1 Priorities for release:
2 !! documentation (eg new macros)
3 * copyrights on m4 files, aclocal output
5 * should not put texiname_TEXINFOS into distribution
6 should rename this macro anyway, to foo_texi_DEPENDENCIES
8 For now I guess I'll just have automake give an error if it encounters
9 non-C source in a libtool library specification.
11 * must split $obj into two parts: one for libtool and one for
12 deansification. Otherwise .S files will be deansified!
14 ================================================================
16 should clean up texinfos.am; one rule is repeated 3 times, but
19 should always use perl -w
26 * CONFIG_HEADER is passed incorrectly in ":" mode.
27 * put parser.h into distribution if "yacc -d" is used
29 * only remove libtool at top level?
31 * clean up source directory by moving stuff into subdirs
33 * consider adding pkglibexecdir, maybe others?
34 requests for pkg-dirs with version included
36 Fix ansi2knr so that knr-style function decls aren't incorrectly
37 rewritten. Or, fix automake so that not all sources in a directory
38 must be ansi. Should also fix things so that a separate ._o file is
39 not needed; instead use a wrapper script.
45 Avoid loops when installing; instead unroll them in automake
48 * completely handle multi-":" mode for AC_CONFIG_HEADER
49 * Scan multiple input files when Makefile is generated?
50 This would provide flexibility for large projects; subsumes
51 the "Makefile.tmpl" idea
53 [ can't do this. must explain why in manual.
54 basically, solving all the problems is too hard
55 like: how to remove redundancies between generated .in files
56 instead should implement `include' directive for Makefile.am ]
57 * for multi-":" mode and AC_OUTPUT, it might be good to pick the
58 first input file that has a corresponding .am file.
60 Some long-term projects:
61 * if $(FOO) is used somewhere, ensure FOO is defined, either by
62 user or by automake if possible
63 * Don't rearrange order of `include' lines relative to += assignments.
64 * Handle += assignments at all.
66 consider putting all check-* targets onto @check?
67 To support --help/--version checking?
69 take diff-n-query code from libit
72 Per> 1) Being able to build a set of non-source programs
73 Per> from source programs, without necessarily linking them together.
74 Per> I.e. one should be able to say something like:
75 Per> dummy_SOURCES=foo.c bar.c
76 Per> and automake should realize that it needs to build foo.o and bar.o.
77 Per> 2) Being intelligent about new kinds of suffixes.
79 Per> SUFFIXES = .class .java
80 Per> and a suffix rule of the form:
82 Per> then it should be able to realize it can build .class files from
83 Per> .java files, and thus be able to generate a list of
84 Per> .class files from a list of .java source files.
87 * allow a way to use "gzip --best"
88 [ Try GZIP=--best make dist ]
89 * don't assume GNU tar is "tar" (eg in distcheck)
91 !! Must fix require_file stuff. It is really gross, and I don't
92 understand it any more.
94 * error messages should print ``[info blah blah]'' command when a
95 certain part of the standards apply. saw idea in message from
96 Craig Burley. wouldn't it be really cool if compile-mode in Emacs
97 understood this convention, and you could click on such text to
98 go to the appropriate info page?
100 !! should write autoconf-style doc entries for each m4 macro
102 Jim's idea: should look for @setfilename and warn if filenames too long
104 * allow ".info" to be missing
106 * must update GNU Hello
108 ** many requests for a way to omit a file from the distribution.
109 Should be done like `!foo' or `~foo' in _SOURCES, etc.
110 Such files should be removed explicitly after the copy step!
111 Doing this requires rewriting macros before generating Makefile.in.
113 from joerg-martin schwarz:
114 -- If Makefile.am contains $(CC), $(COMPILE), $(YLWRAP), ....
115 in an explicitly written rule, you should emit the corresponding
116 Makefile variables automatically.
118 Configuring in the large:
119 * allow hierarchy of dirs to share one aclocal.m4
122 consider printing full file name of Makefile.am or configure.in when
123 giving error. This would help for very large trees with many
126 From the GNU Standards. These things could be checked, and probably
128 * Make sure that the directory into which the distribution unpacks (as
129 well as any subdirectories) are all world-writable (octal mode 777).
130 * Make sure that no file name in the distribution is more than 14
132 * Don't include any symbolic links in the distribution itself.
134 * Make sure that all the files in the distribution are world-readable.
135 ** also, check --help output and --version output. Idea from François
136 * standards no longer prohibit ANSI C. What does this imply
137 for the de-ansi-fication feature?
139 consider supporting "var+= stuff" syntax. rewrite to just var=... on
140 output. This is sometimes convenient when you want to write a
141 Makefile.am in more-or-less modular parts
143 should be able to determine what is built by looking at rules (and
144 configure.in). Then built man pages (eg) could automatically be
145 omitted from the distribution.
147 Idea from Joerg-Martin Schwarz: allow passing different -D flags to
148 different compiles. This can be done, but with the restriction that a
149 .c cannot appear in 2 different "objects" (programs/libraries)
150 compiled with different -D options (because -c and -o do not always
151 work together and parallel makes must work). This could be
152 implemented by noticing whenever a ".o" target with no rules is being
153 emitted, and adding the appropriate compilation rule as appropriate.
154 This should work with targets from Makefile.am as well as from .P
155 files, which means rewriting so that the Makefile.am contents aren't
156 copied into the output immediately.
157 [ this could be probably done more directly by examining the sources
158 as we scan Makefile.am ]
160 Henrik Frystyk Nielsen says:
161 Henrik> 4) Flags like --include-deps are lost when you make changes to
162 Henrik> Makefile.am files and automake is run automatically. It would
163 Henrik> be nice to keep these flags as I now have to redo everything
165 ... what about other options here too?
167 Think about: maybe "make check" should just bomb if error occurs?
168 Then user must use "make -k check". This is probably more natural.
170 Consider: "cvs" option adds some cvs-specific rules?
172 Right now, targets generated internally (eg "install") are not
173 overridable by user code. This should probably be possible, even
174 though it isn't very important. This could be done by generating all
175 internal rules via a function call instead of just appending to
177 [ this will be harder to implement when scanning a rule like all-recursive
180 * Should be a way to have "nobuild_PROGRAMS" which aren't even built,
181 but which could be by running the magic make command.
184 * Must rewrite am_install_var. Should break into multiple functions.
185 This will allow the callers to be a little smarter.
186 * Rewrite clean targets.
187 * Must rewrite error handling code. Right now it is a real mess
188 Should fix up require_file junk at the same time
190 djm wants ``LINKS'' variable; list of things to link together after
191 install. In BSD environment, use:
192 LINKS = from1 to1 from2 to2 ...
194 Need way to say there are no suffixes in a Makefile (Franc,ois'
195 "override" idea suffices here)
197 Check to make sure various scripts are executable (IE when looking for
200 Use recode in dist target when MAINT_CHARSET specified. Read caveats
201 in automake.in before doing this. Note the same problem used to apply
202 to the no-dependencies option; maybe it still should? Note also that
203 each Makefile.am must be rewritten at "make dist" time if
204 MAINT_CHARSET and DIST_CHARSET are not identical. NOTE: gettext must
205 arrange for all .po files not to be recoded. In the long term this
206 might be a problem (consider when some systems use Unicode but the
208 MAINT_CHARSET *must* be local to each Makefile.am, to enable
209 merged distributions.
210 DIST_CHARSET must be passed down to subdir makes during a "make dist"
212 Handle dist-zoo. Generally add more DOS support. Maybe run "doschk"
213 (why isn't this merged with "pathchk"?) when doing a dist. Do
214 whatever else François says here...
216 Add support for html via an option. Use texi2html. Use
217 "html_TEXINFOS", and htmldir = .../html. Include html files in
218 distribution. Also allow "html_DATA", for raw .html files.
219 [ when will texinfo directly support html? ]
221 uninstall and pkg-dirs should rm -rf the dir.
223 a potential bug: configure puts "blah.o" into LIBOBJS, thus implying
224 these files can't be de-ansified. Not a problem?
225 [ fix by using ansi2knr wrapper program ]
227 In general most .am files should be merged into automake. For
228 instance all the "clean" targets could be merged by keeping lists of
229 things to be removed. This would be a lot nicer looking. Note that
230 the install targets probably should not be merged; it is sometimes
231 useful to only install a small part.
234 * Order rules sensibly
235 * Ensure every line has a purpose. Omit unused stuff
236 * Eliminate extraneous rules when possible (eg 'install-am' stuff)
237 * Make sure vertical spacing is correct
238 Omit program transform vars from header if no program installed. This
239 is currently pretty hard to do. (But with beautification code it
240 would probably be easy)
243 * It would be nice to automatically support using bison's better features
244 to rename the output files. This requires autoconf support
245 * Consider supporting syntax from autoconf "derived:source", eg:
247 for yacc and lex source
249 Multi-language support:
250 * should have mapping of file extensions to languages
251 * should automatically handle the linking issue (special-case C++)
252 * must get compile rules for various languages; FORTRAN probably
253 most important unimplemented language
254 This should be integrated in some way with Per's idea.
255 Eg .f.o rules should be recognized & auto-handled in _SOURCES
256 That way any random language can be treated with C/C++ on a first-class
259 It might be cool to generate .texi dependencies by grepping for
260 @include. (If done, it should be done the same way C dependencies are
263 It would be good to check some parts of GNU standards. Already check
264 for install-sh and mkinstalldirs. What else is required to be in
265 package by GNU standards or by automake?
266 Some things for --strictness=gnits:
267 * "cd $(foo); something" is an error in a rule. Should be:
268 "cd $(foo) && something"
269 * Look for 'ln -s' and warn about using $(LN) and AC_PROG_LN_S
270 * Look for $(LN) and require AC_PROG_LN_S
272 Auto-distribute "ChangeLog.[0-9]+"? "ChangeLog.[a-z]+"?
274 Internationalize. [ gettext doesn't have the necessary machinery yet ]
275 am_error should use printf-style arguments (for eventual gettext scheme)
277 François says the ordering of files in a distribution should be as follows:
281 I agree, but I don't see how to implement this yet.
282 It might be easier if "derived files" is limited to those that
283 Automake itself knows about, eg output of yacc.
285 Check all source files to make sure that FSF address is up-to-date.
286 --gnits or --gnu only.
288 Merge each -vars.am file with corresponding ".am" file. Can do this
289 because of changes to &file_contents.
291 Should libexec programs have the name transform done on them?
293 Order the output rules sensibly, so FOO_SOURCES and FOO_OBJECTS are
294 together and rules are in the usual order.
296 Make the output minimal: only output definitions for variables that
299 Look at dist's jmake for ideas. dist is the name of the distribution
300 including Metaconfig. Perl uses it.
302 Should handle directory hierarchies deeper than 2. Right now there is
303 some support for this. Here are some of the issues:
304 * Should handle AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS, ie must handle configure.in in subdirs
305 * can do this by looking at subdirs, seeing configure.in
306 and auto-running Automake there
309 David> To avoid comments like the one about subdirs getting buried in
310 David> the middle of a Makefile.in, how about pushing comments that
311 David> start with ### to the top of the Makefile.in (in order)? Sort
312 David> of like how Autoconf uses diversions to force initialization
313 David> code to the top of configure.
316 Karl> 2) Your Makefile variable names are generally uppercase, but GNU
317 Karl> generally uses lowercase. Not that it matters :-).
319 ================================================================
323 probably should put each group of m4 files into a subdir owned by the
324 containing application.
326 ================================================================
330 SUBDIR entry must be direct subdir of this dir
334 multi-":" mode in AC_OUTPUT -- automake only looks at the first file
335 also a note on how a .am file is found in this case
337 rationale for avoiding
338 make CFLAGS="$CFLAGS" ...
341 a package that installs its own aclocal macros
343 write example of using automake with dejagnu
344 follow calc example in dejagnu docs
346 document which variables are actually scanned and which are not.
348 Document customary ordering of Makefile.am. From François.
350 Should include extended version of diagram from Autoconf (suggested by
353 Make a definition of the term "source"
355 document how to use Automake with CVS. Idea from Mark Galassi. Also
356 include Greg Woods' more sophisticated "cvs-dist" target.
358 document rebuilding configure. CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES
360 -- must document all variables that are supposed
361 to be public knowledge
363 automake must be run in each directory with a configure.in
364 This is insufficiently clear
366 must document the targets required for integration with
367 non-automake-using subdirs
369 use of (eg) EXTRA_PROGRAMS is not very clear right now
370 document EXTRA_foo_SOURCES
371 document why EXTRA_* vars must be statically knowable
373 document the "make SHELL='/bin/sh -x'" trick for debugging
375 section on relationship to GNU make
379 ================================================================
381 Things to do for autoconf:
383 * patch autoreconf to run automake and aclocal. I've done this but it is
384 not really available. It can't be made available until automake
385 is officially released
387 ================================================================
391 * Should support standalone library along with subdir library in same
392 Makefile.am. Maybe: turn off "standalone" mode if library's Makefile.am
393 is not only one specd? [ add an option for this ]
395 ================================================================
399 Would it be useful to integrate in some way with the Debian package
400 building utility? Must check. maybe it would be possible to deal
401 with all the different package utilities somehow. Lately I've been
402 hearing good things about the RedHat packaging utilities. Why are
403 there so many of these? Are they fun to write or something?
404 The RedHat package utility is called RPM; see
405 ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/code/rpm
406 It actually has problems, like no configure script and no documentation.
408 For Cygnus it would probably be good to be able to handle the native
409 package utility on each platform. There are probably 3 or 4 of these
410 (sysv, solaris?, aix?)
412 tcl/unix/Makefile.in has some code to generate a Solaris package.
414 Automake probably can't do all of this on its own. A new tool might
417 ================================================================
419 A tool to guess what the local Makefile.am should look like:
420 (see Gord's Maint program!)
422 * Probably integrate with autoscan
423 * Use various simple rules to determine what to do:
424 * get name of top directory, sans version info
425 * search for .c files with 'main' in them
426 * if in main.c, use directory name for program
427 * if in more than one, generate multiple programs
428 * if not found, generate a library named after directory
429 * order subdir searches correctly: lib first, src last
430 * assume 'testsuite' dir means we are using dejagnu
431 * maybe be smart about reading existing Makefile.am, so tool
432 can be run for incremental changes? You could imagine:
435 autoproject --incremental
437 ================================================================
439 Stuff NOT to do, and why:
441 consider auto-including any file that matches "*.in".
442 [ no: po/Makefile.in shouldn't be included ]
444 must look at mkid to see how it works (for subdir usage)
445 [ right now, it doesn't. i don't see a simple fix right now ]
447 if configure.in not found, move up a directory and try again? This
448 could eliminate a common source of problems.
449 [ this is just a bad idea ]
451 * scripts are installed in $exec_prefix/bin, not $prefix/bin
453 [ the consensus on Gnits is that this isn't required.
454 doubters can work around it anyway ]
456 * make the auto-dep code crash if GNU make not in use?
457 (doesn't it already?)
459 Looked at a program called 'ezmake', which seems to do something
460 similar. The only idea there that is possibly worth stealing is using
461 globs in definitions. Also has negations. Eg in a directory with
462 files a.c, b.c and c.c, the line:
463 foo_SOURCES = *.c ~c.c
464 would be equivalent to:
465 foo_SOURCES = a.c b.c
466 Is this worth implementing?
467 [ No... it is more reliable to spell everything out. ]
469 Scan source directories and warn about missing files, eg .c/.h files
470 that aren't mentioned?
471 [ distcheck makes this less useful ]