3 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
5 - Automake 1.14 will require Autoconf 2.70 or later (which is still
6 unreleased at the moment of writing, but is planned to be released
7 before Automake 1.14 is).
9 - Automake 1.14 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in'
10 name for the Autoconf input file. You are advised to start using
11 recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP.
13 - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated
14 in Automake 1.14 (where it will raise warnings in the "obsolete"
15 category). You are advised to start relying on the new Automake
16 support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which was introduced in
19 - Support for IRIX and the SGI C/C++ compilers will be removed in
20 Automake 1.14: they have seen their last release in 2006, and SGI
21 is expected to retire support from them in December 2013; see
22 <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html> for
25 - Future versions of Automake might remove support for MS-DOS and
26 Windows 95/98/ME (support for them was offered by relying on the
27 DJGPP project). Note however that both Cygwin and MSYS/MinGW on
28 modern Windows versions will continue to be fully supported.
30 - Support for the long-deprecated INCLUDES variable will be removed
31 altogether in Automake 1.14. The AM_CPPFLAGS variable should be
34 - Automake-provided scripts and makefile recipes might (finally!)
35 start assuming a POSIX shell in Automake 1.14.
37 - Starting from Automake 1.14, third-party m4 files located in the
38 system-wide aclocal directory, as well as in any directory listed
39 in the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable, will take precedence
40 over "built-in" Automake macros. For example (assuming Automake
41 is installed in the /usr/local hierarchy), a definition of the
42 AM_PROG_VALAC macro found in '/usr/local/share/aclocal/my-vala.m4'
43 should take precedence over the same-named automake-provided macro
44 (defined in '/usr/local/share/aclocal-1.14/vala.m4').
46 * C compilation, and the AC_PROG_CC and AM_PROG_CC_C_O macros:
48 - The 'compile' script is now unconditionally required for all
49 packages that perform C compilation (note that if you are using
50 the '--add-missing' option, automake will fetch that script for
51 you, so you shouldn't need any explicit adjustment).
52 This new behaviour is needed to avoid obscure errors when the
53 'subdir-objects' option is used, and the compiler is an inferior
54 one that doesn't grasp the combined use of both the "-c -o"
55 options; see discussion about automake bug#13378 for more details:
56 <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13378#35>
57 <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13378#44>
59 - Automake will automatically enhance the AC_PROG_CC autoconf macro
60 to make it check, at configure time, that the C compiler supports
61 the combined use of both the "-c -o" options. This "rewrite" of
62 AC_PROG_CC is only meant to be temporary, since future Autoconf
63 versions should provide all the features Automake needs.
65 - The AM_PROG_CC_C_O is no longer useful, and its use is a no-op
66 now. Future Automake versions might start warning that this
67 macro is obsolete. For better backward-compatibility, this macro
68 still sets a proper 'ac_cv_prog_cc_*_c_o' cache variable, and
69 define the 'NO_MINUS_C_MINUS_O' C preprocessor symbol, but you
70 should really stop relying on that.
74 - Automake can now be instructed to place '.info' files generated from
75 Texinfo input in the builddir rather than in the srcdir; this is done
76 specifying the new automake option 'info-in-builddir'. This feature
77 was requested by the developers of GCC, GDB, GNU binutils and the GNU
78 bfd library. See the extensive discussion about automake bug#11034
81 - For quite a long time, Automake has been implementing an undocumented
82 hack which ensured that '.info' files which appeared to be cleaned
83 (by e.g. being listed in the CLEANFILES or DISTCLEANFILES variables)
84 were built in the builddir rather than in the srcdir; this hack was
85 introduced to ensure better backward-compatibility with packages such
86 as Texinfo, which did things like:
88 info_TEXINFOS = texinfo.txi info-stnd.texi info.texi
89 DISTCLEANFILES = texinfo texinfo-* info*.info*
90 # Do not create info files for distribution.
94 in order not to distribute generated '.info' files.
96 Now that we have the 'info-in-builddir' option that explicitly causes
97 generated '.info' files to be placed in the builddir, this hack should
98 be longer necessary, so we deprecate it with runtime warnings. It will
99 likely be removed altogether in Automake 1.14.
101 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
105 * Documentation fixes:
107 - The long-deprecated but still supported two-arguments invocation form
108 of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is documented once again. This seems the sanest
109 thing to do, given that support for such an usage might need to remain
110 in place for a unspecified amount of time in order to cater for people
111 who want to define the version number for their package dynamically at
112 configure runtime (unfortunately, Autoconf does not yet support this
113 scenario, so we cannot delegate the work to it).
115 - The serial testsuite harness is no longer reported as "deprecated",
116 but as "discouraged". We have no plan to remove it, not to make its
117 use cause runtime warnings.
119 - The parallel testsuite is no longer reported as "experimental"; it
120 is well tested, ans should be stable now.
122 - The 'shar' and 'tarZ' distribution formats and the 'dist-shar' and
123 'dist-tarZ' options are obsolescent, and their use is deprecated
124 in the documentation.
126 - Other minor miscellaneous fixes and improvements; in particular,
127 some improvements in cross-references.
129 * Obsolescent features:
131 - Use of suffix-less info files (that can be specified through the
132 '@setfilename' macro in Texinfo input files) is discouraged, and
133 its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete' category. Simply
134 use the '.info' extension for all your info files, transforming
137 @setfilename myprogram
141 @setfilename myprogram.info
143 - Use of Texinfo input files with '.txi' or '.texinfo' extensions
144 is discouraged, and its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete'
145 category. You are advised to simply use the '.texi' extension
150 - The obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC work once
151 again, as they did in Automake 1.12.x (albeit printing runtime
152 warnings in the 'obsolete' category). Removing them has turned
153 out to be a very bad idea, because it complicated distro packing
154 enormously. Making them issue fatal warnings, as we did in
155 Automake 1.13, has turned out to be a similarly very bad idea,
156 for exactly the same reason.
158 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
164 - Use of the obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC now
165 causes a clear and helpful error message, instead of obscure ones
166 (issue introduced in Automake 1.13).
168 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
174 - ylwrap renames properly header guards in generated header files
175 (*.h), instead of leaving Y_TAB_H.
177 - ylwrap now also converts header guards in implementation files
178 (*.c). Because ylwrap failed to rename properly #include in the
179 implementation files, current versions of Bison (e.g., 2.7)
180 duplicate the generated header file in the implementation file.
181 The header guard then protects the implementation file from
182 duplicate definitions from the header file.
184 * Version requirements:
186 - Autoconf 2.65 or greater is now required.
188 - The rules to build PDF and DVI output from Texinfo input now
189 require Texinfo 4.9 or later.
193 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (once enabled by the 'cygnus'
194 option) has been removed. See discussion about automake bug#11034
195 for more background: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/11034>.
197 - The deprecated aclocal option '--acdir' has been removed. You
198 should use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir'
199 instead (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
201 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros have been removed:
203 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
204 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
205 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
206 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
207 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
208 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
209 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
210 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
211 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
212 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
215 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' have been removed.
217 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
218 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is no longer documented. It's still supported
219 though (albeit with a warning in the 'obsolete' category), to cater
220 for people who want to define the version number for their package
221 dynamically (e.g., from the current VCS revision). We'll have to
222 continue this support until Autoconf itself is fixed to allow better
223 support for such dynamic version numbers.
225 * Elisp byte-compilation:
227 - The byte compilation of '.el' files into '.elc' files is now done
228 with a suffix rule. This has simplified the compilation process, and
229 more importantly made it less brittle. The downside is that emacs is
230 now invoked once for each '.el' files, which cause some noticeable
231 slowdowns. These should however be mitigated on multicore machines
232 (which are becoming the norm today) if concurrent make ("make -j")
235 - Elisp files placed in a subdirectory are now byte-compiled to '.elc'
236 files in the same subdirectory; for example, byte-compiling of file
237 'sub/foo.el' file will result in 'sub/foo.elc' rather than in
238 'foo.elc'. This behaviour is backward-incompatible with older
239 Automake versions, but it is more natural and more sane. See also
242 - The Emacs invocation performing byte-compilation of '.el' files honors
243 the $(AM_ELCFLAGS) and $(ELCFLAGS) variables; as typical, the former
244 one is developer-reserved and the latter one user-reserved.
246 - The 'elisp-comp' script, once provided by Automake, has been rendered
247 obsoleted by the just-described changes, and thus removed.
249 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
251 - The parallel testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the
252 'parallel-tests' option) is the default one; the older serial
253 testsuite harness will still be available through the use of the
254 'serial-tests' option (introduced in Automake 1.12).
256 - The 'color-tests' option is now unconditionally activated by default.
257 In particular, this means that testsuite output is now colorized by
258 default if the attached terminal seems to support ANSI escapes, and
259 that the user can force output colorization by setting the variable
260 AM_COLOR_TESTS to "always". The 'color-tests' is still recognized
261 for backward-compatibility, although it's a handled as a no-op now.
263 * Silent rules support:
265 - Support for silent rules is now always active in Automake-generated
266 Makefiles. So, although the verbose output is still the default,
267 the user can now always use "./configure --enable-silent-rules" or
268 "make V=0" to enable quieter output in the package he's building.
270 - The 'silent-rules' option has now become a no-op, preserved for
271 backward-compatibility only. In particular, its use no longer
272 disables the warnings in the 'portability-recursive' category.
276 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now require
277 Texinfo 4.9 or later.
279 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now use the
280 '--build-dir' option, to keep the auxiliary files used by texi2dvi
281 and texi2pdf around without cluttering the build directory, and to
282 make it possible to run the "dvi" and "pdf" recipes in parallel.
284 * Automatic remake rules and 'missing' script:
286 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to update the timestamp of
287 out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
288 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
289 of it). It just gives a useful warning, and in some cases also a
290 tip about how to obtain such a tool.
292 - The missing script has thus become useless as a (poor) way to work
293 around the sketched-timestamps issues that can happen for projects
294 that keep generated files committed in their VCS repository. Such
295 projects are now encouraged to write a custom "fix-timestamps.sh"
296 script to avoid such issues; a simple example is provided in the
297 "CVS and generated files" chapter of the automake manual.
301 - The user can now define his own recursive targets that recurse
302 in the directories specified in $(SUBDIRS). This can be done by
303 specifying the name of such targets in invocations of the new
304 'AM_EXTRA_RECURSIVE_TARGETS' m4 macro.
308 - Any failure in the recipe of the "tags", "ctags", "cscope" or
309 "cscopelist" targets in a subdirectory is now propagated to the
310 top-level make invocation.
312 - Tags are correctly computed also for files in _SOURCES variables that
313 only list files with non-standard suffixes (see automake bug#12372).
315 * Improvements to aclocal and related rebuilds rules:
317 - Autoconf-provided macros AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR and AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS
318 are now traced by aclocal, and can be used to declare the local m4
319 include directories. Formerly, one had to specify it with an explicit
320 '-I' option to the 'aclocal' invocation.
322 - The special make variable ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is deprecated; future
323 Automake versions will warn about its use, and later version will
324 remove support for it altogether.
326 * The depcomp script:
328 - Dropped support for libtool 1.4.
330 - Various internal refactorings. They should cause no visible change,
331 but the chance for regression is there anyway, so please report any
332 unexpected or suspicious behaviour.
334 - Support for pre-8.0 versions of the Intel C Compiler has been dropped.
335 This should cause no problem, since icc 8.0 has been released in
336 December 2003 -- almost nine years ago.
338 - Support for tcc (the Tiny C Compiler) has been improved, and is now
339 handled through a dedicated 'tcc' mode.
343 - ylwrap generates header guards with a single '_' for series of non
344 alphabetic characters, instead of several. This is what Bison >=
347 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
349 Bugs fixed in 1.12.6:
351 * Python-related bugs:
353 - The default installation location for python modules has been improved
354 for Python 3 on Debian and Ubuntu systems, changing from:
356 ${prefix}/lib/python3/dist-packages
360 ${prefix}/lib/python3.x/site-packages
362 This change should ensure modules installed using the default ${prefix}
363 "/usr/local" are found by default by system python 3.x installations.
364 See automake bug#10227.
366 - Python byte-compilation supports the new layout mandated by PEP-3147,
367 with its __pycache__ directory (automake bug#8847).
369 * Build system issues:
371 - The maintainer rebuild rules for Makefiles and aclocal.m4 in
372 Automake's own build system works correctly again (bug introduced
377 - The Vala-related tests has been changed to adjust to the removal of
378 the 'posix' profile in the valac compiler. See automake bug#12934
381 - Some spurious testsuite failures related to older tools and systems
384 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
390 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro has been enhanced to takes two further
391 optional arguments; it's signature now being
393 AM_PROG_VALAC([MINIMUM-VERSION], [ACTION-IF-FOUND],
394 [ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])
396 - By default, AM_PROG_VALAC no longer aborts the configure invocation
397 if the Vala compiler found is too old, but simply prints a warning
398 messages (as it did when the Vala compiler was not found). This
399 should avoid unnecessary difficulties for end users that just want
400 to compile the unmodified, distributed Vala-generated C sources,
401 but happens to have an old Vala compiler in their PATH. This fixes
404 - If no proper Vala compiler is found at configure runtime, AM_PROG_VALAC
405 will set the AC_SUBST'd variable 'VALAC' to 'valac' rather than to ':'.
406 This is a better default, because with it a triggered makefile rule
407 invoking a Vala compilation will clearly fail with an informative error
408 message like "valac: command not found", rather than silently, with
409 the error possibly going unnoticed or triggering harder-to-diagnose
410 fallout failures in later steps.
412 * Miscellaneous changes:
414 - automake and aclocal no longer honours the 'perllibdir' environment
415 variable. That had always been intended only as an hack required in
416 the testsuite, not meant for any use beyond that.
418 Bugs fixed in 1.12.5:
420 * Long-standing bugs:
422 - Automake no longer generates spurious remake rules invoking autoheader
423 to regenerate the template corresponding to header files specified after
424 the first one in AC_CONFIG_HEADERS (automake bug#12495).
426 - When wrapping Microsoft tools, the 'compile' script falls back to
427 finding classic 'libname.a' style libraries when 'name.lib' and
428 'name.dll.lib' aren't available.
430 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
434 * Warnings and deprecations:
436 - Warnings in the 'obsolete' category are enabled by default both in
437 automake and aclocal.
439 * Miscellaneous changes:
441 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
443 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
447 * Miscellaneous changes:
449 - The '.m4' files provided by Automake no longer define serial numbers.
450 This should cause no difference in the behaviour of aclocal though.
452 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
454 - There is initial support for automatic dependency tracking with the
455 Portland Group C/C++ compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'pgcc'.
457 Bugs fixed in 1.12.3:
459 * Long-standing bugs:
461 - Instead of renaming only self-references of files (typically for
462 #lines), ylwrap now also renames references to the other generated
463 files. This fixes support for GLR and C++ parsers from Bison (PR
464 automake/491 and automake bug#7648): 'parser.c' now properly
465 #includes 'parser.h' instead of 'y.tab.h'.
467 - Generated files unknown to ylwrap are now preserved. This fixes
468 C++ support for Bison (automake bug#7648): location.hh and the
469 like are no longer discarded.
471 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
475 * Warnings and deprecations:
477 - Automake now issues a warning (in the 'portability' category) if
478 'configure.in' is used instead of 'configure.ac' as the Autoconf
479 input file. Such a warning will also be present in the next
480 Autoconf version (2.70).
484 - Recursive cleaning rules descends into the $(SUBDIRS) in the natural
485 order (as done by the other recursive rules), rather than in the
486 inverse order. They used to do that in order to work a round a
487 limitation in an older implementation of the automatic dependency
488 tracking support, but that limitation had been lifted years ago
489 already, when the automatic dependency tracking based on side-effects
490 of compilation had been introduced.
492 - Cleaning rules for compiled objects (both "plain" and libtool) work
493 better when subdir objects are involved, not triggering a distinct
494 'rm' invocation for each such object. They do so by removing *any*
495 compiled object file that is in the same directory of a subdir
496 object. See automake bug#10697.
498 * Silent rules support:
500 - A new predefined $(AM_V_P) make variable is provided; it expands
501 to a shell conditional that can be used in recipes to know whether
502 make is being run in silent or verbose mode.
504 Bugs fixed in 1.12.2:
506 * SECURITY VULNERABILITIES!
508 - The 'distcheck' recipe no longer grants temporary world-write
509 permissions on the extracted distdir. Even if such rights were
510 only granted for a vanishingly small time window, the implied
511 race condition proved to be enough to allow a local attacker
512 to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
513 "make distcheck". This is CVE-2012-3386.
515 * Long-standing bugs:
517 - The "recheck" targets behaves better in the face of build failures
518 related to previously failed tests. For example, if a test is a
519 compiled program that must be rerun by "make recheck", and its
520 compilation fails, it will still be rerun by further "make recheck"
521 invocations. See automake bug#11791.
523 * Bugs introduced by 1.12.1:
525 - Automake provides once again the '$(mkdir_p)' make variable and the
526 '@mkdir_p@' substitution (both as simple aliases for '$(MKDIR_P)'),
527 for better backward-compatibility.
529 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
533 * New supported languages:
535 - Support for Objective C++ has been added; it should work similarly to
536 the support for Objective C.
538 * Deprecated obsolescent features:
540 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
541 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro now elicits a warning in the 'obsolete'
542 category. Starting from some future major Automake release (likely
543 post-1.13), such usages will no longer be allowed.
545 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (enabled by the 'cygnus' option) is
546 now deprecated (its use triggers a warning in the 'obsolete' category).
547 It will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
549 - The long-obsolete (since 1.10) automake-provided $(mkdir_p) make
550 variable, @mkdir_p@ configure-time substitution and AM_PROG_MKDIR
551 m4 macro are deprecated, eliciting a warning in the 'obsolete'
554 * Miscellaneous changes:
556 - The Automake test cases now require a proper POSIX-conforming shell.
557 Older non-POSIX Bourne shells (like Solaris 10 /bin/sh) will no longer
558 be accepted. In most cases, the user shouldn't have to specify such
559 POSIX shell explicitly, since it will be looked up at configure time.
560 Still, when this lookup fails, or when the user wants to override its
561 conclusion, the variable 'AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL' can be used (pointing
562 to the shell that will be used to run the Automake test cases).
564 Bugs fixed in 1.12.1:
566 * Bugs introduced by 1.12:
568 - Several weaknesses in Automake's own build system and test suite
571 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
573 - When given non-option arguments, aclocal rejects them, instead of
574 silently ignoring them.
576 * Long-standing bugs:
578 - When the 'color-tests' option is in use, forcing of colored testsuite
579 output through "AM_COLOR_TESTS=always" works even if the terminal is
580 a non-ANSI one, i.e., if the TERM environment variable has a value of
583 - Several inefficiencies and poor performances in the implementation
584 of the parallel-tests 'check' and 'recheck' targets have been fixed.
586 - The post-processing of output "#line" directives done the ylwrap
587 script is more faithful w.r.t. files in a subdirectory; for example,
588 if the processed file is "src/grammar.y", ylwrap will correctly
589 produce directives like:
590 #line 7 "src/grammar.y"
595 * Bugs with new Perl versions:
597 - Aclocal works correctly with perl 5.16.0 (automake bug#11543).
599 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
603 * Obsolete features removed:
605 - The never documented nor truly used script 'acinstall' has been
608 - Support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been removed.
610 - The support for the "obscure" multilib feature has been removed
611 from Automake core (but remains available in the 'contrib/'
612 directory of the Automake distribution).
614 - Support for ".log -> .html" conversion and the check-html and
615 recheck-html targets has been removed from Automake core (but
616 remains available in the 'contrib/' directory of the Automake
619 - The deprecated 'lzma' compression format for distribution archives
620 has been removed, in favor of 'xz' and 'lzip'.
622 - The obsolete AM_WITH_REGEX macro has been removed.
624 - The long-deprecated options '--output-dir', '--Werror' and
625 '--Wno-error' have been removed.
627 - The chapter on the history of Automake has been moved out of the
628 reference manual, into a new dedicated Texinfo file.
632 - New 'cscope' target to build a cscope database for the source tree.
634 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
636 - The new automake option 'serial-tests' has been introduced. It can
637 be used to explicitly instruct automake to use the older serial
638 testsuite harness. This is still the default at the moment, but it
639 might change in future versions.
641 - The 'recheck' target (provided by the parallel testsuite harness) now
642 depends on the 'all' target. This allows for a better user-experience
643 in test-driven development. See automake bug#11252.
645 - Test scripts that exit with status 99 to signal an "hard error" (e.g.,
646 and unexpected or internal error, or a failure to set up the test case
647 scenario) have their outcome reported as an 'ERROR' now. Previous
648 versions of automake reported such an outcome as a 'FAIL' (the only
649 difference with normal failures being that hard errors were counted
650 as failures even when the test originating them was listed in
653 - The testsuite summary displayed by the parallel-test harness has a
654 completely new format, that always list the numbers of passed, failed,
655 xfailed, xpassed, skipped and errored tests, even when these numbers
656 are zero (but using smart coloring when the color-tests option is in
659 - The default testsuite driver offered by the 'parallel-tests' option is
660 now implemented (partly at least) with the help of automake-provided
661 auxiliary scripts (e.g., 'test-driver'), instead of relying entirely
662 on code in the generated Makefile.in.
663 This has two noteworthy implications. The first one is that projects
664 using the 'parallel-tests' option should now either run automake with
665 the '--add-missing' option, or manually copy the 'test-driver' script
666 into their tree. The second, and more important, implication is that
667 now, when the 'parallel-tests' option is in use, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT can
668 no longer be used to define a test runner, and the command specified
669 in LOG_COMPILER (and <ext>_LOG_COMPILER) must be a *real* executable
670 program or script. For example, this is still a valid usage (albeit
673 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
674 if test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS)'; then \
675 maybe_errexit='-e'; \
679 LOG_COMPILER = $(SHELL) $$maybe_errexit
681 OTOH, this is no longer a valid usage:
683 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
684 $(SHELL) `test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS_CHECKING)' && echo ' -e'`
688 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
689 run_with_perl_or_shell () \
691 if grep -q '^#!.*perl' $$1; then
697 LOG_COMPILER = run_with_perl_or_shell
699 - The package authors can now use customary testsuite drivers within
700 the framework provided by the 'parallel-tests' testsuite harness.
701 Consistently with the existing syntax, this can be done by defining
702 special makefile variables 'LOG_DRIVER' and '<ext>_LOG_DRIVER'.
704 - A new developer-reserved variable 'AM_TESTS_FD_REDIRECT' can be used
705 to redirect/define file descriptors used by the test scripts.
707 - The parallel-tests harness generates now, in addition the '.log' files
708 holding the output produced by the test scripts, a new set of '.trs'
709 files, holding "metadata" derived by the execution of the test scripts;
710 among such metadata are the outcomes of the test cases run by a script.
712 - Initial and still experimental support for the TAP test protocol is
715 * Changes to Yacc and Lex support:
717 - C source and header files derived from non-distributed Yacc and/or
718 Lex sources are now removed by a simple "make clean" (while they were
719 previously removed only by "make maintainer-clean").
721 - Slightly backward-incompatible change, relevant only for use of Yacc
722 with C++: the extensions of the header files produced by the Yacc
723 rules are now modelled after the extension of the corresponding
724 sources. For example, yacc files named "foo.y++" and "bar.yy" will
725 produce header files named "foo.h++" and "bar.hh" respectively, where
726 they would have previously produced header files named simply "foo.h"
727 and "bar.h". This change offers better compatibility with 'bison -o'.
729 * Miscellaneous changes:
731 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro now causes configure to exit with status 77,
732 rather than 1, if the vala compiler found is too old.
734 - The build system of Automake itself now avoids the use of make
735 recursion as much as possible.
737 - Automake now prefers to quote 'like this' or "like this", rather
738 than `like this', in diagnostic message and generated Makefiles,
739 to accommodate the new GNU Coding Standards recommendations.
741 - Automake has a new option '--print-libdir' that prints the path of the
742 directory containing the Automake-provided scripts and data files.
744 - The 'dist' and 'dist-all' targets now can run compressors in parallel.
746 - The rules to create pdf, dvi and ps output from Texinfo files now
747 works better with modern 'texi2dvi' script, by explicitly passing
748 it the '--clean' option to ensure stray auxiliary files are not
749 left to clutter the build directory.
751 - Automake can now generate silenced rules for texinfo outputs.
753 - Some auxiliary files that are automatically distributed by Automake
754 (e.g., 'install-sh', or the 'depcomp' script for packages compiling
755 C sources) might now be listed in the DIST_COMMON variable in many
756 Makefile.in files, rather than in the top-level one.
758 - Messages of types warning or error from 'automake' and 'aclocal'
759 are now prefixed with the respective type, and presence of -Werror
762 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now tries to avoid
763 sleeping for a second, which slowed down cached configure runs
764 noticeably. In that case, it will check back at the end of the
765 configure script to ensure that at least one second has passed, to
766 avoid time stamp issues with makefile rules rerunning autotools
769 - The warnings in the category 'extra-portability' are now enabled by
770 '-Wall'. In previous versions, one has to use '-Wextra-portability'
775 - Various minor bugfixes for recent or long-standing bugs.
777 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
779 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
780 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
782 - The automake-provided parallel testsuite harness no longer fails
783 with BSD make used in parallel mode when there are test scripts in
784 a subdirectory, like in:
786 TESTS = sub/foo.test sub/bar.test
788 * Long-standing bugs:
790 - Automake's own build system finally have a real "installcheck" target.
792 - Vala-related cleanup rules are now more complete, and work better in
795 - Files listed with the AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE macro in configure.ac are
796 now automatically distributed also if the directory of the auxiliary
797 files coincides with the top-level directory.
799 - Automake now detects the presence of the '-d' flag in the various
800 '*YFLAGS' variables even when their definitions involve indirections
801 through other variables, such as in:
803 AM_YFLAGS = $(foo_opts)
805 - Automake now complains if a '*YFLAGS' variable has any conditional
806 content, not only a conditional definition.
808 - Explicit enabling and/or disabling of Automake warning categories
809 through the '-W...' options now always takes precedence over the
810 implicit warning level implied by Automake strictness (foreign, gnu
811 or gnits), regardless of the order in which such strictness and
812 warning flags appear. For example, a setting like:
813 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = -Wall --foreign
814 will cause the warnings in category 'portability' to be enabled, even
815 if those warnings are by default disabled in 'foreign' strictness.
817 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
819 Bugs fixed in 1.11.5:
821 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
823 - Vala files with '.vapi' extension are now recognized and handled
824 correctly again. See automake bug#11222.
826 - Vala support work again for projects that contain some program
827 built from '.vala' (and possibly '.c') sources and some other
828 program built from '.c' sources *only*. See automake bug#11229.
830 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
834 * Miscellaneous changes:
836 - The 'ar-lib' script now ignores the "s" (symbol index) and "S" (no
837 symbol index) modifiers as well as the "s" action, as the symbol index
838 is created unconditionally by Microsoft lib. Also, the "q" (quick)
839 action is now a synonym for "r" (replace). Also, the script has been
840 ignoring the "v" (verbose) modifier already since Automake 1.11.3.
842 - When the 'compile' script is used to wrap MSVC, it now accepts an
843 optional space between the -I, -L and -l options and their respective
844 arguments, for better POSIX compliance.
846 - There is an initial, experimental support for automatic dependency
847 tracking with tcc (the Tiny C Compiler). Its associated depmode is
848 currently recognized as "icc" (but this and other details are likely
849 to change in future versions).
851 - Automatic dependency tracking now works also with the IBM XL C/C++
852 compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'xlc'.
854 Bugs fixed in 1.11.4:
856 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
858 - A definition of 'noinst_PYTHON' before 'python_PYTHON' (or similar)
859 no longer cause spurious failures upon "make install".
861 - The user can now instruct the 'uninstall-info' rule not to update
862 the '${infodir}/dir' file by exporting the environment variable
863 'AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no". This is done for consistency
864 with how the 'install-info' rule operates since automake 1.11.2.
866 * Long-standing bugs:
868 - It is now possible for a foo_SOURCES variable to hold Vala sources
869 together with C header files, as well as with sources and headers for
870 other supported languages (e.g., C++). Previously, only mixing C and
871 Vala sources was supported.
873 - If "aclocal --install" is used, and the first directory specified with
874 '-I' is non-existent, aclocal will now create it before trying to copy
877 - An empty declaration of a "foo_PRIMARY" no longer cause the generated
878 install rules to create an empty $(foodir) directory; for example, if
879 Makefile.am contains something like:
883 pkglibexec_SCRIPTS += bar.sh
886 the $(pkglibexec) directory will not be created upon "make install".
888 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
892 * Miscellaneous changes:
894 - Automake's own build system is more silent by default, making use of
895 the 'silent-rules' option.
897 - The master copy of the 'gnupload' script is now maintained in gnulib,
900 - The 'missing' script no longer tries to wrap calls to 'tar'.
902 - "make dist" no longer wraps 'tar' invocations with the 'missing'
903 script. Similarly, the obsolescent variable '$(AMTAR)' (which you
904 shouldn't be using BTW ;-) no longer invokes the 'missing' script
905 to wrap tar, but simply invokes the 'tar' program itself.
907 - "make dist" can now create lzip-compressed tarballs.
909 - In the Automake info documentation, the Top node and the nodes about
910 the invocation of the automake and aclocal programs have been renamed;
911 now, calling "info automake" will open the Top node, while calling
912 "info automake-invocation" and "info aclocal-invocation" will access
913 the nodes about the invocation of respectively automake and aclocal.
915 - Automake is now distributed as a gzip-compressed and an xz-compressed
916 tarball. Previously, bzip2 was used instead of xz.
918 - The last relics of Python 1.5 support have been removed from the
919 AM_PATH_PYTHON macro.
921 - For programs and libraries, automake now detects EXTRA_foo_DEPENDENCIES
922 and adds them to the normal list of dependencies, but without
923 overwriting the foo_DEPENDENCIES variable, which is normally computed
926 Bugs fixed in 1.11.3:
928 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
930 - Automake now correctly recognizes the prefix/primary combination
931 'pkglibexec_SCRIPTS' as valid.
933 - The parallel-tests harness no longer trips on sed implementations
934 with stricter limits on the length of input lines (problem seen at
937 * Long-standing bugs:
939 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.am files is avoided by stub
940 rules. This allows 'make' to trigger a rerun of 'automake' also if
941 some previously needed '.am' file has been removed.
943 - The 'silent-rules' option now generates working makefiles even
944 for the uncommon 'make' implementations that do not support the
945 nested-variables extension to POSIX 2008. For such 'make'
946 implementations, whether a build is silent is determined at
947 configure time, and cannot be overridden at make time with
948 "make V=0" or "make V=1".
950 - Vala support now works better in VPATH setups.
952 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
956 * Changes to aclocal:
958 - The `--acdir' option is deprecated. Now you should use the new options
959 `--automake-acdir' and `--system-acdir' instead.
961 - The `ACLOCAL_PATH' environment variable is now interpreted as a
962 colon-separated list of additional directories to search after the
963 automake internal acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal-APIVERSION)
964 and before the system acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal).
966 * Miscellaneous changes:
968 - The Automake support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been
969 deprecated. It will probably be removed in the next major Automake
972 - The `lzma' compression scheme and associated automake option `dist-lzma'
973 is obsoleted by `xz' and `dist-xz' due to upstream changes.
975 - You may adjust the compression options used in dist-xz and dist-bzip2.
976 The default is now merely -e for xz, but still -9 for bzip; you may
977 specify a different level via the XZ_OPT and BZIP2 envvars respectively.
978 E.g., "make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-7" or "make dist-bzip2 BZIP2=-5"
980 - The `compile' script now converts some options for MSVC for a better
981 user experience. Similarly, the new `ar-lib' script wraps Microsoft lib.
983 - The py-compile script now accepts empty arguments passed to the options
984 `--destdir' and `--basedir', and complains about unrecognized options.
985 Moreover, a non-option argument or a special `--' argument terminates
988 - A developer that needs to pass specific flags to configure at "make
989 distcheck" time can now, and indeed is advised to, do so by defining
990 the developer-reserved makefile variable AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS,
991 instead of the old DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.
992 The DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable should now be reserved for the
993 user; still, the old Makefile.am files that used to define it will
994 still continue to work as before.
996 - New macro AM_PROG_AR that looks for an archiver and wraps it in the new
997 'ar-lib' auxiliary script if the selected archiver is Microsoft lib.
998 This new macro is required for LIBRARIES and LTLIBRARIES when automake
999 is run with -Wextra-portability and -Werror.
1001 - When using DejaGnu-based testsuites, the user can extend the `site.exp'
1002 file generated by automake-provided rules by defining the special make
1003 variable `$(EXTRA_DEJAGNU_SITE_CONFIG)'.
1005 - The `install-info' rule can now be instructed not to create/update
1006 the `${infodir}/dir' file, by exporting the new environment variable
1007 `AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no".
1009 Bugs fixed in 1.11.2:
1011 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
1013 - The parallel-tests driver no longer produces erroneous results with
1014 Tru64/OSF 5.1 sh upon unreadable log files.
1016 - The `parallel-tests' test driver does not report spurious successes
1017 when used with concurrent FreeBSD make (e.g., "make check -j3").
1019 - When the parallel-tests driver is in use, automake now explicitly
1020 rejects invalid entries and conditional contents in TEST_EXTENSIONS,
1021 instead of issuing confusing and apparently unrelated error messages
1022 (e.g., "non-POSIX variable name", "bad characters in variable name",
1023 or "redefinition of TEST_EXTENSIONS), or even, in some situations,
1024 silently producing broken `Makefile.in' files.
1026 - The `silent-rules' option now truly silences all compile rules, even
1027 when dependency tracking is disabled. Also, when `silent-rules' is
1028 not used, `make' output no longer contains spurious backslash-only
1029 lines, thus once again matching what Automake did before 1.11.
1031 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
1032 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
1034 * Long-standing bugs:
1036 - The order of Yacc and Lex flags is fixed to be consistent with other
1037 languages: $(AM_YFLAGS) comes before $(YFLAGS), and $(AM_LFLAGS) before
1038 $(LFLAGS), so that the user variables override the developer variables.
1040 - "make distcheck" now correctly complains also when "make uninstall"
1041 leaves one and only one file installed in $(prefix).
1043 - A "make uninstall" issued before a "make install", or after a mere
1044 "make install-data" or a mere "make install-exec" does not spuriously
1047 - Automake now warns about more primary/directory invalid combinations,
1048 such as "doc_LIBRARIES" or "pkglib_PROGRAMS".
1050 - Rules generated by Automake now try harder to not change any files when
1051 `make -n' is invoked. Fixes include compilation of Emacs Lisp, Vala, or
1052 Yacc source files and the rule to update config.h.
1054 - Several scripts and the parallel-tests testsuite driver now exit with
1055 the right exit status upon receiving a signal.
1057 - A per-Makefile.am setting of -Werror does not erroneously carry over
1058 to the handling of other Makefile.am files.
1060 - The code for automatic dependency tracking works around a Solaris
1061 make bug triggered by sources containing repeated slashes when the
1062 `subdir-objects' option was used.
1064 - The makedepend and hp depmodes now work better with VPATH builds.
1066 - Java sources specified with check_JAVA are no longer compiled for
1067 "make all", but only for "make check".
1069 - An usage like "java_JAVA = foo.java" will now cause Automake to warn
1070 and error out if `javadir' is undefined, instead of silently producing
1071 a broken Makefile.in.
1073 - aclocal and automake now honour the configure-time definitions of
1074 AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE when they spawn autoconf or autom4te processes.
1076 - The `install-info' recipe no longer tries to guess whether the
1077 `install-info' program is from Debian or from GNU, and adaptively
1078 change its behaviour; this has proven to be frail and easy to
1081 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1083 Bugs fixed in 1.11.1:
1085 - Lots of minor bugfixes.
1087 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
1089 - The `parallel-tests' test driver works around a GNU make 3.80 bug with
1090 trailing white space in the test list (`TESTS = foo $(EMPTY)').
1092 * Long standing bugs:
1094 - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
1095 even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
1096 AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
1097 `get_python_lib' function if it points outside the configured prefix,
1098 unless the `--prefix' argument was either `/usr' or below `/System'.
1100 - The testsuite does not try to change the mode of `ltmain.sh' files from
1101 a Libtool installation (symlinked to test directories) any more.
1103 - AM_PROG_GCJ uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS to look for `gcj' now, so that prefixed
1104 tools are preferred in a cross-compile setup.
1106 - The distribution is tarred up with mode 755 now by the `dist*' targets.
1107 This fixes a race condition where untrusted users could modify files
1108 in the $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION) distdir before packing if the toplevel
1109 build directory was world-searchable. This is CVE-2009-4029.
1111 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1115 * Version requirements:
1117 - Autoconf 2.62 or greater is required.
1119 * Changes to aclocal:
1121 - The autoconf version check implemented by aclocal in aclocal.m4
1122 (and new in Automake 1.10) is degraded to a warning. This helps
1123 in the common case where the Autoconf versions used are compatible.
1125 * Changes to automake:
1127 - The automake program can run multiple threads for creating most
1128 Makefile.in files concurrently, if at least Perl 5.7.2 is available
1129 with interpreter-based threads enabled. Set the environment variable
1130 AUTOMAKE_JOBS to the maximum number of threads to use, in order to
1131 enable this experimental feature.
1133 * Changes to Libtool support:
1135 - Libtool generic flags are now passed to the install and uninstall
1138 - distcheck works with Libtool 2.x even when LT_OUTPUT is used, as
1139 config.lt is removed correctly now.
1141 * Languages changes:
1143 - subdir-object mode works now with Fortran (F77, FC, preprocessed
1144 Fortran, and Ratfor).
1146 - For files with extension .f90, .f95, .f03, or .f08, the flag
1147 $(FCFLAGS_f[09]x) computed by AC_FC_SRCEXT is now used in compile rules.
1149 - Files with extension .sx are also treated as preprocessed assembler.
1151 - The default source file extension (.c) can be overridden with
1152 AM_DEFAULT_SOURCE_EXT now.
1154 - Python 3.0 is supported now, Python releases prior to 2.0 are no
1157 - AM_PATH_PYTHON honors python's idea about the site directory.
1159 - There is initial support for the Vala programming language, when using
1160 Vala 0.7.0 or later.
1162 * Miscellaneous changes:
1164 - Automake development is done in a git repository on Savannah now, see
1166 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git
1168 A read-only CVS mirror is provided at
1170 cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@pserver.git.sv.gnu.org:/automake.git \
1171 checkout -d automake HEAD
1173 - "make dist" can now create xz-compressed tarballs,
1174 as well as (deprecated?) lzma-compressed tarballs.
1176 - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as
1177 COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file
1178 should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never
1179 overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing'
1182 - The manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
1184 - Automake ships and installs man pages for automake and aclocal now.
1186 - New shorthand `$(pkglibexecdir)' for `$(libexecdir)/@PACKAGE@'.
1188 - install-sh supports -C, which does not update the installed file
1189 (and its time stamps) if the contents did not change.
1191 - The `gnupload' script has been revamped.
1193 - The `depcomp' and `compile' scripts now work with MSVC under MSYS.
1195 - The targets `install' and `uninstall' are more efficient now, in that
1196 for example multiple files from one Automake variable such as
1197 `bin_SCRIPTS' are copied in one `install' (or `libtool --mode=install')
1198 invocation if they do not have to be renamed.
1200 Both install and uninstall may sometimes enter (`cd' into) the target
1201 installation directory now, when no build-local scripts are used.
1203 Both install and uninstall do not fail anymore but do nothing if an
1204 installation directory variable like `bindir' is set to the empty string.
1206 For built-in rules, `make install' now fails reliably if installation
1207 of a file failed. Conversely, `make uninstall' even succeeds when
1208 issued multiple times.
1210 These changes may need some adjustments from users: For example,
1211 some `install' programs refuse to install multiple copies of the
1212 same file in one invocation, so you may need to remove duplicate
1213 entries from file lists.
1215 Also, within one set of files, say, nobase_data_DATA, the order of
1216 installation may be changed, or even unstable among different hosts,
1217 due to the use of associative arrays in awk. The increased use of
1218 awk matches a similar move in Autoconf to provide for better scaling.
1220 Further, most undocumented per-rule install command variables such as
1221 binSCRIPT_INSTALL have been removed because they are not needed any
1222 more. Packages which use them should be using the appropriate one of
1223 INSTALL_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT} or their install_sh_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT}
1224 counterpart, depending on the type of files and the need for automatic
1225 target directory creation.
1227 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.m4 files is avoided by
1228 stub rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `aclocal'
1229 also if some previously needed macro file has been removed.
1231 - Rebuild rules now also work for a removed `subdir/Makefile.in' in
1232 an otherwise up to date tree.
1234 - The `color-tests' option causes colored test result output on terminals.
1236 - The `parallel-tests' option enables a new test driver that allows for
1237 parallel test execution, inter-test dependencies, lazy test execution
1238 for unit-testing, re-testing only failed tests, and formatted result output
1239 as RST (reStructuredText) and HTML. Enabling this option may require some
1240 changes to your test suite setup; see the manual for details.
1242 - The `silent-rules' option enables Linux kernel-style silent build output.
1243 This option requires the widely supported but non-POSIX `make' feature
1244 of recursive variable expansion, so do not use it if your package needs
1245 to build with `make' implementations that do not support it.
1247 To enable less verbose build output, the developer has to use the Automake
1248 option `silent-rules' in `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE', or call the `AM_SILENT_RULES'
1249 macro. The user may then set the default verbosity by passing the
1250 `--enable-silent-rules' option to `configure'. At `make' run time, this
1251 default may be overridden using `make V=0' for less verbose, and `make V=1'
1252 for backward-compatible verbose output.
1254 - New prefix `notrans_' for manpages which should not be transformed
1255 by --program-transform.
1257 - New macro AM_COND_IF for conditional evaluation and conditional
1260 - For AC_CONFIG_LINKS, if source and destination are equal, do not
1261 remove the file in a non-VPATH build. Such setups work with Autoconf
1264 - AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now allows for an optional argument specifying
1265 the default setting.
1267 - AM_SUBST_NOTMAKE may prevent substitution of AC_SUBSTed variables,
1268 useful especially for multi-line values.
1270 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now diagnoses an
1271 unsafe absolute source directory name and makes configure fail.
1273 - The Automake macros and rules cope better with whitespace in the
1274 current directory name, as long as the relative path to `configure'
1275 does not contain whitespace. To this end, the values of `$(MISSING)'
1276 and `$(install_sh)' may contain suitable quoting, and their expansion
1277 might need `eval'uation if used outside of a makefile. These
1278 undocumented variables may be used in several documented macros such
1279 as $(AUTOCONF) or $(MAKEINFO).
1283 * Long-standing bugs:
1285 - Fix aix dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1287 - Work around AIX sh quoting issue in AC_PROG_CC_C_O, leading to
1288 unnecessary use of the `compile' script.
1290 - For nobase_*_LTLIBRARIES with nonempty directory components, the
1291 correct `-rpath' argument is used now.
1293 - `config.status --file=Makefile depfiles' now also works with the
1294 extra quoting used internally by Autoconf 2.62 and newer
1295 (it used to work only without the `--file=' bit).
1297 - The `missing' script works better with versioned tool names.
1299 - Semantics for `missing help2man' have been revamped:
1301 Previously, if `help2man' was not present, `missing help2man' would have
1302 the following semantics: if some man page was out of date but present, then
1303 a warning would be printed, but the exit status was 0. If the man page was
1304 not present at all, then `missing' would create a replacement man page
1305 containing an error message, and exit with a status of 2. This does not play
1306 well with `make': the next run will see this particular man page as being up
1307 to date, and will only error out on the next generated man page, if any;
1308 repeat until all pages are done. This was not desirable.
1310 These are the new semantics: if some man page is not present, and help2man
1311 is not either, then `missing' will warn and generate the replacement page
1312 containing the error message, but exit successfully. However, `make dist'
1313 will ensure that no such bogus man pages are packaged into a tarball.
1315 - Targets provided by automake behave better with `make -n', in that they
1316 take care not to create files.
1318 - `config.status Makefile... depfiles' works fine again in the presence of
1319 disabled dependency tracking.
1321 - The default no-op recursive rules for these targets also work with BSD make
1322 now: html, install-html, install-dvi, install-pdf, install-pdf, install-info.
1324 - `make distcheck' works also when both a directory and some file below it
1325 have been added to a distribution variable, such as EXTRA_DIST or *_SOURCES.
1327 - Texinfo dvi, ps, pdf, and html output files are not removed upon
1328 `make mostlyclean' any more; only the LaTeX by-products are.
1330 - Renamed objects also work with the `subdir-objects' option and
1331 source file languages which Automake does not know itself.
1333 - `automake' now correctly complains about variable assignments which are
1334 preceded by a comment, extend over multiple lines with backslash-escaped
1335 newlines, and end in a comment sign. Previous versions would silently
1336 and wrongly ignore such assignments completely.
1338 * Bugs introduced by 1.10:
1340 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
1341 Makefile.in's again, but also cope with long lines.
1343 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of XFAIL_TESTS
1344 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1345 This is for consistency with the analogous change to TESTS in 1.10.
1347 - Fix order of standard includes to again be `-I. -I$(srcdir)',
1348 followed by directories containing config headers.
1350 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1354 * Version requirements:
1356 - Autoconf 2.60 or greater is required.
1358 - Perl 5.6 or greater is required.
1360 * Changes to aclocal:
1362 - aclocal now also supports -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble options.
1364 - `dirlist' entries (for the aclocal search path) may use shell
1365 wildcards such as `*', `?', or `[...]'.
1367 - aclocal supports an --install option that will cause system-wide
1368 third-party macros to be installed in the local directory
1369 specified with the first -I flag. This option also uses #serial
1370 lines in M4 files to upgrade local macros.
1372 The new aclocal options --dry-run and --diff help to review changes
1373 before they are installed.
1375 - aclocal now outputs an autoconf version check in aclocal.m4 in
1376 projects using automake.
1378 For a few years, automake and aclocal have been calling autoconf
1379 (or its underlying engine autom4te) to accurately retrieve the
1380 data they need from configure.ac and its siblings. Doing so can
1381 only work if all autotools use the same version of autoconf. For
1382 instance a Makefile.in generated by automake for one version of
1383 autoconf may stop working if configure is regenerated with another
1384 version of autoconf, and vice versa.
1386 This new version check ensures that the whole build system has
1387 been generated using the same autoconf version.
1389 * Support for new Autoconf macros:
1391 - The new AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE Autoconf macro is supported.
1393 - If `subdir-objects' is set, and AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR is specified,
1394 $(LIBOBJS), $(LTLIBOBJS), $(ALLOCA), and $(LTALLOCA) can be used
1395 in different directories. However, only one instance of such a
1396 library objects directory is supported.
1398 * Change to Libtool support:
1400 - Libtool generic flags (those that go before the --mode=MODE option)
1401 can be specified using AM_LIBTOOLFLAGS and target_LIBTOOLFLAGS.
1403 * Yacc and Lex changes:
1405 - The rebuild rules for distributed Yacc and Lex output will avoid
1406 overwriting existing files if AM_MAINTAINER_MODE and maintainer-mode
1409 - ylwrap is now always used for lex and yacc source files,
1410 regardless of whether there is more than one source per directory.
1412 * Languages changes:
1414 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now honors CPPFLAGS,
1415 AM_CPPFLAGS and per-target _CPPFLAGS, and supports dependency
1416 tracking, unlike non-preprocessed assembler (*.s).
1418 - subdir-object mode works now with Assembler. Automake assumes
1419 that the compiler understands `-c -o'.
1421 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now also honors
1422 $(DEFS) $(DEFAULT_INCLUDES) $(INCLUDES).
1424 - Improved support for Objective C:
1425 - Autoconf's new AC_PROG_OBJC will enable automatic dependency tracking.
1426 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1428 - New support for Unified Parallel C:
1429 - AM_PROG_UPC looks for a UPC compiler.
1430 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1432 - Per-target flags are now correctly handled in link rules.
1434 For instance maude_CFLAGS correctly overrides AM_CFLAGS; likewise
1435 for maude_LDFLAGS and AM_LDFLAGS. Previous versions bogusly
1436 preferred AM_CFLAGS over maude_CFLAGS while linking, and they
1437 used both AM_LDFLAGS and maude_LDFLAGS on the same link command.
1439 The fix for compiler flags (i.e., using maude_CFLAGS instead of
1440 AM_CFLAGS) should not hurt any package since that is how _CFLAGS
1441 is expected to work (and actually works during compilation).
1443 However using maude_LDFLAGS "instead of" AM_LDFLAGS rather than
1444 "in addition to" breaks backward compatibility with older versions.
1445 If your package used both variables, as in
1447 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1448 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1449 a_LDFLAGS = more flags
1452 and assumed *_LDFLAGS would sum up, you should rewrite it as
1454 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1455 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1456 a_LDFLAGS = $(AM_LDFLAGS) more flags
1459 This new behavior of *_LDFLAGS is more coherent with other
1460 per-target variables, and the way *_LDFLAGS variables were
1461 considered internally.
1463 * New installation targets:
1465 - New targets mandated by GNU Coding Standards:
1470 By default they will only install Texinfo manuals.
1471 You can customize them with *-local variants:
1477 - The undocumented recursive target `uninstall-info' no longer exists.
1478 (`uninstall' is in charge of removing all possible documentation
1479 flavors, including optional formats such as dvi, ps, or info even
1480 when `no-installinfo' is used.)
1482 * Miscellaneous changes:
1484 - Automake no longer complains if input files for AC_CONFIG_FILES
1485 are specified using shell variables.
1487 - clean, distribution, or rebuild rules are normally disabled for
1488 inputs and outputs of AC_CONFIG_FILES, AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, and
1489 AC_CONFIG_LINK specified using shell variables. However, if these
1490 variables are used as ${VAR}, and AC_SUBSTed, then Automake will
1491 be able to output rules anyway.
1492 (See the Automake documentation for AC_CONFIG_FILES.)
1494 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of TESTS
1495 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1496 This is mostly useful when some check_PROGRAMS are listed in TESTS.
1498 - `-Wportability' has finally been turned on by default for `gnu' and
1499 `gnits' strictness. This means, automake will complain about %-rules
1500 or $(GNU Make functions) unless you switch to `foreign' strictness or
1501 use `-Wno-portability'.
1503 - Automake now uses AC_PROG_MKDIR_P (new in Autoconf 2.60), and uses
1504 $(MKDIR_P) instead of $(mkdir_p) to create directories. The
1505 $(mkdir_p) variable is still defined (to the same value as
1506 $(MKDIR_P)) but should be considered obsolete. If you are using
1507 $(mkdir_p) in some of your rules, please plan to update them to
1508 $(MKDIR_P) at some point.
1510 - AM_C_PROTOTYPES and ansi2knr are now documented as being obsolete.
1511 They still work in this release, but may be withdrawn in a future one.
1513 - Inline compilation rules for gcc3-style dependency tracking are
1516 - Automake installs a "Hello World!" example package in $(docdir).
1517 This example is used throughout the new "Autotools Introduction"
1518 chapter of the manual.
1520 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1524 * Makefile.in bloat reduction:
1526 - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
1527 the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
1528 used. This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
1529 Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
1532 - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
1533 object that must be built with explicit rules. It just outputs
1534 the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
1535 the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
1538 * Change to Libtool support:
1540 - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
1541 (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)
1543 - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
1544 conditionally installed in different directories, as in
1547 lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1549 pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1551 liba_la_SOURCES = ...
1553 * Changes to aclocal:
1555 - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
1556 really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
1557 This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
1558 Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
1559 *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
1560 (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
1561 most famous instance of this bug.)
1563 - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
1564 that are not actually used. In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
1565 determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
1566 only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
1567 all of them to be present in order to run. This created
1568 situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
1569 all the macros it uses. For instance running aclocal on a project
1570 containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
1571 project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
1574 * Portability improvements:
1576 - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
1577 tar-pax. The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
1578 filenames that are too long for tar-v7. (PR/414)
1580 - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
1581 trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
1582 (adding trailing backslashes). In previous versions, a long series
1588 would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
1589 exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.
1591 Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
1596 - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
1597 Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
1598 F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
1599 Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).
1601 - Support for conditional _LISP.
1603 - Support for conditional -hook and -local rules (PR/428).
1605 - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)
1607 - Automake will not write any Makefile.ins after the first error it
1608 encounters. The previous Makefile.ins (if any) will be left in
1609 place. (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
1610 be turned into errors with -Werror.)
1612 - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
1615 - The manual tells more about SUBDIRS vs. DIST_SUBDIRS.
1616 It also gives an example of nested packages using AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS.
1618 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1620 Bugs fixed in 1.8.5:
1622 * Long-standing bugs:
1624 - Define DIST_SUBDIRS even when the `no-dist' or `cygnus' options are used
1625 so that `make distclean' and `make maintainer-clean' can work.
1627 - Define AR and ARFLAGS even when only EXTRA_LIBRARIES are defined.
1629 - Fix many rules to please FreeBSD make, which runs commands with `sh -e'.
1631 - Polish diagnostic when no input file is found.
1633 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1635 Bugs fixed in 1.8.4:
1637 * Long-standing bugs:
1639 - Fix AM_PATH_PYTHON to correctly display $PYTHON when it has been
1640 overridden by the user.
1642 - Honor PATH_SEPARATOR in various places of the Automake package, for
1645 - Adjust dependency tracking mode detection to ICC 8.0's new output.
1648 - Fix install-sh so it can install the `mv' binary... using `mv'.
1650 - Fix tru64 dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1652 - Work around Exuberant Ctags when creating a TAGS files in a directory
1653 without files to scan but with subdirectories to include.
1655 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1657 - Fix an "internal error" when @LIBOBJS@ is used in a variable that is
1658 not defined in the same conditions as the _LDADD that uses it.
1660 - Do not warn when JAVAROOT is overridden, this is legitimate.
1662 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1664 Bugs fixed in 1.8.3:
1666 * Long-standing bugs:
1668 - Quote filenames in installation rules, in case $DESTDIR, $prefix,
1669 or any of the other *dir variables contain a space.
1671 Please note that Automake does not and cannot support spaces in
1672 filenames that are involved during the build. This change affects
1673 only installation paths, so that `make install' does not bomb out
1674 in packages configured with
1675 ./configure --prefix '/c/Program Files'
1677 - Fix the depfiles output so it works with GNU sed (<4.1) even when
1678 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
1680 - Do not AC_SUBST(LIBOBJS) in AM_WITH_REGEX. This macro was unusable
1681 since Autoconf 2.54, which defines LIBOBJS itself.
1683 - Fix a potential (but unlikely) race condition in parallel elisp
1684 builds. (Introduced in 1.7.3.)
1686 - Do not assume that users override _DEPENDENCIES in all conditions
1687 where Automake will try to define them.
1689 - Do not use `mkdir -p' in mkinstalldirs, unless this is GNU mkdir.
1690 Solaris 8's `mkdir -p' is not thread-safe and can break parallel
1693 This fix also affects the $(mkdir_p) variable defined since
1694 Automake 1.8. It will be set to `mkdir -p' only if mkdir is GNU
1695 mkdir, and to `mkinstalldirs' or `install-sh -d' otherwise.
1697 - Secure temporary directory creation in `make distcheck'. (PR/413)
1699 - Do not generate two build rules for `parser.h' when the
1700 parser appears in two different conditionals.
1702 - Work around a Solaris 8 /bin/sh bug in the test for dependency
1703 checking. Usually ./configure will not pick this shell; so this
1704 fix only helps cases where the shell is forced to /bin/sh.
1706 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1708 - In some situations (hand-written `m4_include's), aclocal would
1709 call the `File::Spec->rel2abs' method, which was only introduced
1710 in Perl 5.6. This new version reestablish support Perl 5.005.
1712 It is likely that the next major Automake releases will require at
1713 least Perl 5.6. Consider upgrading your development environment
1714 if you are still using the five-year-old Perl 5.005.
1716 - Automake would sometimes fail to define rules for targets listed
1717 in variables defined in multiple conditions. For instance on
1723 it would define only the `a.$(OBJEXT): a.c' rule and omit the
1724 `b.$(OBJEXT): b.c' rule.
1726 * New sections in manual:
1728 - Third-Party Makefiles: how to interface third party Makefiles.
1729 - Upgrading: upgrading packages to newer Automake versions.
1730 - Multiple Outputs: handling tools that produce many outputs.
1732 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1736 * A (well known) portability bug slipped in the changes made to
1737 install-sh in Automake 1.8.1. The broken install-sh would refuse to
1738 install anything on Tru64.
1740 * Fix install rules for conditionally built python files. (This never
1743 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1747 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1749 - Fix Config.pm import error with old Perl versions (at least
1750 5.005_03). One symptom is that aclocal could not find its macro
1753 - Automake 1.8 used `mkdir -m 0755 -p --' to ensure that directories
1754 created by `make install' are always world readable, even if the
1755 installer happens to have an overly restrictive umask (e.g. 077).
1756 This was a mistake and has been reverted. There are at least two
1757 reasons why we must not use `-m 0755':
1758 - it causes special bits like SGID to be ignored,
1759 - it may be too restrictive (some setups expect 775 directories).
1761 - Fix aclocal to honor definitions located in files which have been
1762 m4_included manually. aclocal 1.8 had been updated to check
1763 m4_included files for new requirements, but forgot that these
1764 m4_included files can also provide new definitions.
1766 Note that if you have such a setup, we recommend you get rid of
1767 it. In the past, there was a reason to m4_include files manually:
1768 aclocal used to duplicate entire M4 files into aclocal.m4, even
1769 files that were distributed. Some packages were therefore
1770 m4_including the distributed file directly, and playing some
1771 tricks to ensure aclocal would not copy that file to aclocal.m4,
1772 in order to limit the amount of duplication. Since aclocal 1.8.x
1773 will precisely output m4_includes for local M4 files, we recommend
1774 that you clean up your setup, removing all manual m4_includes and
1775 letting aclocal output them.
1777 - Output detailed menus in the Info version if the Automake manual,
1778 so that Emacs can locate the indexes.
1780 - configure.ac and configure were listed twice in DIST_COMMON (an
1781 internal variable where Automake lists configury files to
1782 distribute). This was harmless, but unaesthetic.
1784 - Use `chmod a-w' instead of `chmod -w' as the latter honors umask.
1785 This was an issue only in the Automake package itself, not in
1788 - Automake assumed that all AC_CONFIG_LINKS arguments had the form
1789 DEST:SRC. This was wrong, as some packages do
1790 AC_CONFIG_LINKS($computedlinks). This version no longer abort in
1793 - Contrary to mkinstalldirs, $(mkdir_p) was expecting exactly one
1794 argument. This caused two kinds of failures:
1795 - Rules installing data in a conditionally defined directory
1796 failed when that directory was undefined. In this case no
1797 argument was supplied.
1798 - `make installdirs' failed, because several directories were
1799 passed to $(mkdir_p). This was an issue only on platform
1800 were $(mkdir_p) is implemented with `install-sh -d'.
1801 $(mkdir_p) as been changed to accept 0 or more arguments, as
1804 * Long-standing bugs:
1806 - Fix an unexpected diagnostic occurring when users attempt
1807 to override some internal variables that Automake appends to.
1809 - aclocal now scans configure.ac for macro definitions (PR/319).
1811 - Fix a portability issue with OSF1/Tru64 Make. If a directory
1812 distributes files which are outside itself (this usually occurs
1813 when using AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([../dir]) to use auxiliary files
1814 from a parent package), then `make distcheck' fails due to an
1815 optimization performed by OSF1/Tru64 Make in its VPATH handling.
1816 (tests/subpkg2.test failure)
1818 - Fix another portability issue with Sun and OSF1/Tru64 Make.
1819 In a VPATH-build configuration, `make install' would install
1820 nobase_ files to wrong locations.
1822 - Fix a Perl `uninitialized value' diagnostic occurring when
1823 automake complains that a Texinfo file does not have a
1824 @setfilename statement.
1826 - Erase config.status.lineno during `make distclean'. This file
1827 can be created by config.status. Automake already knew about
1828 configure.lineno, but forgot config.status.lineno.
1830 - Distribute all files, even those which are built and installed
1831 conditionally. This change affects files listed in conditionally
1832 defined *_HEADERS and *_PYTHON variable (unless they are nodist_*)
1833 as well as those listed in conditionally defined dist_*_DATA,
1834 dist_*_JAVA, dist_*_LISP, and dist_*_SCRIPTS variables.
1836 - Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to avoid \? in sed regular expressions; it
1837 doesn't conform to POSIX.
1839 - Normalize help strings for configure variables and options added
1844 - Check for python2.4 in AM_PATH_PYTHON.
1846 * Spurious failures in test suite:
1848 - tests/libtool5.test, tests/ltcond.test, tests/ltcond2.test,
1849 tests/ltconv.test: fix failures with CVS Libtool.
1850 - tests/aclocal6.test: fix failure if autom4te.cache is disabled.
1851 - tests/txinfo24.test, tests/txinfo25.test, tests/txinfo28.test:
1852 fix failures with old Texinfo versions.
1854 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1860 - The NEWS file is more verbose.
1864 - Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
1868 - Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES declaration
1869 are made by removing any target extension before appending `.c', so
1870 to make the libtool module `foo.la' from `foo.c', you only need to
1873 lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
1874 foo_la_LDFLAGS = -module
1876 For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
1877 foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
1878 However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.
1880 - AR's `cru' flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable instead
1881 of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can be
1882 substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
1883 dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
1885 - New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
1886 target or variable definitions which override Automake
1889 - Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo fails.
1891 - Texinfo rules now support the `html' target.
1892 Running this requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.
1894 `html' is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
1895 hand-crafted `Makefile.in's with Automake-generated
1896 `Makefile.in's, you should adjust the former to support (or
1897 ignore) this target so that `make html' recurses successfully. If
1898 you had a custom `html' rule in your `Makefile.am', it's better to
1899 rename it as `html-local', otherwise your rule will override
1900 Automake's new rule (you can check that by running `automake
1901 -Woverride') and that will stop the recursion to subdirectories.
1903 Last but not least, this `html' rule is declared PHONY, even when
1904 overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
1905 non-PHONY `html' rule.
1907 - Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as a
1908 configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
1911 - The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
1912 rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
1913 configure's dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
1914 than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
1915 were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
1916 change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
1917 friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
1918 rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
1919 tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
1921 - For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
1922 config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
1923 Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
1924 CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
1925 should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
1926 using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
1927 $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different
1928 levels of the build tree).
1930 - aclocal will now use `m4_include' instead of copying local m4
1931 files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with
1932 your project, other files will be copied as usual.)
1934 Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it means
1935 for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list of
1936 m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
1937 m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)
1939 - aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
1940 Autom4te's cache isn't needlessly invalidated. This behavior can
1941 be switched off with the new `--force' option.
1943 - aclocal now uses Autoconf's --trace to detect macros which are
1944 actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
1945 because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
1946 called conditionally.
1948 - New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
1950 - compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, mkinstalldirs,
1951 py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand --version and --help.
1953 - Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing created
1954 links as part of the distclean target and including source files in
1957 - AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND
1958 argument. The latter can be used to override the default behavior
1959 (which is to abort).
1961 - Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
1962 Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will
1963 emulate the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions
1964 of Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change
1965 will only be useful in projects generated with future versions of
1968 - When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
1969 generates the first ".in" input file for which a ".am" exists.
1970 (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
1972 - lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
1973 idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
1974 recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that
1975 this is not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp
1976 files even if emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not
1977 install anything unless emacs is found.
1979 - Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p' over mkinstalldirs if it is
1980 available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile
1981 variable $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either
1982 `mkdir -m 0755 -p --', `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755', or
1983 `$(install_sh) -m 0755 -d'.
1987 - Because `mkdir -p' is available on most platforms, and we can use
1988 `install-sh -d' when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
1989 script is being phased out. `automake --add-missing' no longer
1990 installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
1991 automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).
1993 Gettext 0.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
1994 gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake
1995 will continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
1996 mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.
1998 - AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
1999 merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cv_prog_cc_stdc, you
2000 should adjust it to use $ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc instead. (This
2001 renaming should be safe, even if you have to support several,
2002 versions of Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable
2003 since Autoconf 2.54.)
2005 - Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
2006 variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
2007 (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake
2008 now tracks configure's m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
2009 above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered
2010 obsolete and will be flagged as such when running `automake
2015 - Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
2016 longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following
2017 construct used to be troublesome when used with dozens of
2032 Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.
2034 - Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of Automake
2035 proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some variables
2045 All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected.
2046 This restriction has been lifted, and these variables now
2047 support multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.
2049 - Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
2050 $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution
2051 directory created during `make dist', as it did in Automake 1.4,
2052 not to the root of the build tree as it did in intervening
2053 versions. Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in
2054 the top level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running
2057 - The --no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in's
2058 dependencies before deciding not to update it.
2060 - Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning rules.
2062 - Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree. This
2063 is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
2064 used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
2065 it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
2066 from mere annoyance to portability issues.
2068 - COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer overwritten
2069 when --add-missing and --force-missing are used. For backward
2070 compatibility --add-missing will continue to install COPYING (in
2071 `gnu' strictness) when none of these three files exist, but this
2072 use is deprecated: you should better choose a license yourself and
2073 install it once for all in your source tree (and in your code
2076 - Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that haven't
2077 changed, as the inline rule already does.
2079 - User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
2080 targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new
2081 (and was documented), however some of the automake-generated
2082 rules have escaped this principle in former Automake versions.
2083 Rules for the following targets are affected by this fix:
2085 clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
2086 info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
2087 install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
2088 maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am,
2089 ps, ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man
2091 Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the dependencies
2092 of some target, as in
2094 clean: my-clean-rule
2096 will now *silently override* the automake definition of the
2097 rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride' will diagnose
2098 all such overriding definitions.
2100 It should be noted that almost all of these targets support a *-local
2101 variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined rule
2102 (See node `Extending' in the manual). The above rule should
2105 clean-local: my-clean-rule
2107 These *-local targets have been documented since at least
2108 Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have
2109 to support multiple automake versions.
2113 - The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
2115 - Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always defined.
2117 - core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There are
2118 at least three reasons for this:
2119 1. These files should not be created by any build step,
2120 so their removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules.
2121 Actually, they may be precious to the developer.
2122 2. If such file is created during a build, then it's clearly a
2123 bug Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will
2124 cause `make distcheck' to complain about its presence.
2125 3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for
2126 core dump files. A core file on one system might be a
2127 completely legitimate data file on another system.
2129 - RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
2130 defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
2131 environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
2132 on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
2133 defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
2134 AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
2136 - CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
2137 documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have
2138 been there since at least Automake 1.4.)
2140 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2142 Bugs fixed in 1.7.9:
2143 * Fix install-strip to work with nobase_ binaries.
2144 * Fix renaming of #line directives in ylwrap.
2145 * Rebuild with Autoconf 2.59. (1.7.8 was not installable with pdksh.)
2147 Bugs fixed in 1.7.8:
2148 * Remove spurious blank lines in cleaning rules introduced in 1.7.7.
2149 * Fix detection of Debian's install-info, broken since version 1.5.
2150 (Debian bug #213524).
2151 * Honor -module if it appears in AM_LDFLAGS (i.e., relax name checking)
2152 This was only done for libfoo_LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS in previous versions.
2154 Bugs fixed in 1.7.7:
2155 * The implementation of automake's --no-force option is unreliable,
2156 so this option is ignored in this version. A real fix will appear in
2157 Automake 1.8. (Debian Bug #206299)
2158 * AM_PATH_PYTHON: really check the whole list of interpreters if no
2159 argument is given. (PR/399)
2160 * Do not warn about leading `_' in variable names, even with -Wportability.
2161 * Support user redefinitions of TEXINFO_TEX.
2162 * depcomp: support AIX Compiler version 6.
2163 * Fix missing rebuilds during `make dist' with BSD make.
2164 (Could produce tarballs containing out-of-date files.)
2165 * Resurrect multilib support.
2166 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2167 - Extending aclocal: how to write m4 macros that won't trigger warnings
2169 - A Shared Library: Rewrite and split into subsections.
2171 Bugs fixed in 1.7.6:
2172 * Fix depcomp's icc mode for ICC 7.1.
2173 * Diagnose calls to AC_CONFIG_FILES and friends with not enough arguments.
2174 * Fix maintainer-clean's removal of autom4te.cache in VPATH builds.
2175 * Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to work with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2176 * Fix the location reported in some diagnostics related to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
2177 * Remove Latin-1 characters from elisp-comp.
2178 * Update the manual's @dircategory to match the Free Software Directory.
2180 Bugs fixed in 1.7.5:
2181 * Update install-sh's license to remove an advertising clause.
2182 (Debian bug #191717)
2183 * Fix a bug introduced in 1.7.4, related to BUILT_SOURCE handling,
2184 that caused invalid Makefile.ins to be generated.
2185 * Make sure AM_MAKE_INCLUDE doesn't fail when a `doit' file exists.
2186 * New FAQ entry: renamed objects.
2188 Bugs fixed in 1.7.4:
2189 * Tweak the TAGS rule to support Exuberant Ctags (in addition to
2190 the Emacs implementation)
2191 * Fix output of aclocal.m4 dependencies in subdirectories.
2192 * Use `mv -f' instead of `mv' in fastdep rules.
2193 * Upgrade mdate-sh to work on OS/2.
2194 * Don't byte-compile elisp files when ELCFILES is set empty.
2195 (this documented feature was broken by 1.7.3)
2196 * Diagnose trailing backslashes on last line of Makefile.am.
2197 * Diagnose whitespace following trailing backslashes.
2198 * Multiple tests are now correctly supported in DEJATOOL. (PR/388)
2199 * Fix rebuilt rules for AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.bot])
2201 * `make install' will build `BUILT_SOURCES' first.
2202 * Minor documentation fixes.
2204 Bugs fixed in 1.7.3:
2205 * Fix stamp files numbering (when using multiple AC_CONFIG_HEADERS).
2206 * Query distutils for `pythondir' and `pythonexecdir', instead of
2207 using an hardcoded path. This should allow builds on 64-bit
2208 distributions that usually use lib64/ instead of lib/.
2209 * AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for python2.3.
2210 * elisp files are now built all at once instead of one by one. Besides
2211 incurring a speed-up, this is required to support interdependent elisp files.
2212 * Support for DJGPP:
2213 - `make distcheck' will now work in `_inst/' and `_build' instead
2214 of `=inst/' and `=build/'
2215 - use `_dirstamp' when the file-system doesn't support `.dirstamp'
2216 - install/uninstall `*.i[0-9][0-9]'-style info files
2217 - more changes that affect only the Automake package (not its output)
2218 * Fix some incompatibilities with upcoming perl-5.10.
2219 * Properly quote AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME and AC_PACKAGE_VERSION when defining
2220 PACKAGE and VERSION.
2222 - dashmstdout and dashXmstdout modes: don't use `-o /dev/null', this
2223 is troublesome with gcc and Solaris compilers. (PR/385)
2224 - makedepend mode: work with Libtool. (PR/385 too)
2226 * better support for unusual gettext setups, such as multiple po/ directories
2228 - Flag missing po/ and intl/ directories as warnings, not errors.
2229 - Disable these warnings if po/ does not exist.
2230 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2232 - Document how AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR interacts with missing files.
2234 - Document `AM_YFLAGS = -d'. (PR/382)
2236 Bugs fixed in 1.7.2:
2237 * Fix installation and uninstallation of Info files built in subdirectories.
2238 * Do not run `./configure --with-included-gettext' during `make distcheck'
2239 if AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) is used.
2240 * Correctly uninstall renamed man pages.
2241 * Do not strip escaped newline in variables defined in one condition
2242 and augmented in another condition.
2243 * Fix ansi2knr rules for LIBOBJS sources.
2244 * Clean all known Texinfo index files, not only those which appear to
2245 be used, because we cannot know which indexes are used in included files.
2246 (PR/375, Debian Bug #168671)
2247 * Honor only the first @setfilename seen in a Texinfo file.
2248 * Treat "required file X not found" diagnostics as errors (exit status 1).
2249 * Don't complain that a required file is not found when it is a Makefile
2251 * Don't use single suffix inference rules when building `.info'-less
2252 Info files, for the sake of Solaris make.
2253 * The `check' target now depends on `$(BUILT_SOURCES)'. (PR/359)
2254 * Recognize multiple inference rules such as `.a.b .c.d:'. (PR/371)
2255 * Warn about multiple inference rules when -Wportability is used. (PR/372)
2256 * Fix building of deansified files from subdirectories. (PR/370)
2257 * Add missing `fi' in the .c->.obj rules.
2258 * Improve install-sh to work even when names contain spaces or certain
2259 (but not all) shell metachars.
2260 * Fix the following spurious failures in the test suite:
2261 depcomp2.test, gnits2.test, gnits3.test, python3.test, texinfo13.test
2262 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2263 - Augment the section about BUILT_SOURCES.
2264 - Mention that AM_PROG_CC_STDC is a relic that is better avoided today.
2266 Bugs fixed in 1.7.1:
2267 * Honor `ansi2knr' for files built in subdirectories, or using per-targets
2269 * Aclocal should now recognize macro names containing parentheses, e.g.
2270 AC_DEFUN([AC_LANG_PREPROC(Fortran 90)], [...]).
2271 * Erase *.sum and *.log files created by DejaGnu, during `make distclean'.
2273 * Install Python files even if they were built. (PR/369)
2274 * Have stamp-vti dependent upon configure instead of configure.ac, as the
2275 version might not be defined in the latter. (PR/358)
2276 * Reorder arguments passed to a couple of commands, so things works
2277 when POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2278 * Fix a regex that can cause Perl to segfault on large input.
2280 * Fix distribution of packages that have some sources defined conditionally,
2281 as in the `Conditional compilation using Automake conditionals' example
2283 * Fix spurious test suite failures on IRIX.
2284 * Don't report a required variable as undefined if it has been
2285 defined conditionally for the "right" conditions.
2286 * Fix cleaning of the /tmp subdirectory used by `make distcheck', in case
2287 `make distcheck' fails.
2288 * Fix distribution of included Makefile fragment, so we don't create
2289 spurious directories in the distribution. (PR/366)
2290 * Don't complain that a target lacks `.$(EXEEXT)' when it has it.
2293 * Autoconf 2.54 is required.
2294 * `aclocal' and `automake' will no longer warn about obsolete
2295 configure macros. This is done by `autoconf -Wobsolete'.
2296 * AM_CONFIG_HEADER, AM_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS and
2297 AM_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ_NEEDS_SYS_IOCTL are obsolete (although still
2298 supported). You should use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS,
2299 and AC_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ instead. `autoupdate' can upgrade
2300 `configure.ac' for you.
2301 * Support for per-program and per-library `_CPPFLAGS'.
2302 * New `ctags' target (builds CTAGS files).
2303 * Support for -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble, where mumble is a warning category
2304 (see `automake --help' or the manual for a list of them).
2305 * Honor the WARNINGS environment variable.
2306 * Omit the call to depcomp when using gcc3: call the compiler directly.
2307 * A new option, std-options, tests that programs support --help and --version
2308 when `make installcheck' is run. This is enabled by --gnits.
2309 * Texinfo rules now support the `ps' and `pdf' targets.
2310 * Info files are now created in the build directory, not the source directory.
2311 * info_TEXINFOS supports files in subdirectories (this requires Texinfo 4.1
2313 * `make distcheck' will enforce DESTDIR support by attempting
2315 * `+=' can be used in conditionals, even if the augmented variable
2316 was defined for another condition.
2317 * Makefile fragments (inserted with `include') are always distributed.
2318 * Use Autoconf's --trace interface to inspect configure.ac and get
2319 a more accurate view of it.
2320 * Add support for extending aclocal's default macro search path
2321 using a `dirlist' file within the aclocal directory.
2322 * automake --output-dir is deprecated.
2323 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether uninstall actually
2324 removes all installed files has been moved in a separate target,
2325 distuninstallcheck, so it can be overridden easily.
2329 * Support for AM_INIT_GETTEXT([external])
2330 * Bug fixes, including:
2331 - Fix Automake's own `make install' so it works even if `ln' doesn't.
2332 - nobase_ programs and scripts honor --program-transform correctly.
2333 - Erase configure.lineno during `make distclean'.
2334 - Erase YACC and LEX outputs during `make maintainer-clean'.
2337 * Many bug fixes, including:
2338 - Requiring the current version works.
2339 - Fix "$@" portability issues (for Zsh).
2340 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
2342 - Don't compute dependencies in background to avoid races with libtool.
2343 - Fix handling of _OBJECTS variables for targets sharing source variables.
2344 - Check dependency mode for Java when AM_PROG_GCJ is used.
2347 * automake --output-dir is deprecated
2348 * Many bug fixes, including:
2349 - Don't choke on AM_LDFLAGS definitions.
2350 - Clean libtool objects from subdirectories.
2351 - Allow configure variables with reserved suffix and unknown prefix
2352 (e.g. AC_SUBST(mumble_LDFLAGS) when 'mumble' is not a target).
2353 - Fix the definition of AUTOMAKE and ACLOCAL in configure.
2356 * Autoconf 2.52 is required.
2357 * automake no longer run libtoolize.
2358 This is the job of autoreconf (from GNU Autoconf).
2359 * `dist' generates all the archive flavors, as did `dist-all'.
2360 * `dist-gzip' generates the Gzip tar file only.
2361 * Combining Automake Makefile conditionals no longer lead to a combinatorial
2362 explosion. Makefile.in's keep a reasonable size.
2363 * AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_STRTOD, AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, AM_PTRDIFF_T
2364 are no longer shipped, since Autoconf 2.52 provides them (both as AM_
2366 * `#line' of Lex and Yacc files are properly set.
2367 * EXTRA_DIST can contain generated directories.
2368 * Support for dot-less extensions in suffix rules.
2369 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether distclean actually
2370 cleans all built files has been moved in a separate target, distcleancheck,
2371 so it can be overridden easily.
2372 * `make distcheck' will pass additional options defined in
2373 $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) to configure.
2374 * Fixed CDPATH portability problems, in particular for MacOS X.
2375 * Fixed handling of nobase_ targets.
2376 * Fixed support of implicit rules leading to .lo objects.
2377 * Fixed late inclusion of --add-missing files (e.g. depcomp) in DIST_COMMON
2378 * Added uninstall-hook target
2379 * `AC_INIT AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tarname,version)' is an obsolete construct.
2380 You can now use `AC_INIT(pkgname,version) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE' instead.
2381 (Note that "pkgname" is not "tarname", see the manual for details.)
2382 It is also possible to pass a list of global Automake options as
2383 first argument to this new form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
2384 * Compiler-based assembler is now called `CCAS'; people expected `AS'
2385 to be a real assembler.
2386 * AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will set STRIP itself when it needs it. Adding
2387 AC_CHECK_TOOL([STRIP], [strip]) manually is no longer required.
2388 * aclocal and automake are also installed with the version number
2389 appended, and some of the install directory names have changed.
2390 This lets you have multiple versions installed simultaneously.
2391 * Support for parsers and lexers in subdirectories.
2394 * Support for `configure.ac'.
2395 * Support for `else COND', `endif COND' and negated conditions `!COND'.
2396 * `make dist-all' is much faster.
2397 * Allows '@' AC_SUBSTs in macro names.
2398 * Faster AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (requires update of `missing' script)
2399 * User-side dependency tracking. Developers no longer need GNU make
2401 * Uses DIST_SUBDIRS in some situations when SUBDIRS is conditional
2402 * Most files are correctly handled if they appear in subdirs
2403 For instance, a _DATA file can appear in a subdir
2404 * GNU tar is no longer required for `make dist'
2405 * Added support for `dist_' and `nodist_' prefixes
2406 * Added support for `nobase_' prefix
2407 * Compiled Java support
2408 * Support for per-executable and per-library compilation flags
2412 * Added support for the Fortran 77 programming language.
2413 * Re-indexed the Automake Texinfo manual.
2414 * Added `AM_FOOFLAGS' variable for each compiler invocation;
2415 e.g. AM_CFLAGS can be used in Makefile.am to set C compiler flags
2416 * Support for latest autoconf, including support for objext
2417 * Can now put `.' in SUBDIRS to control build order
2418 * `include' command and `+=' support for macro assignment
2419 * Dependency tracking no long susceptible to deleted header file problem
2420 * Maintainer mode now a conditional. @MAINT@ is now an anachronism.
2425 * Better Cygwin32 support
2426 * Support for suffix rules with _SOURCES variables
2427 * New options `readme-alpha' and `check-news'; Gnits mode sets these
2428 * @LEXLIB@ no longer required when lex source seen
2429 Lex support in `missing', and new lex macro. Update your missing script.
2430 * Built-in support for assembly
2431 * aclocal gives error if `AM_' macro not found
2432 * Passed YFLAGS, not YACCFLAGS, to yacc
2433 * AM_PROG_CC_STDC does not have to come before AC_PROG_CPP
2434 * Dependencies computed as a side effect of compilation
2435 * Preliminary support for Java
2436 * DESTDIR support at "make install" time
2437 * Improved ansi2knr support; you must use the latest ansi2knr.c (included)
2441 * Better DejaGnu support
2442 * Added no-installinfo option
2443 * Added Emacs Lisp support
2444 * Added --no-force option
2445 * Included `aclocal' program
2446 * Automake will now generate rules to regenerate aclocal.m4, if appropriate
2447 * Now uses `AM_' macro names everywhere
2448 * ansi2knr option can have directory prefix (eg `../lib/ansi2knr')
2449 ansi2knr now works correctly on K&R sources
2450 * Better C++, yacc, lex support
2451 * Will compute _DEPENDENCIES variables automatically if not supplied
2452 * Will interpolate $(...) and ${...} when examining contents of a variable
2453 * .deps files now in build directory, not source directory; dependency
2454 handling generally rewritten
2455 * DATA, MANS and BUILT_SOURCES no longer included in distribution
2456 * can now put config.h into a subdir
2457 * Added dist-all target
2458 * Support for install-info program (see texinfo 3.9)
2459 * Support for "yacc -d"
2460 * configure substitutions are automatically discovered and included
2461 in generated Makefile.in
2462 * Special --cygnus mode
2463 * OMIT_DEPENDENCIES can now hold list of dependencies to be omitted
2464 when making distribution. Some dependencies are auto-ignored.
2465 * Changed how libraries are specified in _LIBRARIES variable
2466 * Full libtool support, from Gord Matzigkeit
2467 * No longer have to explicitly touch stamp-h when using AC_CONFIG_HEADER;
2468 AM_CONFIG_HEADER handles it automatically
2469 * Texinfo output files no longer need .info extension
2470 * Added `missing' support
2472 * Conditionals in Makefile.am, from Ian Taylor
2476 * distcheck target runs install and installcheck targets
2477 * Added preliminary support for DejaGnu.
2482 * More libtool fixes from Gord Matzigkeit; libtool support is still
2484 * Added support for jm_MAINTAINER_MODE
2486 * New "distcheck" target
2490 * mkinstalldirs and mdate-sh now appear in directory specified by
2492 * Removed DIST_SUBDIRS, DIST_OTHER
2493 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM only required when an actual program exists
2494 * dist-hook target now run before distribution packaged up; idea from
2495 Dieter Baron. Other hooks exist, too.
2496 * Preliminary (unfinished) support for libtool
2497 * Added short option names.
2498 * Better "dist" support when gluing together multiple packages
2502 * Documentation updates (many from François Pinard)
2503 * strictness `normal' now renamed to `foreign'
2504 * Renamed --install-missing to --add-missing
2505 * Now handles AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR
2506 * Now handles TESTS macro
2507 * DIST_OTHER renamed to EXTRA_DIST
2508 * DIST_SUBDIRS is deprecated
2509 * @ALLOCA@ and @LIBOBJS@ now work in _LDADD variables
2510 * Better error messages in many cases
2511 * Program names are canonicalized
2512 * Added "check" prefix; from Gord Matzigkeit
2516 * configure.in scanner knows about AC_PATH_XTRA, AC_OUTPUT ":" syntax
2517 * Beginnings of a test suite
2518 * Automatically adds -I options for $(srcdir), ".", and path to config.h
2519 * Doesn't print anything when running
2520 * Beginnings of MAINT_CHARSET support
2521 * Can specify version in AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
2522 * Most errors recognizable by Emacs' M-x next-error
2523 * Added --verbose option
2524 * All "primary" variables now obsolete; use EXTRA_PRIMARY to supply
2525 configure-generated names
2526 * Required macros now distributed in aclocal.m4
2528 * --strictness=gnu is default
2532 * More sophisticated configure.in scanning; now understands ALLOCA and
2533 LIBOBJS directly, handles AC_CONFIG_HEADER more precisely, etc.
2534 * TEXINFOS and MANS now obsolete; use info_TEXINFOS and man_MANS instead.
2535 * CONFIG_HEADER variable now obsolete
2536 * Can handle multiple Texinfo sources
2537 * Allow hierarchies deeper than 2. From Gord Matzigkeit.
2538 * HEADERS variable no longer needed; now can put .h files directly into
2539 foo_SOURCES variable.
2540 * Automake automatically rebuilds files listed in AC_OUTPUT. The
2541 corresponding ".in" files are included in the distribution.
2544 * Added --gnu and --gnits options
2545 * More standards checking
2547 * Cleaned up 'dist' targets
2548 * Added AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable and several options
2549 * Now scans configure.in to get some information (preliminary)
2552 * Works with Perl 4 again
2555 * Added --install-missing option.
2556 * Pretty-prints generated macros and rules
2557 * Comments in Makefile.am are placed more intelligently in Makefile.in
2558 * Generates .PHONY target
2559 * Rule or macro in Makefile.am now overrides contents of Automake file
2560 * Substantial cleanups from François Pinard
2564 * Works with Perl 4 again.
2567 * New uniform naming scheme.
2568 * --strictness option
2570 * '.c' files corresponding to '.y' or '.l' files are automatically
2572 * Many bug fixes and cleanups
2575 * Allow objects to be conditionally included in libraries via lib_LIBADD.
2578 * Bug fixes in 'clean' code.
2579 * Now generates 'installdirs' target.
2580 * man page installation reworked.
2581 * 'make dist' no longer re-creates all Makefile.in's.
2584 * Reimplemented in Perl
2585 * Added --amdir option (for debugging)
2586 * Texinfo support cleaned up.
2587 * Automatic de-ANSI-fication cleaned up.
2588 * Cleaned up 'clean' targets.
2591 * Automatic dependency tracking
2592 * More documentation
2593 * New variables DATA and PACKAGEDATA
2594 * SCRIPTS installed using $(INSTALL_SCRIPT)
2595 * No longer uses double-colon rules
2597 * Changes in advance of internationalization
2601 Copyright (C) 1995-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2603 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
2604 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2605 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
2608 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2609 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2610 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2611 GNU General Public License for more details.
2613 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2614 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
projects / platform / upstream / automake.git / blob