support interdependent elisp files.
2191 * Support for DJGPP:
2192 - `make distcheck' will now work in `_inst/' and `_build' instead
2193 of `=inst/' and `=build/'
2194 - use `_dirstamp' when the file-system doesn't support `.dirstamp'
2195 - install/uninstall `*.i[0-9][0-9]'-style info files
2196 - more changes that affect only the Automake package (not its output)
2197 * Fix some incompatibilities with upcoming perl-5.10.
2198 * Properly quote AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME and AC_PACKAGE_VERSION when defining
2199 PACKAGE and VERSION.
2201 - dashmstdout and dashXmstdout modes: don't use `-o /dev/null', this
2202 is troublesome with gcc and Solaris compilers. (PR/385)
2203 - makedepend mode: work with Libtool. (PR/385 too)
2205 * better support for unusual gettext setups, such as multiple po/ directories
2207 - Flag missing po/ and intl/ directories as warnings, not errors.
2208 - Disable these warnings if po/ does not exist.
2209 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2211 - Document how AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR interacts with missing files.
2213 - Document `AM_YFLAGS = -d'. (PR/382)
2215 Bugs fixed in 1.7.2:
2216 * Fix installation and uninstallation of Info files built in subdirectories.
2217 * Do not run `./configure --with-included-gettext' during `make distcheck'
2218 if AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) is used.
2219 * Correctly uninstall renamed man pages.
2220 * Do not strip escaped newline in variables defined in one condition
2221 and augmented in another condition.
2222 * Fix ansi2knr rules for LIBOBJS sources.
2223 * Clean all known Texinfo index files, not only those which appear to
2224 be used, because we cannot know which indexes are used in included files.
2225 (PR/375, Debian Bug #168671)
2226 * Honor only the first @setfilename seen in a Texinfo file.
2227 * Treat "required file X not found" diagnostics as errors (exit status 1).
2228 * Don't complain that a required file is not found when it is a Makefile
2230 * Don't use single suffix inference rules when building `.info'-less
2231 Info files, for the sake of Solaris make.
2232 * The `check' target now depends on `$(BUILT_SOURCES)'. (PR/359)
2233 * Recognize multiple inference rules such as `.a.b .c.d:'. (PR/371)
2234 * Warn about multiple inference rules when -Wportability is used. (PR/372)
2235 * Fix building of deansified files from subdirectories. (PR/370)
2236 * Add missing `fi' in the .c->.obj rules.
2237 * Improve install-sh to work even when names contain spaces or certain
2238 (but not all) shell metachars.
2239 * Fix the following spurious failures in the test suite:
2240 depcomp2.test, gnits2.test, gnits3.test, python3.test, texinfo13.test
2241 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2242 - Augment the section about BUILT_SOURCES.
2243 - Mention that AM_PROG_CC_STDC is a relic that is better avoided today.
2245 Bugs fixed in 1.7.1:
2246 * Honor `ansi2knr' for files built in subdirectories, or using per-targets
2248 * Aclocal should now recognize macro names containing parentheses, e.g.
2249 AC_DEFUN([AC_LANG_PREPROC(Fortran 90)], [...]).
2250 * Erase *.sum and *.log files created by DejaGnu, during `make distclean'.
2252 * Install Python files even if they were built. (PR/369)
2253 * Have stamp-vti dependent upon configure instead of configure.ac, as the
2254 version might not be defined in the latter. (PR/358)
2255 * Reorder arguments passed to a couple of commands, so things works
2256 when POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2257 * Fix a regex that can cause Perl to segfault on large input.
2259 * Fix distribution of packages that have some sources defined conditionally,
2260 as in the `Conditional compilation using Automake conditionals' example
2262 * Fix spurious test suite failures on IRIX.
2263 * Don't report a required variable as undefined if it has been
2264 defined conditionally for the "right" conditions.
2265 * Fix cleaning of the /tmp subdirectory used by `make distcheck', in case
2266 `make distcheck' fails.
2267 * Fix distribution of included Makefile fragment, so we don't create
2268 spurious directories in the distribution. (PR/366)
2269 * Don't complain that a target lacks `.$(EXEEXT)' when it has it.
2272 * Autoconf 2.54 is required.
2273 * `aclocal' and `automake' will no longer warn about obsolete
2274 configure macros. This is done by `autoconf -Wobsolete'.
2275 * AM_CONFIG_HEADER, AM_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS and
2276 AM_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ_NEEDS_SYS_IOCTL are obsolete (although still
2277 supported). You should use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS,
2278 and AC_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ instead. `autoupdate' can upgrade
2279 `configure.ac' for you.
2280 * Support for per-program and per-library `_CPPFLAGS'.
2281 * New `ctags' target (builds CTAGS files).
2282 * Support for -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble, where mumble is a warning category
2283 (see `automake --help' or the manual for a list of them).
2284 * Honor the WARNINGS environment variable.
2285 * Omit the call to depcomp when using gcc3: call the compiler directly.
2286 * A new option, std-options, tests that programs support --help and --version
2287 when `make installcheck' is run. This is enabled by --gnits.
2288 * Texinfo rules now support the `ps' and `pdf' targets.
2289 * Info files are now created in the build directory, not the source directory.
2290 * info_TEXINFOS supports files in subdirectories (this requires Texinfo 4.1
2292 * `make distcheck' will enforce DESTDIR support by attempting
2294 * `+=' can be used in conditionals, even if the augmented variable
2295 was defined for another condition.
2296 * Makefile fragments (inserted with `include') are always distributed.
2297 * Use Autoconf's --trace interface to inspect configure.ac and get
2298 a more accurate view of it.
2299 * Add support for extending aclocal's default macro search path
2300 using a `dirlist' file within the aclocal directory.
2301 * automake --output-dir is deprecated.
2302 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether uninstall actually
2303 removes all installed files has been moved in a separate target,
2304 distuninstallcheck, so it can be overridden easily.
2308 * Support for AM_INIT_GETTEXT([external])
2309 * Bug fixes, including:
2310 - Fix Automake's own `make install' so it works even if `ln' doesn't.
2311 - nobase_ programs and scripts honor --program-transform correctly.
2312 - Erase configure.lineno during `make distclean'.
2313 - Erase YACC and LEX outputs during `make maintainer-clean'.
2316 * Many bug fixes, including:
2317 - Requiring the current version works.
2318 - Fix "$@" portability issues (for Zsh).
2319 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
2321 - Don't compute dependencies in background to avoid races with libtool.
2322 - Fix handling of _OBJECTS variables for targets sharing source variables.
2323 - Check dependency mode for Java when AM_PROG_GCJ is used.
2326 * automake --output-dir is deprecated
2327 * Many bug fixes, including:
2328 - Don't choke on AM_LDFLAGS definitions.
2329 - Clean libtool objects from subdirectories.
2330 - Allow configure variables with reserved suffix and unknown prefix
2331 (e.g. AC_SUBST(mumble_LDFLAGS) when 'mumble' is not a target).
2332 - Fix the definition of AUTOMAKE and ACLOCAL in configure.
2335 * Autoconf 2.52 is required.
2336 * automake no longer run libtoolize.
2337 This is the job of autoreconf (from GNU Autoconf).
2338 * `dist' generates all the archive flavors, as did `dist-all'.
2339 * `dist-gzip' generates the Gzip tar file only.
2340 * Combining Automake Makefile conditionals no longer lead to a combinatorial
2341 explosion. Makefile.in's keep a reasonable size.
2342 * AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_STRTOD, AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, AM_PTRDIFF_T
2343 are no longer shipped, since Autoconf 2.52 provides them (both as AM_
2345 * `#line' of Lex and Yacc files are properly set.
2346 * EXTRA_DIST can contain generated directories.
2347 * Support for dot-less extensions in suffix rules.
2348 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether distclean actually
2349 cleans all built files has been moved in a separate target, distcleancheck,
2350 so it can be overridden easily.
2351 * `make distcheck' will pass additional options defined in
2352 $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) to configure.
2353 * Fixed CDPATH portability problems, in particular for MacOS X.
2354 * Fixed handling of nobase_ targets.
2355 * Fixed support of implicit rules leading to .lo objects.
2356 * Fixed late inclusion of --add-missing files (e.g. depcomp) in DIST_COMMON
2357 * Added uninstall-hook target
2358 * `AC_INIT AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tarname,version)' is an obsolete construct.
2359 You can now use `AC_INIT(pkgname,version) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE' instead.
2360 (Note that "pkgname" is not "tarname", see the manual for details.)
2361 It is also possible to pass a list of global Automake options as
2362 first argument to this new form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
2363 * Compiler-based assembler is now called `CCAS'; people expected `AS'
2364 to be a real assembler.
2365 * AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will set STRIP itself when it needs it. Adding
2366 AC_CHECK_TOOL([STRIP], [strip]) manually is no longer required.
2367 * aclocal and automake are also installed with the version number
2368 appended, and some of the install directory names have changed.
2369 This lets you have multiple versions installed simultaneously.
2370 * Support for parsers and lexers in subdirectories.
2373 * Support for `configure.ac'.
2374 * Support for `else COND', `endif COND' and negated conditions `!COND'.
2375 * `make dist-all' is much faster.
2376 * Allows '@' AC_SUBSTs in macro names.
2377 * Faster AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (requires update of `missing' script)
2378 * User-side dependency tracking. Developers no longer need GNU make
2380 * Uses DIST_SUBDIRS in some situations when SUBDIRS is conditional
2381 * Most files are correctly handled if they appear in subdirs
2382 For instance, a _DATA file can appear in a subdir
2383 * GNU tar is no longer required for `make dist'
2384 * Added support for `dist_' and `nodist_' prefixes
2385 * Added support for `nobase_' prefix
2386 * Compiled Java support
2387 * Support for per-executable and per-library compilation flags
2391 * Added support for the Fortran 77 programming language.
2392 * Re-indexed the Automake Texinfo manual.
2393 * Added `AM_FOOFLAGS' variable for each compiler invocation;
2394 e.g. AM_CFLAGS can be used in Makefile.am to set C compiler flags
2395 * Support for latest autoconf, including support for objext
2396 * Can now put `.' in SUBDIRS to control build order
2397 * `include' command and `+=' support for macro assignment
2398 * Dependency tracking no long susceptible to deleted header file problem
2399 * Maintainer mode now a conditional. @MAINT@ is now an anachronism.
2404 * Better Cygwin32 support
2405 * Support for suffix rules with _SOURCES variables
2406 * New options `readme-alpha' and `check-news'; Gnits mode sets these
2407 * @LEXLIB@ no longer required when lex source seen
2408 Lex support in `missing', and new lex macro. Update your missing script.
2409 * Built-in support for assembly
2410 * aclocal gives error if `AM_' macro not found
2411 * Passed YFLAGS, not YACCFLAGS, to yacc
2412 * AM_PROG_CC_STDC does not have to come before AC_PROG_CPP
2413 * Dependencies computed as a side effect of compilation
2414 * Preliminary support for Java
2415 * DESTDIR support at "make install" time
2416 * Improved ansi2knr support; you must use the latest ansi2knr.c (included)
2420 * Better DejaGnu support
2421 * Added no-installinfo option
2422 * Added Emacs Lisp support
2423 * Added --no-force option
2424 * Included `aclocal' program
2425 * Automake will now generate rules to regenerate aclocal.m4, if appropriate
2426 * Now uses `AM_' macro names everywhere
2427 * ansi2knr option can have directory prefix (eg `../lib/ansi2knr')
2428 ansi2knr now works correctly on K&R sources
2429 * Better C++, yacc, lex support
2430 * Will compute _DEPENDENCIES variables automatically if not supplied
2431 * Will interpolate $(...) and ${...} when examining contents of a variable
2432 * .deps files now in build directory, not source directory; dependency
2433 handling generally rewritten
2434 * DATA, MANS and BUILT_SOURCES no longer included in distribution
2435 * can now put config.h into a subdir
2436 * Added dist-all target
2437 * Support for install-info program (see texinfo 3.9)
2438 * Support for "yacc -d"
2439 * configure substitutions are automatically discovered and included
2440 in generated Makefile.in
2441 * Special --cygnus mode
2442 * OMIT_DEPENDENCIES can now hold list of dependencies to be omitted
2443 when making distribution. Some dependencies are auto-ignored.
2444 * Changed how libraries are specified in _LIBRARIES variable
2445 * Full libtool support, from Gord Matzigkeit
2446 * No longer have to explicitly touch stamp-h when using AC_CONFIG_HEADER;
2447 AM_CONFIG_HEADER handles it automatically
2448 * Texinfo output files no longer need .info extension
2449 * Added `missing' support
2451 * Conditionals in Makefile.am, from Ian Taylor
2455 * distcheck target runs install and installcheck targets
2456 * Added preliminary support for DejaGnu.
2461 * More libtool fixes from Gord Matzigkeit; libtool support is still
2463 * Added support for jm_MAINTAINER_MODE
2465 * New "distcheck" target
2469 * mkinstalldirs and mdate-sh now appear in directory specified by
2471 * Removed DIST_SUBDIRS, DIST_OTHER
2472 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM only required when an actual program exists
2473 * dist-hook target now run before distribution packaged up; idea from
2474 Dieter Baron. Other hooks exist, too.
2475 * Preliminary (unfinished) support for libtool
2476 * Added short option names.
2477 * Better "dist" support when gluing together multiple packages
2481 * Documentation updates (many from François Pinard)
2482 * strictness `normal' now renamed to `foreign'
2483 * Renamed --install-missing to --add-missing
2484 * Now handles AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR
2485 * Now handles TESTS macro
2486 * DIST_OTHER renamed to EXTRA_DIST
2487 * DIST_SUBDIRS is deprecated
2488 * @ALLOCA@ and @LIBOBJS@ now work in _LDADD variables
2489 * Better error messages in many cases
2490 * Program names are canonicalized
2491 * Added "check" prefix; from Gord Matzigkeit
2495 * configure.in scanner knows about AC_PATH_XTRA, AC_OUTPUT ":" syntax
2496 * Beginnings of a test suite
2497 * Automatically adds -I options for $(srcdir), ".", and path to config.h
2498 * Doesn't print anything when running
2499 * Beginnings of MAINT_CHARSET support
2500 * Can specify version in AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
2501 * Most errors recognizable by Emacs' M-x next-error
2502 * Added --verbose option
2503 * All "primary" variables now obsolete; use EXTRA_PRIMARY to supply
2504 configure-generated names
2505 * Required macros now distributed in aclocal.m4
2507 * --strictness=gnu is default
2511 * More sophisticated configure.in scanning; now understands ALLOCA and
2512 LIBOBJS directly, handles AC_CONFIG_HEADER more precisely, etc.
2513 * TEXINFOS and MANS now obsolete; use info_TEXINFOS and man_MANS instead.
2514 * CONFIG_HEADER variable now obsolete
2515 * Can handle multiple Texinfo sources
2516 * Allow hierarchies deeper than 2. From Gord Matzigkeit.
2517 * HEADERS variable no longer needed; now can put .h files directly into
2518 foo_SOURCES variable.
2519 * Automake automatically rebuilds files listed in AC_OUTPUT. The
2520 corresponding ".in" files are included in the distribution.
2523 * Added --gnu and --gnits options
2524 * More standards checking
2526 * Cleaned up 'dist' targets
2527 * Added AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable and several options
2528 * Now scans configure.in to get some information (preliminary)
2531 * Works with Perl 4 again
2534 * Added --install-missing option.
2535 * Pretty-prints generated macros and rules
2536 * Comments in Makefile.am are placed more intelligently in Makefile.in
2537 * Generates .PHONY target
2538 * Rule or macro in Makefile.am now overrides contents of Automake file
2539 * Substantial cleanups from François Pinard
2543 * Works with Perl 4 again.
2546 * New uniform naming scheme.
2547 * --strictness option
2549 * '.c' files corresponding to '.y' or '.l' files are automatically
2551 * Many bug fixes and cleanups
2554 * Allow objects to be conditionally included in libraries via lib_LIBADD.
2557 * Bug fixes in 'clean' code.
2558 * Now generates 'installdirs' target.
2559 * man page installation reworked.
2560 * 'make dist' no longer re-creates all Makefile.in's.
2563 * Reimplemented in Perl
2564 * Added --amdir option (for debugging)
2565 * Texinfo support cleaned up.
2566 * Automatic de-ANSI-fication cleaned up.
2567 * Cleaned up 'clean' targets.
2570 * Automatic dependency tracking
2571 * More documentation
2572 * New variables DATA and PACKAGEDATA
2573 * SCRIPTS installed using $(INSTALL_SCRIPT)
2574 * No longer uses double-colon rules
2576 * Changes in advance of internationalization
2580 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2582 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
2583 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2584 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
2587 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2588 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2589 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2590 GNU General Public License for more details.
2592 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2593 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
projects / platform / upstream / automake.git / blob