3 * Version requirements:
5 - Autoconf 2.65 or greater is required.
7 - The rules to build PDF and DVI output from Texinfo input now
8 requires Texinfo 4.9 or later.
10 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (once enabled by the 'cygnus'
11 option) has been removed. See discussion about automake bug#11034
14 - The automake-provided '@mkdir_p@' configure substitution and
15 AM_PROG_MKDIR m4 macro have been removed. They had been obsolete
16 since automake 1.10, and actively deprecated since Automake 1.12.1.
17 However, to maintain a degree of backward-compatibility, the make
18 variable '$(mkdir_p)' is still defined (now simple as an alias to
19 '$(MKDIR_P)'). It will probably be removed in future major versions
20 of Automake (probably 1.14).
22 - The deprecated aclocal option '--acdir' has been removed. You
23 should use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir'
24 instead (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
26 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros have been removed:
28 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
29 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
30 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
31 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
32 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
33 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
34 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
35 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
36 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
37 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
40 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' have been removed.
42 * Obsolescent features:
44 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
45 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is not documented anymore. It's still
46 supported though (albeit with a warning in the 'obsolete' category),
47 to cater for people who want to define the version number for their
48 package dynamically (e.g., from the current VCS revision). We'll
49 have to continue this support until Autoconf itself is fixed to allow
50 better support for such dynamic version numbers.
52 * Elisp byte-compilation:
54 - The byte compilation of '.el' files into '.elc' files is now done
55 with a suffix rule. This has simplified the compilation process, and
56 more importantly made it less brittle. The downside is that emacs is
57 now invoked once for each '.el' files, which cause some noticeable
58 slowdowns. These should however be mitigated on multicore machines
59 (which are becoming the norm today) if concurrent make ("make -j")
62 - Elisp files placed in a subdirectory are now byte-compiled to '.elc'
63 files in the same subdirectory; for example, byte-compiling of file
64 'sub/foo.el' file will result in 'sub/foo.elc' rather than in
65 'foo.elc'. This behaviour is backward-incompatible with older
66 Automake versions, but it is more natural and more sane. See also
69 - The Emacs invocation performing byte-compilation of '.el' files honors
70 the $(AM_ELCFLAGS) and $(ELCFLAGS) variables; as typical, the former
71 one is developer-reserved and the latter one user-reserved.
73 - The 'elisp-comp' script, once provided by Automake, has been rendered
74 obsoleted by the just-described changes, and thus removed.
76 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
78 - The parallel testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the
79 'parallel-tests' option) is the default one; the older serial
80 testsuite harness will still be available through the use of the
81 'serial-tests' option (introduced in Automake 1.12).
83 - The 'color-tests' option is now unconditionally activated by default.
84 In particular, this means that testsuite output is now colorized by
85 default if the attached terminal seems to support ANSI escapes, and
86 that the user can force output colorization by setting the variable
87 AM_COLOR_TESTS to "always". The 'color-tests' is still recognized
88 for backward-compatibility, although it's a handled as a no-op now.
90 * Silent rules support:
92 - Support for silent rules is now always active in Automake-generated
93 Makefiles. So, although the verbose output is still the default,
94 the user can now always use "./configure --enable-silent-rules" or
95 "make V=0" to enable quieter output in the package he's building.
97 - The 'silent-rules' option has now become a no-op, preserved for
98 backward-compatibility only. In particular, its use does not disable
99 the warnings in the 'portability-recursive' category anymore.
103 - The rules to build PDF and DVI files from Texinfo input now use the
104 '--build-dir' option, to keep the auxiliary files used by texi2dvi
105 and texi2pdf around without cluttering the build directory, and to
106 make it possible to run the "dvi" and "pdf" recipes in parallel.
108 * Automatic remake rules and 'missing' script:
110 - The 'missing' script does not try anymore to update the timestamp
111 of out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
112 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
113 of it). It just give a useful warning, and in some cases also a tip
114 about how to obtain such a tool.
116 - The missing script has thus become useless as a (poor) way to work
117 around the sketched-timestamps issues that can happen for projects
118 that keep generated files committed in their VCS repository. Such
119 projects are now encouraged to write a custom "fix-timestamps.sh"
120 script to avoid such issues; a simple example is provided in the
121 "CVS and generated files" chapter of the automake manual.
125 - The user can now define his own recursive targets that recurse
126 in the directories specified in $(SUBDIRS). This can be done by
127 specifying the name of such targets in invocations of the new
128 'AM_EXTRA_RECURSIVE_TARGETS' m4 macro.
132 - Any failure in the recipe of the "tags", "ctags", "cscope" or
133 "cscopelist" targets in a subdirectory is now propagated to the
134 top-level make invocation.
136 - Tags are correctly computed also for files in _SOURCES variables that
137 only list files with non-standard suffixes (see automake bug#12372).
139 * Improvements to aclocal and related rebuilds rules:
141 - The Autoconf-provided macro AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR is now traced by
142 aclocal, and can be used to declare the local m4 include directory.
143 Formerly, one had to specify it with an explicit '-I' option to the
144 'aclocal' invocation.
146 - The special make variable ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS is deprecated; future
147 Automake versions will warn about its use, and later version will
148 remove support for it altogether.
150 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
154 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
156 - Future versions of Automake will likely drop support for the
157 long-deprecated 'configure.in' name for the Autoconf input file.
158 You are advised to use the recommended name 'configure.ac' instead.
160 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (as enabled by the 'cygnus'
161 option) will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
163 - The long-obsolete (since automake 1.10) AM_PROG_MKDIR m4 macro will
164 be removed in Automake 1.13. The $(mkdir_p) make variable and the
165 @mkdir_p@ substitution will still remain available (as aliases of
166 $(MKDIR_P)) for the moment, for better backward compatibility.
168 - Autoconf 2.65 or later will be required by the next major Automake
169 version (1.13). Until now, Automake has required Autoconf version
172 - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the rules
173 to build pdf, ps and dvi output from Texinfo input will use the
174 '--build-dir' option by default. Since such an option was only
175 introduced in Texinfo 4.9, this means that Makefiles generated by
176 future Automake versions will require at least that version of
179 - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the parallel
180 testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the 'parallel-tests'
181 option) will become the default one; the older serial testsuite
182 harness will still be available through the use of the 'serial-tests'
185 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros will be removed in the
186 next major Automake version (1.13):
188 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
189 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
190 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
191 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
192 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
193 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
194 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
195 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
196 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
197 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
200 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' will be removed in
201 the next major Automake version (1.13).
203 - The '--acdir' option of aclocal is deprecated, and will probably
204 be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13). You should
205 use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir' instead
206 (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
208 - The 'missing' script will not try anymore to update the timestamp
209 of out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
210 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
211 of it). In fact, starting from Automake 1.13, all it'll do will be
212 giving more useful warnings than a bare "command not found" from a
215 * Warnings and deprecations:
217 - Warnings in the 'obsolete' category are enabled by default both in
218 automake and aclocal.
220 * Miscellaneous changes:
222 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
224 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
228 * Miscellaneous changes:
230 - The '.m4' files provided by Automake does not define serial numbers
231 anymore. This should cause no difference in the behaviour of aclocal
234 - Some testsuite weaknesses and spurious failures have been fixed.
236 - There is initial support for automatic dependency tracking with the
237 Portland Group C/C++ compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'pgcc'.
239 Bugs fixed in 1.12.3:
241 * Long-standing bugs:
243 - Instead of renaming only self-references of files (typically for
244 #lines), ylwrap now also renames references to the other generated
245 files. This fixes support for GLR and C++ parsers from Bison (PR
246 automake/491 and automake bug#7648): 'parser.c' now properly
247 #includes 'parser.h' instead of 'y.tab.h'.
249 - Generated files unknown to ylwrap are now preserved. This fixes
250 C++ support for Bison (automake bug#7648): location.hh and the
251 like are no longer discarded.
253 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
257 * Warnings and deprecations:
259 - Automake now issues a warning (in the 'portability' category) if
260 'configure.in' is used instead of 'configure.ac' as the Autoconf
261 input file. Such a warning will also be present in the next
262 Autoconf version (2.70).
266 - Recursive cleaning rules descends into the $(SUBDIRS) in the natural
267 order (as done by the other recursive rules), rather than in the
268 inverse order. They used to do that in order to work a round a
269 limitation in an older implementation of the automatic dependency
270 tracking support, but that limitation had been lifted years ago
271 already, when the automatic dependency tracking based on side-effects
272 of compilation had been introduced.
274 - Cleaning rules for compiled objects (both "plain" and libtool) work
275 better when subdir objects are involved, not triggering a distinct
276 'rm' invocation for each such object. They do so by removing *any*
277 compiled object file that is in the same directory of a subdir
278 object. See automake bug#10697.
280 * Silent rules support:
282 - A new predefined $(AM_V_P) make variable is provided; it expands
283 to a shell conditional that can be used in recipes to know whether
284 make is being run in silent or verbose mode.
286 Bugs fixed in 1.12.2:
288 * SECURITY VULNERABILITIES!
290 - The 'distcheck' recipe no longer grants temporary world-write
291 permissions on the extracted distdir. Even if such rights were
292 only granted for a vanishingly small time window, the implied
293 race condition proved to be enough to allow a local attacker
294 to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
295 "make distcheck". This is CVE-2012-3386.
297 * Long-standing bugs:
299 - The "recheck" targets behaves better in the face of build failures
300 related to previously failed tests. For example, if a test is a
301 compiled program that must be rerun by "make recheck", and its
302 compilation fails, it will still be rerun by further "make recheck"
303 invocations. See automake bug#11791.
305 * Bugs introduced by 1.12.1:
307 - Automake provides once again the '$(mkdir_p)' make variable and the
308 '@mkdir_p@' substitution (both as simple aliases for '$(MKDIR_P)'),
309 for better backward-compatibility.
311 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
315 * New supported languages:
317 - Support for Objective C++ has been added; it should work similarly to
318 the support for Objective C.
320 * Deprecated obsolescent features:
322 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
323 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro now elicits a warning in the 'obsolete'
324 category. Starting from some future major Automake release (likely
325 post-1.13), such usages won't be allowed anymore.
327 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (enabled by the 'cygnus' option) is
328 now deprecated (its use triggers a warning in the 'obsolete' category).
329 It will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
331 - The long-obsolete (since 1.10) automake-provided $(mkdir_p) make
332 variable, @mkdir_p@ configure-time substitution and AM_PROG_MKDIR
333 m4 macro are deprecated, eliciting a warning in the 'obsolete'
336 * Miscellaneous changes:
338 - The Automake test cases now require a proper POSIX-conforming shell.
339 Older non-POSIX Bourne shells (like Solaris 10 /bin/sh) won't be
340 accepted anymore. In most cases, the user shouldn't have to specify
341 such POSIX shell explicitly, since it will be looked up at configure
342 time. Still, when this lookup fails, or when the user wants to
343 override its conclusion, the variable 'AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL' can be
344 used (pointing to the shell that will be used to run the Automake
347 Bugs fixed in 1.12.1:
349 * Bugs introduced by 1.12:
351 - Several weaknesses in Automake's own build system and test suite
354 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
356 - When given non-option arguments, aclocal rejects them, instead of
357 silently ignoring them.
359 * Long-standing bugs:
361 - When the 'color-tests' option is in use, forcing of colored testsuite
362 output through "AM_COLOR_TESTS=always" works even if the terminal is
363 a non-ANSI one, i.e., if the TERM environment variable has a value of
366 - Several inefficiencies and poor performances in the implementation
367 of the parallel-tests 'check' and 'recheck' targets have been fixed.
369 - The post-processing of output "#line" directives done the ylwrap
370 script is more faithful w.r.t. files in a subdirectory; for example,
371 if the processed file is "src/grammar.y", ylwrap will correctly
372 produce directives like:
373 #line 7 "src/grammar.y"
378 * Bugs with new Perl versions:
380 - Aclocal works correctly with perl 5.16.0 (automake bug#11543).
382 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
386 * Obsolete features removed:
388 - The never documented nor truly used script 'acinstall' has been
391 - Support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been removed.
393 - The support for the "obscure" multilib feature has been removed
394 from Automake core (but remains available in the 'contrib/'
395 directory of the Automake distribution).
397 - Support for ".log -> .html" conversion and the check-html and
398 recheck-html targets has been removed from Automake core (but
399 remains available in the 'contrib/' directory of the Automake
402 - The deprecated 'lzma' compression format for distribution archives
403 has been removed, in favor of 'xz' and 'lzip'.
405 - The obsolete AM_WITH_REGEX macro has been removed.
407 - The long-deprecated options '--output-dir', '--Werror' and
408 '--Wno-error' have been removed.
410 - The chapter on the history of Automake has been moved out of the
411 reference manual, into a new dedicated Texinfo file.
415 - New 'cscope' target to build a cscope database for the source tree.
417 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
419 - The new automake option 'serial-tests' has been introduced. It can
420 be used to explicitly instruct automake to use the older serial
421 testsuite harness. This is still the default at the moment, but it
422 might change in future versions.
424 - The 'recheck' target (provided by the parallel testsuite harness) now
425 depends on the 'all' target. This allows for a better user-experience
426 in test-driven development. See automake bug#11252.
428 - Test scripts that exit with status 99 to signal an "hard error" (e.g.,
429 and unexpected or internal error, or a failure to set up the test case
430 scenario) have their outcome reported as an 'ERROR' now. Previous
431 versions of automake reported such an outcome as a 'FAIL' (the only
432 difference with normal failures being that hard errors were counted
433 as failures even when the test originating them was listed in
436 - The testsuite summary displayed by the parallel-test harness has a
437 completely new format, that always list the numbers of passed, failed,
438 xfailed, xpassed, skipped and errored tests, even when these numbers
439 are zero (but using smart coloring when the color-tests option is in
442 - The default testsuite driver offered by the 'parallel-tests' option is
443 now implemented (partly at least) with the help of automake-provided
444 auxiliary scripts (e.g., 'test-driver'), instead of relying entirely
445 on code in the generated Makefile.in.
446 This has two noteworthy implications. The first one is that projects
447 using the 'parallel-tests' option should now either run automake with
448 the '--add-missing' option, or manually copy the 'test-driver' script
449 into their tree. The second, and more important, implication is that
450 now, when the 'parallel-tests' option is in use, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT can
451 not be used anymore to define a test runner, and the command specified
452 in LOG_COMPILER (and <ext>_LOG_COMPILER) must be a *real* executable
453 program or script. For example, this is still a valid usage (albeit
456 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
457 if test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS)'; then \
458 maybe_errexit='-e'; \
462 LOG_COMPILER = $(SHELL) $$maybe_errexit
464 while this is not anymore:
466 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
467 $(SHELL) `test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS_CHECKING)' && echo ' -e'`
471 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
472 run_with_perl_or_shell () \
474 if grep -q '^#!.*perl' $$1; then
480 LOG_COMPILER = run_with_perl_or_shell
482 - The package authors can now use customary testsuite drivers within
483 the framework provided by the 'parallel-tests' testsuite harness.
484 Consistently with the existing syntax, this can be done by defining
485 special makefile variables 'LOG_DRIVER' and '<ext>_LOG_DRIVER'.
487 - A new developer-reserved variable 'AM_TESTS_FD_REDIRECT' can be used
488 to redirect/define file descriptors used by the test scripts.
490 - The parallel-tests harness generates now, in addition the '.log' files
491 holding the output produced by the test scripts, a new set of '.trs'
492 files, holding "metadata" derived by the execution of the test scripts;
493 among such metadata are the outcomes of the test cases run by a script.
495 - Initial and still experimental support for the TAP test protocol is
498 * Changes to Yacc and Lex support:
500 - C source and header files derived from non-distributed Yacc and/or
501 Lex sources are now removed by a simple "make clean" (while they were
502 previously removed only by "make maintainer-clean").
504 - Slightly backward-incompatible change, relevant only for use of Yacc
505 with C++: the extensions of the header files produced by the Yacc
506 rules are now modelled after the extension of the corresponding
507 sources. For example, yacc files named "foo.y++" and "bar.yy" will
508 produce header files named "foo.h++" and "bar.hh" respectively, where
509 they would have previously produced header files named simply "foo.h"
510 and "bar.h". This change offers better compatibility with 'bison -o'.
512 * Miscellaneous changes:
514 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro now causes configure to exit with status 77,
515 rather than 1, if the vala compiler found is too old.
517 - The build system of Automake itself now avoids the use of make
518 recursion as much as possible.
520 - Automake now prefers to quote 'like this' or "like this", rather
521 than `like this', in diagnostic message and generated Makefiles,
522 to accommodate the new GNU Coding Standards recommendations.
524 - Automake has a new option '--print-libdir' that prints the path of the
525 directory containing the Automake-provided scripts and data files.
527 - The 'dist' and 'dist-all' targets now can run compressors in parallel.
529 - The rules to create pdf, dvi and ps output from Texinfo files now
530 works better with modern 'texi2dvi' script, by explicitly passing
531 it the '--clean' option to ensure stray auxiliary files are not
532 left to clutter the build directory.
534 - Automake can now generate silenced rules for texinfo outputs.
536 - Some auxiliary files that are automatically distributed by Automake
537 (e.g., 'install-sh', or the 'depcomp' script for packages compiling
538 C sources) might now be listed in the DIST_COMMON variable in many
539 Makefile.in files, rather than in the top-level one.
541 - Messages of types warning or error from 'automake' and 'aclocal'
542 are now prefixed with the respective type, and presence of -Werror
545 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now tries to avoid
546 sleeping for a second, which slowed down cached configure runs
547 noticeably. In that case, it will check back at the end of the
548 configure script to ensure that at least one second has passed, to
549 avoid time stamp issues with makefile rules rerunning autotools
552 - The warnings in the category 'extra-portability' are now enabled by
553 '-Wall'. In previous versions, one has to use '-Wextra-portability'
558 - Various minor bugfixes for recent or long-standing bugs.
560 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
562 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
563 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
565 - The automake-provided parallel testsuite harness does not fail anymore
566 with BSD make used in parallel mode when there are test scripts in a
567 subdirectory, like in:
569 TESTS = sub/foo.test sub/bar.test
571 * Long-standing bugs:
573 - Automake's own build system finally have a real "installcheck" target.
575 - Vala-related cleanup rules are now more complete, and work better in
578 - Files listed with the AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE macro in configure.ac are
579 now automatically distributed also if the directory of the auxiliary
580 files coincides with the top-level directory.
582 - Automake now detects the presence of the '-d' flag in the various
583 '*YFLAGS' variables even when their definitions involve indirections
584 through other variables, such as in:
586 AM_YFLAGS = $(foo_opts)
588 - Automake now complains if a '*YFLAGS' variable has any conditional
589 content, not only a conditional definition.
591 - Explicit enabling and/or disabling of Automake warning categories
592 through the '-W...' options now always takes precedence over the
593 implicit warning level implied by Automake strictness (foreign, gnu
594 or gnits), regardless of the order in which such strictness and
595 warning flags appear. For example, a setting like:
596 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = -Wall --foreign
597 will cause the warnings in category 'portability' to be enabled, even
598 if those warnings are by default disabled in 'foreign' strictness.
600 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
602 Bugs fixed in 1.11.5:
604 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
606 - Vala files with '.vapi' extension are now recognized and handled
607 correctly again. See automake bug#11222.
609 - Vala support work again for projects that contain some program
610 built from '.vala' (and possibly '.c') sources and some other
611 program built from '.c' sources *only*. See automake bug#11229.
613 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
617 * Miscellaneous changes:
619 - The 'ar-lib' script now ignores the "s" (symbol index) and "S" (no
620 symbol index) modifiers as well as the "s" action, as the symbol index
621 is created unconditionally by Microsoft lib. Also, the "q" (quick)
622 action is now a synonym for "r" (replace). Also, the script has been
623 ignoring the "v" (verbose) modifier already since Automake 1.11.3.
625 - When the 'compile' script is used to wrap MSVC, it now accepts an
626 optional space between the -I, -L and -l options and their respective
627 arguments, for better POSIX compliance.
629 - There is an initial, experimental support for automatic dependency
630 tracking with tcc (the Tiny C Compiler). Its associated depmode is
631 currently recognized as "icc" (but this and other details are likely
632 to change in future versions).
634 - Automatic dependency tracking now works also with the IBM XL C/C++
635 compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'xlc'.
637 Bugs fixed in 1.11.4:
639 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
641 - A definition of 'noinst_PYTHON' before 'python_PYTHON' (or similar)
642 don't cause spurious failures upon "make install" anymore.
644 - The user can now instruct the 'uninstall-info' rule not to update
645 the '${infodir}/dir' file by exporting the environment variable
646 'AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no". This is done for consistency
647 with how the 'install-info' rule operates since automake 1.11.2.
649 * Long-standing bugs:
651 - It is now possible for a foo_SOURCES variable to hold Vala sources
652 together with C header files, as well as with sources and headers for
653 other supported languages (e.g., C++). Previously, only mixing C and
654 Vala sources was supported.
656 - If "aclocal --install" is used, and the first directory specified with
657 '-I' is non-existent, aclocal will now create it before trying to copy
660 - An empty declaration of a "foo_PRIMARY" don't cause anymore the
661 generated install rules to create an empty $(foodir) directory;
662 for example, if Makefile.am contains something like:
666 pkglibexec_SCRIPTS += bar.sh
669 the $(pkglibexec) directory will not be created upon "make install".
671 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
675 * Miscellaneous changes:
677 - Automake's own build system is more silent by default, making use of
678 the 'silent-rules' option.
680 - The master copy of the `gnupload' script is now maintained in gnulib,
683 - The `missing' script doesn't try to wrap calls to `tar' anymore.
685 - "make dist" doesn't wrap `tar' invocations with the `missing' script
686 anymore. Similarly, the obsolescent variable `$(AMTAR)' (which you
687 shouldn't be using BTW ;-) does not invoke the missing script anymore
688 to wrap tar, but simply invokes the `tar' program itself.
690 - "make dist" can now create lzip-compressed tarballs.
692 - In the Automake info documentation, the Top node and the nodes about
693 the invocation of the automake and aclocal programs have been renamed;
694 now, calling "info automake" will open the Top node, while calling
695 "info automake-invocation" and "info aclocal-invocation" will access
696 the nodes about the invocation of respectively automake and aclocal.
698 - Automake is now distributed as a gzip-compressed and an xz-compressed
699 tarball. Previously, bzip2 was used instead of xz.
701 - The last relics of Python 1.5 support have been removed from the
702 AM_PATH_PYTHON macro.
704 - For programs and libraries, automake now detects EXTRA_foo_DEPENDENCIES
705 and adds them to the normal list of dependencies, but without
706 overwriting the foo_DEPENDENCIES variable, which is normally computed
709 Bugs fixed in 1.11.3:
711 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
713 - Automake now correctly recognizes the prefix/primary combination
714 `pkglibexec_SCRIPTS' as valid.
716 - The parallel-tests harness doesn't trip anymore on sed implementations
717 with stricter limits on the length of input lines (problem seen at
720 * Long-standing bugs:
722 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.am files is avoided by stub
723 rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `automake' also if
724 some previously needed `.am' file has been removed.
726 - The `silent-rules' option now generates working makefiles even
727 for the uncommon `make' implementations that do not support the
728 nested-variables extension to POSIX 2008. For such `make'
729 implementations, whether a build is silent is determined at
730 configure time, and cannot be overridden at make time with
731 `make V=0' or `make V=1'.
733 - Vala support now works better in VPATH setups.
735 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
739 * Changes to aclocal:
741 - The `--acdir' option is deprecated. Now you should use the new options
742 `--automake-acdir' and `--system-acdir' instead.
744 - The `ACLOCAL_PATH' environment variable is now interpreted as a
745 colon-separated list of additional directories to search after the
746 automake internal acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal-APIVERSION)
747 and before the system acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal).
749 * Miscellaneous changes:
751 - The Automake support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been
752 deprecated. It will probably be removed in the next major Automake
755 - The `lzma' compression scheme and associated automake option `dist-lzma'
756 is obsoleted by `xz' and `dist-xz' due to upstream changes.
758 - You may adjust the compression options used in dist-xz and dist-bzip2.
759 The default is now merely -e for xz, but still -9 for bzip; you may
760 specify a different level via the XZ_OPT and BZIP2 envvars respectively.
761 E.g., "make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-7" or "make dist-bzip2 BZIP2=-5"
763 - The `compile' script now converts some options for MSVC for a better
764 user experience. Similarly, the new `ar-lib' script wraps Microsoft lib.
766 - The py-compile script now accepts empty arguments passed to the options
767 `--destdir' and `--basedir', and complains about unrecognized options.
768 Moreover, a non-option argument or a special `--' argument terminates
771 - A developer that needs to pass specific flags to configure at "make
772 distcheck" time can now, and indeed is advised to, do so by defining
773 the developer-reserved makefile variable AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS,
774 instead of the old DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.
775 The DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable should now be reserved for the
776 user; still, the old Makefile.am files that used to define it will
777 still continue to work as before.
779 - New macro AM_PROG_AR that looks for an archiver and wraps it in the new
780 'ar-lib' auxiliary script if the selected archiver is Microsoft lib.
781 This new macro is required for LIBRARIES and LTLIBRARIES when automake
782 is run with -Wextra-portability and -Werror.
784 - When using DejaGnu-based testsuites, the user can extend the `site.exp'
785 file generated by automake-provided rules by defining the special make
786 variable `$(EXTRA_DEJAGNU_SITE_CONFIG)'.
788 - The `install-info' rule can now be instructed not to create/update
789 the `${infodir}/dir' file, by exporting the new environment variable
790 `AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no".
792 Bugs fixed in 1.11.2:
794 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
796 - The parallel-tests driver no longer produces erroneous results with
797 Tru64/OSF 5.1 sh upon unreadable log files.
799 - The `parallel-tests' test driver does not report spurious successes
800 when used with concurrent FreeBSD make (e.g., "make check -j3").
802 - When the parallel-tests driver is in use, automake now explicitly
803 rejects invalid entries and conditional contents in TEST_EXTENSIONS,
804 instead of issuing confusing and apparently unrelated error messages
805 (e.g., "non-POSIX variable name", "bad characters in variable name",
806 or "redefinition of TEST_EXTENSIONS), or even, in some situations,
807 silently producing broken `Makefile.in' files.
809 - The `silent-rules' option now truly silences all compile rules, even
810 when dependency tracking is disabled. Also, when `silent-rules' is
811 not used, `make' output no longer contains spurious backslash-only
812 lines, thus once again matching what Automake did before 1.11.
814 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
815 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
817 * Long-standing bugs:
819 - The order of Yacc and Lex flags is fixed to be consistent with other
820 languages: $(AM_YFLAGS) comes before $(YFLAGS), and $(AM_LFLAGS) before
821 $(LFLAGS), so that the user variables override the developer variables.
823 - "make distcheck" now correctly complains also when "make uninstall"
824 leaves one and only one file installed in $(prefix).
826 - A "make uninstall" issued before a "make install", or after a mere
827 "make install-data" or a mere "make install-exec" does not spuriously
830 - Automake now warns about more primary/directory invalid combinations,
831 such as "doc_LIBRARIES" or "pkglib_PROGRAMS".
833 - Rules generated by Automake now try harder to not change any files when
834 `make -n' is invoked. Fixes include compilation of Emacs Lisp, Vala, or
835 Yacc source files and the rule to update config.h.
837 - Several scripts and the parallel-tests testsuite driver now exit with
838 the right exit status upon receiving a signal.
840 - A per-Makefile.am setting of -Werror does not erroneously carry over
841 to the handling of other Makefile.am files.
843 - The code for automatic dependency tracking works around a Solaris
844 make bug triggered by sources containing repeated slashes when the
845 `subdir-objects' option was used.
847 - The makedepend and hp depmodes now work better with VPATH builds.
849 - Java sources specified with check_JAVA are no longer compiled for
850 "make all", but only for "make check".
852 - An usage like "java_JAVA = foo.java" will now cause Automake to warn
853 and error out if `javadir' is undefined, instead of silently producing
854 a broken Makefile.in.
856 - aclocal and automake now honour the configure-time definitions of
857 AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE when they spawn autoconf or autom4te processes.
859 - The `install-info' recipe no longer tries to guess whether the
860 `install-info' program is from Debian or from GNU, and adaptively
861 change its behaviour; this has proven to be frail and easy to
864 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
866 Bugs fixed in 1.11.1:
868 - Lots of minor bugfixes.
870 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
872 - The `parallel-tests' test driver works around a GNU make 3.80 bug with
873 trailing white space in the test list (`TESTS = foo $(EMPTY)').
875 * Long standing bugs:
877 - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
878 even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
879 AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
880 `get_python_lib' function if it points outside the configured prefix,
881 unless the `--prefix' argument was either `/usr' or below `/System'.
883 - The testsuite does not try to change the mode of `ltmain.sh' files from
884 a Libtool installation (symlinked to test directories) any more.
886 - AM_PROG_GCJ uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS to look for `gcj' now, so that prefixed
887 tools are preferred in a cross-compile setup.
889 - The distribution is tarred up with mode 755 now by the `dist*' targets.
890 This fixes a race condition where untrusted users could modify files
891 in the $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION) distdir before packing if the toplevel
892 build directory was world-searchable. This is CVE-2009-4029.
894 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
898 * Version requirements:
900 - Autoconf 2.62 or greater is required.
902 * Changes to aclocal:
904 - The autoconf version check implemented by aclocal in aclocal.m4
905 (and new in Automake 1.10) is degraded to a warning. This helps
906 in the common case where the Autoconf versions used are compatible.
908 * Changes to automake:
910 - The automake program can run multiple threads for creating most
911 Makefile.in files concurrently, if at least Perl 5.7.2 is available
912 with interpreter-based threads enabled. Set the environment variable
913 AUTOMAKE_JOBS to the maximum number of threads to use, in order to
914 enable this experimental feature.
916 * Changes to Libtool support:
918 - Libtool generic flags are now passed to the install and uninstall
921 - distcheck works with Libtool 2.x even when LT_OUTPUT is used, as
922 config.lt is removed correctly now.
926 - subdir-object mode works now with Fortran (F77, FC, preprocessed
927 Fortran, and Ratfor).
929 - For files with extension .f90, .f95, .f03, or .f08, the flag
930 $(FCFLAGS_f[09]x) computed by AC_FC_SRCEXT is now used in compile rules.
932 - Files with extension .sx are also treated as preprocessed assembler.
934 - The default source file extension (.c) can be overridden with
935 AM_DEFAULT_SOURCE_EXT now.
937 - Python 3.0 is supported now, Python releases prior to 2.0 are no
940 - AM_PATH_PYTHON honors python's idea about the site directory.
942 - There is initial support for the Vala programming language, when using
945 * Miscellaneous changes:
947 - Automake development is done in a git repository on Savannah now, see
949 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git
951 A read-only CVS mirror is provided at
953 cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@pserver.git.sv.gnu.org:/automake.git \
954 checkout -d automake HEAD
956 - "make dist" can now create xz-compressed tarballs,
957 as well as (deprecated?) lzma-compressed tarballs.
959 - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as
960 COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file
961 should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never
962 overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing'
965 - The manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
967 - Automake ships and installs man pages for automake and aclocal now.
969 - New shorthand `$(pkglibexecdir)' for `$(libexecdir)/@PACKAGE@'.
971 - install-sh supports -C, which does not update the installed file
972 (and its time stamps) if the contents did not change.
974 - The `gnupload' script has been revamped.
976 - The `depcomp' and `compile' scripts now work with MSVC under MSYS.
978 - The targets `install' and `uninstall' are more efficient now, in that
979 for example multiple files from one Automake variable such as
980 `bin_SCRIPTS' are copied in one `install' (or `libtool --mode=install')
981 invocation if they do not have to be renamed.
983 Both install and uninstall may sometimes enter (`cd' into) the target
984 installation directory now, when no build-local scripts are used.
986 Both install and uninstall do not fail anymore but do nothing if an
987 installation directory variable like `bindir' is set to the empty string.
989 For built-in rules, `make install' now fails reliably if installation
990 of a file failed. Conversely, `make uninstall' even succeeds when
991 issued multiple times.
993 These changes may need some adjustments from users: For example,
994 some `install' programs refuse to install multiple copies of the
995 same file in one invocation, so you may need to remove duplicate
996 entries from file lists.
998 Also, within one set of files, say, nobase_data_DATA, the order of
999 installation may be changed, or even unstable among different hosts,
1000 due to the use of associative arrays in awk. The increased use of
1001 awk matches a similar move in Autoconf to provide for better scaling.
1003 Further, most undocumented per-rule install command variables such as
1004 binSCRIPT_INSTALL have been removed because they are not needed any
1005 more. Packages which use them should be using the appropriate one of
1006 INSTALL_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT} or their install_sh_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT}
1007 counterpart, depending on the type of files and the need for automatic
1008 target directory creation.
1010 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.m4 files is avoided by
1011 stub rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `aclocal'
1012 also if some previously needed macro file has been removed.
1014 - Rebuild rules now also work for a removed `subdir/Makefile.in' in
1015 an otherwise up to date tree.
1017 - The `color-tests' option causes colored test result output on terminals.
1019 - The `parallel-tests' option enables a new test driver that allows for
1020 parallel test execution, inter-test dependencies, lazy test execution
1021 for unit-testing, re-testing only failed tests, and formatted result output
1022 as RST (reStructuredText) and HTML. Enabling this option may require some
1023 changes to your test suite setup; see the manual for details.
1025 - The `silent-rules' option enables Linux kernel-style silent build output.
1026 This option requires the widely supported but non-POSIX `make' feature
1027 of recursive variable expansion, so do not use it if your package needs
1028 to build with `make' implementations that do not support it.
1030 To enable less verbose build output, the developer has to use the Automake
1031 option `silent-rules' in `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE', or call the `AM_SILENT_RULES'
1032 macro. The user may then set the default verbosity by passing the
1033 `--enable-silent-rules' option to `configure'. At `make' run time, this
1034 default may be overridden using `make V=0' for less verbose, and `make V=1'
1035 for backward-compatible verbose output.
1037 - New prefix `notrans_' for manpages which should not be transformed
1038 by --program-transform.
1040 - New macro AM_COND_IF for conditional evaluation and conditional
1043 - For AC_CONFIG_LINKS, if source and destination are equal, do not
1044 remove the file in a non-VPATH build. Such setups work with Autoconf
1047 - AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now allows for an optional argument specifying
1048 the default setting.
1050 - AM_SUBST_NOTMAKE may prevent substitution of AC_SUBSTed variables,
1051 useful especially for multi-line values.
1053 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now diagnoses an
1054 unsafe absolute source directory name and makes configure fail.
1056 - The Automake macros and rules cope better with whitespace in the
1057 current directory name, as long as the relative path to `configure'
1058 does not contain whitespace. To this end, the values of `$(MISSING)'
1059 and `$(install_sh)' may contain suitable quoting, and their expansion
1060 might need `eval'uation if used outside of a makefile. These
1061 undocumented variables may be used in several documented macros such
1062 as $(AUTOCONF) or $(MAKEINFO).
1066 * Long-standing bugs:
1068 - Fix aix dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1070 - Work around AIX sh quoting issue in AC_PROG_CC_C_O, leading to
1071 unnecessary use of the `compile' script.
1073 - For nobase_*_LTLIBRARIES with nonempty directory components, the
1074 correct `-rpath' argument is used now.
1076 - `config.status --file=Makefile depfiles' now also works with the
1077 extra quoting used internally by Autoconf 2.62 and newer
1078 (it used to work only without the `--file=' bit).
1080 - The `missing' script works better with versioned tool names.
1082 - Semantics for `missing help2man' have been revamped:
1084 Previously, if `help2man' was not present, `missing help2man' would have
1085 the following semantics: if some man page was out of date but present, then
1086 a warning would be printed, but the exit status was 0. If the man page was
1087 not present at all, then `missing' would create a replacement man page
1088 containing an error message, and exit with a status of 2. This does not play
1089 well with `make': the next run will see this particular man page as being up
1090 to date, and will only error out on the next generated man page, if any;
1091 repeat until all pages are done. This was not desirable.
1093 These are the new semantics: if some man page is not present, and help2man
1094 is not either, then `missing' will warn and generate the replacement page
1095 containing the error message, but exit successfully. However, `make dist'
1096 will ensure that no such bogus man pages are packaged into a tarball.
1098 - Targets provided by automake behave better with `make -n', in that they
1099 take care not to create files.
1101 - `config.status Makefile... depfiles' works fine again in the presence of
1102 disabled dependency tracking.
1104 - The default no-op recursive rules for these targets also work with BSD make
1105 now: html, install-html, install-dvi, install-pdf, install-pdf, install-info.
1107 - `make distcheck' works also when both a directory and some file below it
1108 have been added to a distribution variable, such as EXTRA_DIST or *_SOURCES.
1110 - Texinfo dvi, ps, pdf, and html output files are not removed upon
1111 `make mostlyclean' any more; only the LaTeX by-products are.
1113 - Renamed objects also work with the `subdir-objects' option and
1114 source file languages which Automake does not know itself.
1116 - `automake' now correctly complains about variable assignments which are
1117 preceded by a comment, extend over multiple lines with backslash-escaped
1118 newlines, and end in a comment sign. Previous versions would silently
1119 and wrongly ignore such assignments completely.
1121 * Bugs introduced by 1.10:
1123 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
1124 Makefile.in's again, but also cope with long lines.
1126 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of XFAIL_TESTS
1127 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1128 This is for consistency with the analogous change to TESTS in 1.10.
1130 - Fix order of standard includes to again be `-I. -I$(srcdir)',
1131 followed by directories containing config headers.
1133 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1137 * Version requirements:
1139 - Autoconf 2.60 or greater is required.
1141 - Perl 5.6 or greater is required.
1143 * Changes to aclocal:
1145 - aclocal now also supports -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble options.
1147 - `dirlist' entries (for the aclocal search path) may use shell
1148 wildcards such as `*', `?', or `[...]'.
1150 - aclocal supports an --install option that will cause system-wide
1151 third-party macros to be installed in the local directory
1152 specified with the first -I flag. This option also uses #serial
1153 lines in M4 files to upgrade local macros.
1155 The new aclocal options --dry-run and --diff help to review changes
1156 before they are installed.
1158 - aclocal now outputs an autoconf version check in aclocal.m4 in
1159 projects using automake.
1161 For a few years, automake and aclocal have been calling autoconf
1162 (or its underlying engine autom4te) to accurately retrieve the
1163 data they need from configure.ac and its siblings. Doing so can
1164 only work if all autotools use the same version of autoconf. For
1165 instance a Makefile.in generated by automake for one version of
1166 autoconf may stop working if configure is regenerated with another
1167 version of autoconf, and vice versa.
1169 This new version check ensures that the whole build system has
1170 been generated using the same autoconf version.
1172 * Support for new Autoconf macros:
1174 - The new AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE Autoconf macro is supported.
1176 - If `subdir-objects' is set, and AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR is specified,
1177 $(LIBOBJS), $(LTLIBOBJS), $(ALLOCA), and $(LTALLOCA) can be used
1178 in different directories. However, only one instance of such a
1179 library objects directory is supported.
1181 * Change to Libtool support:
1183 - Libtool generic flags (those that go before the --mode=MODE option)
1184 can be specified using AM_LIBTOOLFLAGS and target_LIBTOOLFLAGS.
1186 * Yacc and Lex changes:
1188 - The rebuild rules for distributed Yacc and Lex output will avoid
1189 overwriting existing files if AM_MAINTAINER_MODE and maintainer-mode
1192 - ylwrap is now always used for lex and yacc source files,
1193 regardless of whether there is more than one source per directory.
1195 * Languages changes:
1197 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now honors CPPFLAGS,
1198 AM_CPPFLAGS and per-target _CPPFLAGS, and supports dependency
1199 tracking, unlike non-preprocessed assembler (*.s).
1201 - subdir-object mode works now with Assembler. Automake assumes
1202 that the compiler understands `-c -o'.
1204 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now also honors
1205 $(DEFS) $(DEFAULT_INCLUDES) $(INCLUDES).
1207 - Improved support for Objective C:
1208 - Autoconf's new AC_PROG_OBJC will enable automatic dependency tracking.
1209 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1211 - New support for Unified Parallel C:
1212 - AM_PROG_UPC looks for a UPC compiler.
1213 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1215 - Per-target flags are now correctly handled in link rules.
1217 For instance maude_CFLAGS correctly overrides AM_CFLAGS; likewise
1218 for maude_LDFLAGS and AM_LDFLAGS. Previous versions bogusly
1219 preferred AM_CFLAGS over maude_CFLAGS while linking, and they
1220 used both AM_LDFLAGS and maude_LDFLAGS on the same link command.
1222 The fix for compiler flags (i.e., using maude_CFLAGS instead of
1223 AM_CFLAGS) should not hurt any package since that is how _CFLAGS
1224 is expected to work (and actually works during compilation).
1226 However using maude_LDFLAGS "instead of" AM_LDFLAGS rather than
1227 "in addition to" breaks backward compatibility with older versions.
1228 If your package used both variables, as in
1230 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1231 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1232 a_LDFLAGS = more flags
1235 and assumed *_LDFLAGS would sum up, you should rewrite it as
1237 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1238 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1239 a_LDFLAGS = $(AM_LDFLAGS) more flags
1242 This new behavior of *_LDFLAGS is more coherent with other
1243 per-target variables, and the way *_LDFLAGS variables were
1244 considered internally.
1246 * New installation targets:
1248 - New targets mandated by GNU Coding Standards:
1253 By default they will only install Texinfo manuals.
1254 You can customize them with *-local variants:
1260 - The undocumented recursive target `uninstall-info' no longer exists.
1261 (`uninstall' is in charge of removing all possible documentation
1262 flavors, including optional formats such as dvi, ps, or info even
1263 when `no-installinfo' is used.)
1265 * Miscellaneous changes:
1267 - Automake no longer complains if input files for AC_CONFIG_FILES
1268 are specified using shell variables.
1270 - clean, distribution, or rebuild rules are normally disabled for
1271 inputs and outputs of AC_CONFIG_FILES, AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, and
1272 AC_CONFIG_LINK specified using shell variables. However, if these
1273 variables are used as ${VAR}, and AC_SUBSTed, then Automake will
1274 be able to output rules anyway.
1275 (See the Automake documentation for AC_CONFIG_FILES.)
1277 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of TESTS
1278 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1279 This is mostly useful when some check_PROGRAMS are listed in TESTS.
1281 - `-Wportability' has finally been turned on by default for `gnu' and
1282 `gnits' strictness. This means, automake will complain about %-rules
1283 or $(GNU Make functions) unless you switch to `foreign' strictness or
1284 use `-Wno-portability'.
1286 - Automake now uses AC_PROG_MKDIR_P (new in Autoconf 2.60), and uses
1287 $(MKDIR_P) instead of $(mkdir_p) to create directories. The
1288 $(mkdir_p) variable is still defined (to the same value as
1289 $(MKDIR_P)) but should be considered obsolete. If you are using
1290 $(mkdir_p) in some of your rules, please plan to update them to
1291 $(MKDIR_P) at some point.
1293 - AM_C_PROTOTYPES and ansi2knr are now documented as being obsolete.
1294 They still work in this release, but may be withdrawn in a future one.
1296 - Inline compilation rules for gcc3-style dependency tracking are
1299 - Automake installs a "Hello World!" example package in $(docdir).
1300 This example is used throughout the new "Autotools Introduction"
1301 chapter of the manual.
1303 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1307 * Makefile.in bloat reduction:
1309 - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
1310 the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
1311 used. This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
1312 Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
1315 - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
1316 object that must be built with explicit rules. It just outputs
1317 the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
1318 the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
1321 * Change to Libtool support:
1323 - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
1324 (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)
1326 - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
1327 conditionally installed in different directories, as in
1330 lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1332 pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1334 liba_la_SOURCES = ...
1336 * Changes to aclocal:
1338 - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
1339 really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
1340 This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
1341 Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
1342 *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
1343 (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
1344 most famous instance of this bug.)
1346 - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
1347 that are not actually used. In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
1348 determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
1349 only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
1350 all of them to be present in order to run. This created
1351 situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
1352 all the macros it uses. For instance running aclocal on a project
1353 containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
1354 project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
1357 * Portability improvements:
1359 - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
1360 tar-pax. The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
1361 filenames that are too long for tar-v7. (PR/414)
1363 - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
1364 trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
1365 (adding trailing backslashes). In previous versions, a long series
1371 would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
1372 exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.
1374 Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
1379 - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
1380 Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
1381 F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
1382 Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).
1384 - Support for conditional _LISP.
1386 - Support for conditional -hook and -local rules (PR/428).
1388 - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)
1390 - Automake will not write any Makefile.ins after the first error it
1391 encounters. The previous Makefile.ins (if any) will be left in
1392 place. (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
1393 be turned into errors with -Werror.)
1395 - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
1398 - The manual tells more about SUBDIRS vs. DIST_SUBDIRS.
1399 It also gives an example of nested packages using AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS.
1401 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1403 Bugs fixed in 1.8.5:
1405 * Long-standing bugs:
1407 - Define DIST_SUBDIRS even when the `no-dist' or `cygnus' options are used
1408 so that `make distclean' and `make maintainer-clean' can work.
1410 - Define AR and ARFLAGS even when only EXTRA_LIBRARIES are defined.
1412 - Fix many rules to please FreeBSD make, which runs commands with `sh -e'.
1414 - Polish diagnostic when no input file is found.
1416 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1418 Bugs fixed in 1.8.4:
1420 * Long-standing bugs:
1422 - Fix AM_PATH_PYTHON to correctly display $PYTHON when it has been
1423 overridden by the user.
1425 - Honor PATH_SEPARATOR in various places of the Automake package, for
1428 - Adjust dependency tracking mode detection to ICC 8.0's new output.
1431 - Fix install-sh so it can install the `mv' binary... using `mv'.
1433 - Fix tru64 dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1435 - Work around Exuberant Ctags when creating a TAGS files in a directory
1436 without files to scan but with subdirectories to include.
1438 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1440 - Fix an "internal error" when @LIBOBJS@ is used in a variable that is
1441 not defined in the same conditions as the _LDADD that uses it.
1443 - Do not warn when JAVAROOT is overridden, this is legitimate.
1445 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1447 Bugs fixed in 1.8.3:
1449 * Long-standing bugs:
1451 - Quote filenames in installation rules, in case $DESTDIR, $prefix,
1452 or any of the other *dir variables contain a space.
1454 Please note that Automake does not and cannot support spaces in
1455 filenames that are involved during the build. This change affects
1456 only installation paths, so that `make install' does not bomb out
1457 in packages configured with
1458 ./configure --prefix '/c/Program Files'
1460 - Fix the depfiles output so it works with GNU sed (<4.1) even when
1461 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
1463 - Do not AC_SUBST(LIBOBJS) in AM_WITH_REGEX. This macro was unusable
1464 since Autoconf 2.54, which defines LIBOBJS itself.
1466 - Fix a potential (but unlikely) race condition in parallel elisp
1467 builds. (Introduced in 1.7.3.)
1469 - Do not assume that users override _DEPENDENCIES in all conditions
1470 where Automake will try to define them.
1472 - Do not use `mkdir -p' in mkinstalldirs, unless this is GNU mkdir.
1473 Solaris 8's `mkdir -p' is not thread-safe and can break parallel
1476 This fix also affects the $(mkdir_p) variable defined since
1477 Automake 1.8. It will be set to `mkdir -p' only if mkdir is GNU
1478 mkdir, and to `mkinstalldirs' or `install-sh -d' otherwise.
1480 - Secure temporary directory creation in `make distcheck'. (PR/413)
1482 - Do not generate two build rules for `parser.h' when the
1483 parser appears in two different conditionals.
1485 - Work around a Solaris 8 /bin/sh bug in the test for dependency
1486 checking. Usually ./configure will not pick this shell; so this
1487 fix only helps cases where the shell is forced to /bin/sh.
1489 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1491 - In some situations (hand-written `m4_include's), aclocal would
1492 call the `File::Spec->rel2abs' method, which was only introduced
1493 in Perl 5.6. This new version reestablish support Perl 5.005.
1495 It is likely that the next major Automake releases will require at
1496 least Perl 5.6. Consider upgrading your development environment
1497 if you are still using the five-year-old Perl 5.005.
1499 - Automake would sometimes fail to define rules for targets listed
1500 in variables defined in multiple conditions. For instance on
1506 it would define only the `a.$(OBJEXT): a.c' rule and omit the
1507 `b.$(OBJEXT): b.c' rule.
1509 * New sections in manual:
1511 - Third-Party Makefiles: how to interface third party Makefiles.
1512 - Upgrading: upgrading packages to newer Automake versions.
1513 - Multiple Outputs: handling tools that produce many outputs.
1515 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1519 * A (well known) portability bug slipped in the changes made to
1520 install-sh in Automake 1.8.1. The broken install-sh would refuse to
1521 install anything on Tru64.
1523 * Fix install rules for conditionally built python files. (This never
1526 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1530 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1532 - Fix Config.pm import error with old Perl versions (at least
1533 5.005_03). One symptom is that aclocal could not find its macro
1536 - Automake 1.8 used `mkdir -m 0755 -p --' to ensure that directories
1537 created by `make install' are always world readable, even if the
1538 installer happens to have an overly restrictive umask (e.g. 077).
1539 This was a mistake and has been reverted. There are at least two
1540 reasons why we must not use `-m 0755':
1541 - it causes special bits like SGID to be ignored,
1542 - it may be too restrictive (some setups expect 775 directories).
1544 - Fix aclocal to honor definitions located in files which have been
1545 m4_included manually. aclocal 1.8 had been updated to check
1546 m4_included files for new requirements, but forgot that these
1547 m4_included files can also provide new definitions.
1549 Note that if you have such a setup, we recommend you get rid of
1550 it. In the past, there was a reason to m4_include files manually:
1551 aclocal used to duplicate entire M4 files into aclocal.m4, even
1552 files that were distributed. Some packages were therefore
1553 m4_including the distributed file directly, and playing some
1554 tricks to ensure aclocal would not copy that file to aclocal.m4,
1555 in order to limit the amount of duplication. Since aclocal 1.8.x
1556 will precisely output m4_includes for local M4 files, we recommend
1557 that you clean up your setup, removing all manual m4_includes and
1558 letting aclocal output them.
1560 - Output detailed menus in the Info version if the Automake manual,
1561 so that Emacs can locate the indexes.
1563 - configure.ac and configure were listed twice in DIST_COMMON (an
1564 internal variable where Automake lists configury files to
1565 distribute). This was harmless, but unaesthetic.
1567 - Use `chmod a-w' instead of `chmod -w' as the latter honors umask.
1568 This was an issue only in the Automake package itself, not in
1571 - Automake assumed that all AC_CONFIG_LINKS arguments had the form
1572 DEST:SRC. This was wrong, as some packages do
1573 AC_CONFIG_LINKS($computedlinks). This version no longer abort in
1576 - Contrary to mkinstalldirs, $(mkdir_p) was expecting exactly one
1577 argument. This caused two kinds of failures:
1578 - Rules installing data in a conditionally defined directory
1579 failed when that directory was undefined. In this case no
1580 argument was supplied.
1581 - `make installdirs' failed, because several directories were
1582 passed to $(mkdir_p). This was an issue only on platform
1583 were $(mkdir_p) is implemented with `install-sh -d'.
1584 $(mkdir_p) as been changed to accept 0 or more arguments, as
1587 * Long-standing bugs:
1589 - Fix an unexpected diagnostic occurring when users attempt
1590 to override some internal variables that Automake appends to.
1592 - aclocal now scans configure.ac for macro definitions (PR/319).
1594 - Fix a portability issue with OSF1/Tru64 Make. If a directory
1595 distributes files which are outside itself (this usually occurs
1596 when using AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([../dir]) to use auxiliary files
1597 from a parent package), then `make distcheck' fails due to an
1598 optimization performed by OSF1/Tru64 Make in its VPATH handling.
1599 (tests/subpkg2.test failure)
1601 - Fix another portability issue with Sun and OSF1/Tru64 Make.
1602 In a VPATH-build configuration, `make install' would install
1603 nobase_ files to wrong locations.
1605 - Fix a Perl `uninitialized value' diagnostic occurring when
1606 automake complains that a Texinfo file does not have a
1607 @setfilename statement.
1609 - Erase config.status.lineno during `make distclean'. This file
1610 can be created by config.status. Automake already knew about
1611 configure.lineno, but forgot config.status.lineno.
1613 - Distribute all files, even those which are built and installed
1614 conditionally. This change affects files listed in conditionally
1615 defined *_HEADERS and *_PYTHON variable (unless they are nodist_*)
1616 as well as those listed in conditionally defined dist_*_DATA,
1617 dist_*_JAVA, dist_*_LISP, and dist_*_SCRIPTS variables.
1619 - Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to avoid \? in sed regular expressions; it
1620 doesn't conform to POSIX.
1622 - Normalize help strings for configure variables and options added
1627 - Check for python2.4 in AM_PATH_PYTHON.
1629 * Spurious failures in test suite:
1631 - tests/libtool5.test, tests/ltcond.test, tests/ltcond2.test,
1632 tests/ltconv.test: fix failures with CVS Libtool.
1633 - tests/aclocal6.test: fix failure if autom4te.cache is disabled.
1634 - tests/txinfo24.test, tests/txinfo25.test, tests/txinfo28.test:
1635 fix failures with old Texinfo versions.
1637 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1643 - The NEWS file is more verbose.
1647 - Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
1651 - Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES declaration
1652 are made by removing any target extension before appending `.c', so
1653 to make the libtool module `foo.la' from `foo.c', you only need to
1656 lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
1657 foo_la_LDFLAGS = -module
1659 For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
1660 foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
1661 However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.
1663 - AR's `cru' flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable instead
1664 of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can be
1665 substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
1666 dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
1668 - New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
1669 target or variable definitions which override Automake
1672 - Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo fails.
1674 - Texinfo rules now support the `html' target.
1675 Running this requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.
1677 `html' is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
1678 hand-crafted `Makefile.in's with Automake-generated
1679 `Makefile.in's, you should adjust the former to support (or
1680 ignore) this target so that `make html' recurses successfully. If
1681 you had a custom `html' rule in your `Makefile.am', it's better to
1682 rename it as `html-local', otherwise your rule will override
1683 Automake's new rule (you can check that by running `automake
1684 -Woverride') and that will stop the recursion to subdirectories.
1686 Last but not least, this `html' rule is declared PHONY, even when
1687 overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
1688 non-PHONY `html' rule.
1690 - Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as a
1691 configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
1694 - The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
1695 rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
1696 configure's dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
1697 than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
1698 were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
1699 change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
1700 friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
1701 rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
1702 tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
1704 - For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
1705 config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
1706 Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
1707 CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
1708 should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
1709 using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
1710 $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different
1711 levels of the build tree).
1713 - aclocal will now use `m4_include' instead of copying local m4
1714 files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with
1715 your project, other files will be copied as usual.)
1717 Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it means
1718 for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list of
1719 m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
1720 m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)
1722 - aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
1723 Autom4te's cache isn't needlessly invalidated. This behavior can
1724 be switched off with the new `--force' option.
1726 - aclocal now uses Autoconf's --trace to detect macros which are
1727 actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
1728 because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
1729 called conditionally.
1731 - New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
1733 - compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, mkinstalldirs,
1734 py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand --version and --help.
1736 - Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing created
1737 links as part of the distclean target and including source files in
1740 - AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND
1741 argument. The latter can be used to override the default behavior
1742 (which is to abort).
1744 - Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
1745 Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will
1746 emulate the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions
1747 of Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change
1748 will only be useful in projects generated with future versions of
1751 - When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
1752 generates the first ".in" input file for which a ".am" exists.
1753 (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
1755 - lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
1756 idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
1757 recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that
1758 this is not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp
1759 files even if emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not
1760 install anything unless emacs is found.
1762 - Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p' over mkinstalldirs if it is
1763 available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile
1764 variable $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either
1765 `mkdir -m 0755 -p --', `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755', or
1766 `$(install_sh) -m 0755 -d'.
1770 - Because `mkdir -p' is available on most platforms, and we can use
1771 `install-sh -d' when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
1772 script is being phased out. `automake --add-missing' no longer
1773 installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
1774 automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).
1776 Gettext 0.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
1777 gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake
1778 will continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
1779 mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.
1781 - AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
1782 merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cv_prog_cc_stdc, you
1783 should adjust it to use $ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc instead. (This
1784 renaming should be safe, even if you have to support several,
1785 versions of Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable
1786 since Autoconf 2.54.)
1788 - Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
1789 variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
1790 (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake
1791 now tracks configure's m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
1792 above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered
1793 obsolete and will be flagged as such when running `automake
1798 - Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
1799 longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following
1800 construct used to be troublesome when used with dozens of
1815 Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.
1817 - Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of Automake
1818 proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some variables
1828 All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected.
1829 This restriction has been lifted, and these variables now
1830 support multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.
1832 - Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
1833 $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution
1834 directory created during `make dist', as it did in Automake 1.4,
1835 not to the root of the build tree as it did in intervening
1836 versions. Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in
1837 the top level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running
1840 - The --no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in's
1841 dependencies before deciding not to update it.
1843 - Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning rules.
1845 - Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree. This
1846 is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
1847 used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
1848 it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
1849 from mere annoyance to portability issues.
1851 - COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer overwritten
1852 when --add-missing and --force-missing are used. For backward
1853 compatibility --add-missing will continue to install COPYING (in
1854 `gnu' strictness) when none of these three files exist, but this
1855 use is deprecated: you should better choose a license yourself and
1856 install it once for all in your source tree (and in your code
1859 - Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that haven't
1860 changed, as the inline rule already does.
1862 - User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
1863 targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new
1864 (and was documented), however some of the automake-generated
1865 rules have escaped this principle in former Automake versions.
1866 Rules for the following targets are affected by this fix:
1868 clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
1869 info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
1870 install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
1871 maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am,
1872 ps, ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man
1874 Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the dependencies
1875 of some target, as in
1877 clean: my-clean-rule
1879 will now *silently override* the automake definition of the
1880 rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride' will diagnose
1881 all such overriding definitions.
1883 It should be noted that almost all of these targets support a *-local
1884 variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined rule
1885 (See node `Extending' in the manual). The above rule should
1888 clean-local: my-clean-rule
1890 These *-local targets have been documented since at least
1891 Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have
1892 to support multiple automake versions.
1896 - The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1898 - Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always defined.
1900 - core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There are
1901 at least three reasons for this:
1902 1. These files should not be created by any build step,
1903 so their removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules.
1904 Actually, they may be precious to the developer.
1905 2. If such file is created during a build, then it's clearly a
1906 bug Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will
1907 cause `make distcheck' to complain about its presence.
1908 3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for
1909 core dump files. A core file on one system might be a
1910 completely legitimate data file on another system.
1912 - RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
1913 defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
1914 environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
1915 on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
1916 defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
1917 AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
1919 - CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
1920 documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have
1921 been there since at least Automake 1.4.)
1923 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1925 Bugs fixed in 1.7.9:
1926 * Fix install-strip to work with nobase_ binaries.
1927 * Fix renaming of #line directives in ylwrap.
1928 * Rebuild with Autoconf 2.59. (1.7.8 was not installable with pdksh.)
1930 Bugs fixed in 1.7.8:
1931 * Remove spurious blank lines in cleaning rules introduced in 1.7.7.
1932 * Fix detection of Debian's install-info, broken since version 1.5.
1933 (Debian bug #213524).
1934 * Honor -module if it appears in AM_LDFLAGS (i.e., relax name checking)
1935 This was only done for libfoo_LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS in previous versions.
1937 Bugs fixed in 1.7.7:
1938 * The implementation of automake's --no-force option is unreliable,
1939 so this option is ignored in this version. A real fix will appear in
1940 Automake 1.8. (Debian Bug #206299)
1941 * AM_PATH_PYTHON: really check the whole list of interpreters if no
1942 argument is given. (PR/399)
1943 * Do not warn about leading `_' in variable names, even with -Wportability.
1944 * Support user redefinitions of TEXINFO_TEX.
1945 * depcomp: support AIX Compiler version 6.
1946 * Fix missing rebuilds during `make dist' with BSD make.
1947 (Could produce tarballs containing out-of-date files.)
1948 * Resurrect multilib support.
1949 * Noteworthy manual updates:
1950 - Extending aclocal: how to write m4 macros that won't trigger warnings
1952 - A Shared Library: Rewrite and split into subsections.
1954 Bugs fixed in 1.7.6:
1955 * Fix depcomp's icc mode for ICC 7.1.
1956 * Diagnose calls to AC_CONFIG_FILES and friends with not enough arguments.
1957 * Fix maintainer-clean's removal of autom4te.cache in VPATH builds.
1958 * Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to work with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
1959 * Fix the location reported in some diagnostics related to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
1960 * Remove Latin-1 characters from elisp-comp.
1961 * Update the manual's @dircategory to match the Free Software Directory.
1963 Bugs fixed in 1.7.5:
1964 * Update install-sh's license to remove an advertising clause.
1965 (Debian bug #191717)
1966 * Fix a bug introduced in 1.7.4, related to BUILT_SOURCE handling,
1967 that caused invalid Makefile.ins to be generated.
1968 * Make sure AM_MAKE_INCLUDE doesn't fail when a `doit' file exists.
1969 * New FAQ entry: renamed objects.
1971 Bugs fixed in 1.7.4:
1972 * Tweak the TAGS rule to support Exuberant Ctags (in addition to
1973 the Emacs implementation)
1974 * Fix output of aclocal.m4 dependencies in subdirectories.
1975 * Use `mv -f' instead of `mv' in fastdep rules.
1976 * Upgrade mdate-sh to work on OS/2.
1977 * Don't byte-compile elisp files when ELCFILES is set empty.
1978 (this documented feature was broken by 1.7.3)
1979 * Diagnose trailing backslashes on last line of Makefile.am.
1980 * Diagnose whitespace following trailing backslashes.
1981 * Multiple tests are now correctly supported in DEJATOOL. (PR/388)
1982 * Fix rebuilt rules for AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.bot])
1984 * `make install' will build `BUILT_SOURCES' first.
1985 * Minor documentation fixes.
1987 Bugs fixed in 1.7.3:
1988 * Fix stamp files numbering (when using multiple AC_CONFIG_HEADERS).
1989 * Query distutils for `pythondir' and `pythonexecdir', instead of
1990 using an hardcoded path. This should allow builds on 64-bit
1991 distributions that usually use lib64/ instead of lib/.
1992 * AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for python2.3.
1993 * elisp files are now built all at once instead of one by one. Besides
1994 incurring a speed-up, this is required to support interdependent elisp files.
1995 * Support for DJGPP:
1996 - `make distcheck' will now work in `_inst/' and `_build' instead
1997 of `=inst/' and `=build/'
1998 - use `_dirstamp' when the file-system doesn't support `.dirstamp'
1999 - install/uninstall `*.i[0-9][0-9]'-style info files
2000 - more changes that affect only the Automake package (not its output)
2001 * Fix some incompatibilities with upcoming perl-5.10.
2002 * Properly quote AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME and AC_PACKAGE_VERSION when defining
2003 PACKAGE and VERSION.
2005 - dashmstdout and dashXmstdout modes: don't use `-o /dev/null', this
2006 is troublesome with gcc and Solaris compilers. (PR/385)
2007 - makedepend mode: work with Libtool. (PR/385 too)
2009 * better support for unusual gettext setups, such as multiple po/ directories
2011 - Flag missing po/ and intl/ directories as warnings, not errors.
2012 - Disable these warnings if po/ does not exist.
2013 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2015 - Document how AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR interacts with missing files.
2017 - Document `AM_YFLAGS = -d'. (PR/382)
2019 Bugs fixed in 1.7.2:
2020 * Fix installation and uninstallation of Info files built in subdirectories.
2021 * Do not run `./configure --with-included-gettext' during `make distcheck'
2022 if AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) is used.
2023 * Correctly uninstall renamed man pages.
2024 * Do not strip escaped newline in variables defined in one condition
2025 and augmented in another condition.
2026 * Fix ansi2knr rules for LIBOBJS sources.
2027 * Clean all known Texinfo index files, not only those which appear to
2028 be used, because we cannot know which indexes are used in included files.
2029 (PR/375, Debian Bug #168671)
2030 * Honor only the first @setfilename seen in a Texinfo file.
2031 * Treat "required file X not found" diagnostics as errors (exit status 1).
2032 * Don't complain that a required file is not found when it is a Makefile
2034 * Don't use single suffix inference rules when building `.info'-less
2035 Info files, for the sake of Solaris make.
2036 * The `check' target now depends on `$(BUILT_SOURCES)'. (PR/359)
2037 * Recognize multiple inference rules such as `.a.b .c.d:'. (PR/371)
2038 * Warn about multiple inference rules when -Wportability is used. (PR/372)
2039 * Fix building of deansified files from subdirectories. (PR/370)
2040 * Add missing `fi' in the .c->.obj rules.
2041 * Improve install-sh to work even when names contain spaces or certain
2042 (but not all) shell metachars.
2043 * Fix the following spurious failures in the test suite:
2044 depcomp2.test, gnits2.test, gnits3.test, python3.test, texinfo13.test
2045 * Noteworthy manual updates:
2046 - Augment the section about BUILT_SOURCES.
2047 - Mention that AM_PROG_CC_STDC is a relic that is better avoided today.
2049 Bugs fixed in 1.7.1:
2050 * Honor `ansi2knr' for files built in subdirectories, or using per-targets
2052 * Aclocal should now recognize macro names containing parentheses, e.g.
2053 AC_DEFUN([AC_LANG_PREPROC(Fortran 90)], [...]).
2054 * Erase *.sum and *.log files created by DejaGnu, during `make distclean'.
2056 * Install Python files even if they were built. (PR/369)
2057 * Have stamp-vti dependent upon configure instead of configure.ac, as the
2058 version might not be defined in the latter. (PR/358)
2059 * Reorder arguments passed to a couple of commands, so things works
2060 when POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
2061 * Fix a regex that can cause Perl to segfault on large input.
2063 * Fix distribution of packages that have some sources defined conditionally,
2064 as in the `Conditional compilation using Automake conditionals' example
2066 * Fix spurious test suite failures on IRIX.
2067 * Don't report a required variable as undefined if it has been
2068 defined conditionally for the "right" conditions.
2069 * Fix cleaning of the /tmp subdirectory used by `make distcheck', in case
2070 `make distcheck' fails.
2071 * Fix distribution of included Makefile fragment, so we don't create
2072 spurious directories in the distribution. (PR/366)
2073 * Don't complain that a target lacks `.$(EXEEXT)' when it has it.
2076 * Autoconf 2.54 is required.
2077 * `aclocal' and `automake' will no longer warn about obsolete
2078 configure macros. This is done by `autoconf -Wobsolete'.
2079 * AM_CONFIG_HEADER, AM_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS and
2080 AM_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ_NEEDS_SYS_IOCTL are obsolete (although still
2081 supported). You should use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS,
2082 and AC_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ instead. `autoupdate' can upgrade
2083 `configure.ac' for you.
2084 * Support for per-program and per-library `_CPPFLAGS'.
2085 * New `ctags' target (builds CTAGS files).
2086 * Support for -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble, where mumble is a warning category
2087 (see `automake --help' or the manual for a list of them).
2088 * Honor the WARNINGS environment variable.
2089 * Omit the call to depcomp when using gcc3: call the compiler directly.
2090 * A new option, std-options, tests that programs support --help and --version
2091 when `make installcheck' is run. This is enabled by --gnits.
2092 * Texinfo rules now support the `ps' and `pdf' targets.
2093 * Info files are now created in the build directory, not the source directory.
2094 * info_TEXINFOS supports files in subdirectories (this requires Texinfo 4.1
2096 * `make distcheck' will enforce DESTDIR support by attempting
2098 * `+=' can be used in conditionals, even if the augmented variable
2099 was defined for another condition.
2100 * Makefile fragments (inserted with `include') are always distributed.
2101 * Use Autoconf's --trace interface to inspect configure.ac and get
2102 a more accurate view of it.
2103 * Add support for extending aclocal's default macro search path
2104 using a `dirlist' file within the aclocal directory.
2105 * automake --output-dir is deprecated.
2106 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether uninstall actually
2107 removes all installed files has been moved in a separate target,
2108 distuninstallcheck, so it can be overridden easily.
2112 * Support for AM_INIT_GETTEXT([external])
2113 * Bug fixes, including:
2114 - Fix Automake's own `make install' so it works even if `ln' doesn't.
2115 - nobase_ programs and scripts honor --program-transform correctly.
2116 - Erase configure.lineno during `make distclean'.
2117 - Erase YACC and LEX outputs during `make maintainer-clean'.
2120 * Many bug fixes, including:
2121 - Requiring the current version works.
2122 - Fix "$@" portability issues (for Zsh).
2123 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
2125 - Don't compute dependencies in background to avoid races with libtool.
2126 - Fix handling of _OBJECTS variables for targets sharing source variables.
2127 - Check dependency mode for Java when AM_PROG_GCJ is used.
2130 * automake --output-dir is deprecated
2131 * Many bug fixes, including:
2132 - Don't choke on AM_LDFLAGS definitions.
2133 - Clean libtool objects from subdirectories.
2134 - Allow configure variables with reserved suffix and unknown prefix
2135 (e.g. AC_SUBST(mumble_LDFLAGS) when 'mumble' is not a target).
2136 - Fix the definition of AUTOMAKE and ACLOCAL in configure.
2139 * Autoconf 2.52 is required.
2140 * automake no longer run libtoolize.
2141 This is the job of autoreconf (from GNU Autoconf).
2142 * `dist' generates all the archive flavors, as did `dist-all'.
2143 * `dist-gzip' generates the Gzip tar file only.
2144 * Combining Automake Makefile conditionals no longer lead to a combinatorial
2145 explosion. Makefile.in's keep a reasonable size.
2146 * AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_STRTOD, AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, AM_PTRDIFF_T
2147 are no longer shipped, since Autoconf 2.52 provides them (both as AM_
2149 * `#line' of Lex and Yacc files are properly set.
2150 * EXTRA_DIST can contain generated directories.
2151 * Support for dot-less extensions in suffix rules.
2152 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether distclean actually
2153 cleans all built files has been moved in a separate target, distcleancheck,
2154 so it can be overridden easily.
2155 * `make distcheck' will pass additional options defined in
2156 $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) to configure.
2157 * Fixed CDPATH portability problems, in particular for MacOS X.
2158 * Fixed handling of nobase_ targets.
2159 * Fixed support of implicit rules leading to .lo objects.
2160 * Fixed late inclusion of --add-missing files (e.g. depcomp) in DIST_COMMON
2161 * Added uninstall-hook target
2162 * `AC_INIT AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tarname,version)' is an obsolete construct.
2163 You can now use `AC_INIT(pkgname,version) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE' instead.
2164 (Note that "pkgname" is not "tarname", see the manual for details.)
2165 It is also possible to pass a list of global Automake options as
2166 first argument to this new form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
2167 * Compiler-based assembler is now called `CCAS'; people expected `AS'
2168 to be a real assembler.
2169 * AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will set STRIP itself when it needs it. Adding
2170 AC_CHECK_TOOL([STRIP], [strip]) manually is no longer required.
2171 * aclocal and automake are also installed with the version number
2172 appended, and some of the install directory names have changed.
2173 This lets you have multiple versions installed simultaneously.
2174 * Support for parsers and lexers in subdirectories.
2177 * Support for `configure.ac'.
2178 * Support for `else COND', `endif COND' and negated conditions `!COND'.
2179 * `make dist-all' is much faster.
2180 * Allows '@' AC_SUBSTs in macro names.
2181 * Faster AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (requires update of `missing' script)
2182 * User-side dependency tracking. Developers no longer need GNU make
2184 * Uses DIST_SUBDIRS in some situations when SUBDIRS is conditional
2185 * Most files are correctly handled if they appear in subdirs
2186 For instance, a _DATA file can appear in a subdir
2187 * GNU tar is no longer required for `make dist'
2188 * Added support for `dist_' and `nodist_' prefixes
2189 * Added support for `nobase_' prefix
2190 * Compiled Java support
2191 * Support for per-executable and per-library compilation flags
2195 * Added support for the Fortran 77 programming language.
2196 * Re-indexed the Automake Texinfo manual.
2197 * Added `AM_FOOFLAGS' variable for each compiler invocation;
2198 e.g. AM_CFLAGS can be used in Makefile.am to set C compiler flags
2199 * Support for latest autoconf, including support for objext
2200 * Can now put `.' in SUBDIRS to control build order
2201 * `include' command and `+=' support for macro assignment
2202 * Dependency tracking no long susceptible to deleted header file problem
2203 * Maintainer mode now a conditional. @MAINT@ is now an anachronism.
2208 * Better Cygwin32 support
2209 * Support for suffix rules with _SOURCES variables
2210 * New options `readme-alpha' and `check-news'; Gnits mode sets these
2211 * @LEXLIB@ no longer required when lex source seen
2212 Lex support in `missing', and new lex macro. Update your missing script.
2213 * Built-in support for assembly
2214 * aclocal gives error if `AM_' macro not found
2215 * Passed YFLAGS, not YACCFLAGS, to yacc
2216 * AM_PROG_CC_STDC does not have to come before AC_PROG_CPP
2217 * Dependencies computed as a side effect of compilation
2218 * Preliminary support for Java
2219 * DESTDIR support at "make install" time
2220 * Improved ansi2knr support; you must use the latest ansi2knr.c (included)
2224 * Better DejaGnu support
2225 * Added no-installinfo option
2226 * Added Emacs Lisp support
2227 * Added --no-force option
2228 * Included `aclocal' program
2229 * Automake will now generate rules to regenerate aclocal.m4, if appropriate
2230 * Now uses `AM_' macro names everywhere
2231 * ansi2knr option can have directory prefix (eg `../lib/ansi2knr')
2232 ansi2knr now works correctly on K&R sources
2233 * Better C++, yacc, lex support
2234 * Will compute _DEPENDENCIES variables automatically if not supplied
2235 * Will interpolate $(...) and ${...} when examining contents of a variable
2236 * .deps files now in build directory, not source directory; dependency
2237 handling generally rewritten
2238 * DATA, MANS and BUILT_SOURCES no longer included in distribution
2239 * can now put config.h into a subdir
2240 * Added dist-all target
2241 * Support for install-info program (see texinfo 3.9)
2242 * Support for "yacc -d"
2243 * configure substitutions are automatically discovered and included
2244 in generated Makefile.in
2245 * Special --cygnus mode
2246 * OMIT_DEPENDENCIES can now hold list of dependencies to be omitted
2247 when making distribution. Some dependencies are auto-ignored.
2248 * Changed how libraries are specified in _LIBRARIES variable
2249 * Full libtool support, from Gord Matzigkeit
2250 * No longer have to explicitly touch stamp-h when using AC_CONFIG_HEADER;
2251 AM_CONFIG_HEADER handles it automatically
2252 * Texinfo output files no longer need .info extension
2253 * Added `missing' support
2255 * Conditionals in Makefile.am, from Ian Taylor
2259 * distcheck target runs install and installcheck targets
2260 * Added preliminary support for DejaGnu.
2265 * More libtool fixes from Gord Matzigkeit; libtool support is still
2267 * Added support for jm_MAINTAINER_MODE
2269 * New "distcheck" target
2273 * mkinstalldirs and mdate-sh now appear in directory specified by
2275 * Removed DIST_SUBDIRS, DIST_OTHER
2276 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM only required when an actual program exists
2277 * dist-hook target now run before distribution packaged up; idea from
2278 Dieter Baron. Other hooks exist, too.
2279 * Preliminary (unfinished) support for libtool
2280 * Added short option names.
2281 * Better "dist" support when gluing together multiple packages
2285 * Documentation updates (many from François Pinard)
2286 * strictness `normal' now renamed to `foreign'
2287 * Renamed --install-missing to --add-missing
2288 * Now handles AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR
2289 * Now handles TESTS macro
2290 * DIST_OTHER renamed to EXTRA_DIST
2291 * DIST_SUBDIRS is deprecated
2292 * @ALLOCA@ and @LIBOBJS@ now work in _LDADD variables
2293 * Better error messages in many cases
2294 * Program names are canonicalized
2295 * Added "check" prefix; from Gord Matzigkeit
2299 * configure.in scanner knows about AC_PATH_XTRA, AC_OUTPUT ":" syntax
2300 * Beginnings of a test suite
2301 * Automatically adds -I options for $(srcdir), ".", and path to config.h
2302 * Doesn't print anything when running
2303 * Beginnings of MAINT_CHARSET support
2304 * Can specify version in AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
2305 * Most errors recognizable by Emacs' M-x next-error
2306 * Added --verbose option
2307 * All "primary" variables now obsolete; use EXTRA_PRIMARY to supply
2308 configure-generated names
2309 * Required macros now distributed in aclocal.m4
2311 * --strictness=gnu is default
2315 * More sophisticated configure.in scanning; now understands ALLOCA and
2316 LIBOBJS directly, handles AC_CONFIG_HEADER more precisely, etc.
2317 * TEXINFOS and MANS now obsolete; use info_TEXINFOS and man_MANS instead.
2318 * CONFIG_HEADER variable now obsolete
2319 * Can handle multiple Texinfo sources
2320 * Allow hierarchies deeper than 2. From Gord Matzigkeit.
2321 * HEADERS variable no longer needed; now can put .h files directly into
2322 foo_SOURCES variable.
2323 * Automake automatically rebuilds files listed in AC_OUTPUT. The
2324 corresponding ".in" files are included in the distribution.
2327 * Added --gnu and --gnits options
2328 * More standards checking
2330 * Cleaned up 'dist' targets
2331 * Added AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable and several options
2332 * Now scans configure.in to get some information (preliminary)
2335 * Works with Perl 4 again
2338 * Added --install-missing option.
2339 * Pretty-prints generated macros and rules
2340 * Comments in Makefile.am are placed more intelligently in Makefile.in
2341 * Generates .PHONY target
2342 * Rule or macro in Makefile.am now overrides contents of Automake file
2343 * Substantial cleanups from François Pinard
2347 * Works with Perl 4 again.
2350 * New uniform naming scheme.
2351 * --strictness option
2353 * '.c' files corresponding to '.y' or '.l' files are automatically
2355 * Many bug fixes and cleanups
2358 * Allow objects to be conditionally included in libraries via lib_LIBADD.
2361 * Bug fixes in 'clean' code.
2362 * Now generates 'installdirs' target.
2363 * man page installation reworked.
2364 * 'make dist' no longer re-creates all Makefile.in's.
2367 * Reimplemented in Perl
2368 * Added --amdir option (for debugging)
2369 * Texinfo support cleaned up.
2370 * Automatic de-ANSI-fication cleaned up.
2371 * Cleaned up 'clean' targets.
2374 * Automatic dependency tracking
2375 * More documentation
2376 * New variables DATA and PACKAGEDATA
2377 * SCRIPTS installed using $(INSTALL_SCRIPT)
2378 * No longer uses double-colon rules
2380 * Changes in advance of internationalization
2384 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2386 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
2387 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2388 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
2391 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2392 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2393 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2394 GNU General Public License for more details.
2396 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2397 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.