1 GNU Autoconf NEWS - User visible changes.
3 * Noteworthy changes in release ?.? (????-??-??) [?]
6 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.68b (2012-03-01) [beta]
7 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.68.*.
9 ** Autoconf-generated configure scripts now unconditionally re-execute
10 themselves with $CONFIG_SHELL, if that's set in the environment.
12 ** The texinfo documentation no longer specifies "front-cover" or
13 "back-cover" texts, so that it may now be included in Debian's
16 ** Support for the Go programming language has been added. The new macro
17 AC_LANG_GO sets variables GOC and GOFLAGS.
19 ** AS_LITERAL_IF again treats '=' as a literal. Regression introduced in
22 ** The macro AS_EXECUTABLE_P, present since 2.50, is now documented.
26 - AC_PROG_LN_S and AS_LN_S now fall back on 'cp -pR' (not 'cp -p') if 'ln -s'
27 does not work. This works better for symlinks to directories.
29 - New macro AC_HEADER_CHECK_STDBOOL.
31 - New and updated macros for Fortran support:
33 AC_FC_CHECK_BOUNDS to enable array bounds checking
34 AC_F77_IMPLICIT_NONE and AC_FC_IMPLICIT_NONE to disable implicit integer
35 AC_FC_MODULE_EXTENSION to compute the Fortran 90 module name extension
36 AC_FC_MODULE_FLAG for the Fortran 90 module search path flag
37 AC_FC_MODULE_OUTPUT_FLAG for the Fortran 90 module output directory flag
38 AC_FC_PP_SRCEXT for preprocessed Fortran source files extensions
39 AC_FC_PP_DEFINE for the Fortran preprocessor define flag
41 * Noteworthy changes in release 2.68 (2010-09-22) [stable]
42 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.67.*.
44 ** AC_MSG_ERROR (and AS_ERROR) can once again be followed immediately by
45 `dnl'. Regression introduced in 2.66.
47 ** AC_INIT again allows URLs with '?' for its BUG-REPORT argument.
48 Regression introduced in 2.66.
50 ** AC_REPLACE_FUNCS again allows a non-literal argument, such as a shell
51 variable that expands to a list of functions to check. Regression
54 ** AT_BANNER() with empty argument will cause visual separation from previous
57 ** The macros AC_PREPROC_IFELSE, AC_COMPILE_IFELSE, AC_LINK_IFELSE, and
58 AC_RUN_IFELSE now warn if the first argument failed to use
59 AC_LANG_SOURCE or AC_LANG_PROGRAM to generate the conftest file
60 contents. A new macro AC_LANG_DEFINES_PROVIDED exists if you have
61 a compelling reason why you cannot use AC_LANG_SOURCE but must
64 ** The macro m4_define_default is now documented.
66 ** Symlinked config.cache files are supported; configure now tries to
67 update non-symlinked cache files atomically, so that concurrent configure
68 runs do not leave behind broken cache files. It is still unspecified
69 which subset or union of results is cached though.
71 ** Autotest testsuites should not contain long text lines any more, and be
72 portable even when very many test groups are used.
74 ** AT_CHECK semantics with respect to the Autotest variable $at_status and
75 shell execution environment of the arguments are documented now.
77 ** AC_FC_LIBRARY_LDFLAGS now tolerates output from newer gfortran.
79 ** Newly obsolete macros
80 The following macros have been marked obsolete. New programs
81 should use the corresponding Gnulib modules. Gnulib not only
82 detects a larger set of portability problems with these functions,
83 but also provides complete workarounds.
85 AC_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE AC_FUNC_LSTAT_FOLLOWS_SLASHED_SYMLINK
86 AC_FUNC_MKTIME AC_FUNC_STRTOD
89 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.67 (2010-07-21) [stable]
90 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.66.*.
92 ** AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS with more than one subdirectory at a time works again.
93 Regression introduced in 2.66.
95 ** AC_CHECK_SIZEOF of a pointer type works again. Regression introduced in
98 ** New macro AC_FC_LINE_LENGTH to accept long Fortran source code lines.
100 ** AC_PREPROC_IFELSE now keeps the preprocessed output in the conftest.i
101 file for inspection by the commands in the ACTION-IF-TRUE argument.
103 ** AC_INIT again allows parentheses and other characters that are literal
104 in single- or double-quoted strings, and in quoted and unquoted
105 here-documents, for its PACKAGE and VERSION arguments. Regression
108 ** autoreconf passes warning flags to new enough versions of aclocal.
110 ** Running an Autotest testsuite in parallel mode no longer triggers a
111 race condition that could cause the testsuite run to end early,
112 fixing a sporadic failure in autoconf's own testsuite. Bug present
113 since introduction of parallel tests in 2.63b.
116 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.66 (2010-07-02) [stable]
117 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.65.*.
119 ** AC_FUNC_MMAP works in C++ mode again. Regression introduced in 2.65.
121 ** Use of m4_divert without a named diversion now issues a syntax warning,
122 since it is seldom right to change diversions behind autoconf's back.
124 ** The macros AC_TYPE_INT8_T, AC_TYPE_INT16_T, AC_TYPE_INT32_T, and
125 AC_TYPE_INT64_T work again. Regression introduced in 2.65.
127 ** AC_PROG_INSTALL correctly uses `shtool' again. Regression introduced
130 ** Autoconf should work on EBCDIC hosts.
132 ** AC_CHECK_DECL and AC_CHECK_DECLS accept optional function argument types
133 for overloaded C++ functions.
135 ** AS_SET_CATFILE accepts nonliterals in its variable name argument now.
137 ** Autotest testsuites accept an option --recheck to rerun tests that
138 failed or passed unexpectedly during the last non-debug testsuite run.
140 ** AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH now also accept `+' signs in `--enable-*'
141 and `--with-*' arguments, converting them to underscores for the variable
144 ** In configure scripts, loading CONFIG_SITE no longer searches PATH,
145 and problems in loading the configuration site files are diagnosed.
147 ** Autotest testsuites may optionally provide colored test results.
149 ** The previously undocumented Autotest macros AT_ARG_OPTION and
150 AT_ARG_OPTION_ARG have seen bug fixes and are documented now.
151 AT_ARG_OPTION has been changed in that the negative of a long option
152 --OPTION is now --no-OPTION rather than --noOPTION.
154 ** The macro AS_LITERAL_IF is slightly more conservative; text
155 containing shell quotes are no longer treated as literals.
156 Furthermore, a new macro, AS_LITERAL_WORD_IF, adds an additional
157 level of checking that no whitespace occurs in literals.
159 ** The macros AS_TR_SH and AS_TR_CPP no longer expand their results.
161 ** The following macros are now documented:
164 ** New macro AC_FC_FIXEDFORM to accept fixed-form Fortran.
167 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.65 (2009-11-21) [stable]
168 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.64.*.
170 ** Autoconf is now licensed under the General Public License version 3
171 or later (GPLv3+). As with earlier versions, the license includes
172 an exception clause so that you may release a configure script
173 generated by autoconf under the license of your own program.
175 ** New macros to support Objective C++.
176 AC_PROG_OBJCXX AC_PROG_OBJCXXCPP
178 ** The following undocumented autoconf macros, removed in Autoconf 2.64,
179 have been reinstated:
182 These macros are present only for backwards compatibility purposes.
184 ** The macro AC_LANG_COMPILER no longer fails on embedded systems that
185 lack fopen in the C library, such as AVR or RTEMS (regression
188 ** The AC_FC_FREEFORM macro no longer suffers from a whitespace bug that
189 made it fail with some Fortran compilers (regression introduced in
192 ** The AC_TYPE_UINT64_T and AC_TYPE_INT64_T macros have been fixed to no
193 longer mistakenly select a 32-bit type on some compilers (bug present
194 since macros were introduced in 2.59c).
196 ** The AC_FUNC_MMAP macro has been fixed to be portable to systems like
197 Cygwin (bug present since macro was introduced in 2.0).
199 ** The following documented autotest macros are new:
202 ** The following m4sugar macros now quote their expansion:
203 m4_toupper m4_tolower
205 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
208 ** The m4sugar macro m4_text_wrap now copes with embedded quoting without
209 requiring quadrigraphs. For uses like AC_ARG_VAR([a], [[b c]]),
210 this gives the intuitive behavior of "[b c]" in the output (2.63
211 gave the output of "[b], [c]", and 2.64 encountered a failure).
213 ** The `$tmp' temporary directory used in config.status is documented for
216 ** config.status now provides a --config option to produce the configuration.
218 ** Many cache variables used by Autoconf's macros are now documented.
220 ** Configure scripts work better on DJGPP by avoiding a bug present in
221 the DJGPP port of bash 2.04 in handling 'return' in a shell
222 function (regression introduced in 2.64).
224 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.64 (2009-07-26) [stable]
225 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63b.*.
227 ** Autoconf now requires GNU M4 1.4.6 or later. Earlier versions of M4
228 have a bug in regular expression handling that interferes with some
229 of the speedups provided since Autoconf 2.63. GNU M4 1.4.13 or
230 later is recommended.
232 ** AS_IF and AS_CASE have been taught to avoid syntax errors even when
233 given arguments that expand to just whitespace.
235 ** The following documented autoconf macros are new:
236 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_ERTS_VER
238 ** The autoheader tool now understands m4 macro arguments passed to
239 AC_DEFINE and AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
241 ** Ensure AT_CHECK can support commands that include a # given with
242 proper m4 quoting. For shell comments, this is a new feature; for
243 non-shell comments, this fixes a regression introduced in 2.63b.
244 Additionally, AT_CHECK correctly supplies shell escapes for
245 metacharacters occurring in m4 macro expansions within the expected
246 stdout and stderr parameters.
248 ** The macro AT_CHECK now understands the concept of hard failure. If
249 a test exits with an unexpected status 99, cleanup actions for the
250 test are inhibited and the test is treated as a failure regardless
251 of AT_XFAIL_IF. It also understands the new directives
252 ignore-nolog, stdout-nolog, and stderr-nolog.
254 ** The following documented autotest macros are new:
255 AT_CHECK_UNQUOTED AT_FAIL_IF AT_SKIP_IF
257 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
258 m4_argn m4_copy_force m4_default_nblank m4_default_nblank_quoted
259 m4_ifblank m4_ifnblank m4_rename_force
261 ** The autoconf testsuite now exercises all Erlang macros.
263 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63b (2009-03-31) [beta]
264 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63.*.
266 ** The manual is now shipped under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
268 ** AC_REQUIRE now detects the case of an outer macro which first expands
269 then later indirectly requires the same inner macro. Previously,
270 this case led to silent out-of-order expansion (bug present since
271 2.50); it now issues a syntax warning, and duplicates the expansion
272 of the inner macro to guarantee dependencies have been met. See
273 the manual for advice on how to refactor macros in order to avoid
274 the bug in earlier autoconf versions and avoid increased script
275 size in the current version.
277 ** AC_DEFUN_ONCE has improved semantics. Previously, a macro declared
278 with AC_DEFUN_ONCE warned on a second invocation; and out-of-order
279 expansion was still possible. Now, dependencies are guaranteed,
280 and subsequent invocations are a silent no-op. This makes
281 AC_DEFUN_ONCE an ideal macro for silencing AC_REQUIRE warnings.
283 ** The following macros are now defined with AC_DEFUN_ONCE. This means
284 a subtle change in semantics; previously, an AC_DEFUN macro could
285 expand one of these macros multiple times or surround the macro
286 inside shell conditional text to bypass the effects of these
287 macros, but now the macro will expand exactly once, and prior to
288 the start of any enclosing AC_DEFUN macro:
289 AC_CANONICAL_BUILD AC_CANONICAL_HOST AC_CANONICAL_TARGET
290 AC_HEADER_ASSERT AC_PROG_INSTALL AC_PROG_MKDIR_P
291 AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
293 ** AC_LANG_ERLANG works once again (regression introduced in 2.61a).
295 ** AC_HEADER_ASSERT is fixed so that './configure --enable-assert' no
296 longer mistakenly disables assertions.
298 ** AC_INIT now takes an optional fifth parameter that can be used to
299 set AC_PACKAGE_URL, a URL for the package's home page; the URL is
300 used in `configure --help' and is also available via AC_DEFINE.
302 ** Autotest testsuites accept an option --jobs[=N] for parallel testing.
303 This feature is still in testing, and may not work on every
304 platform, help in improving it would be appreciated.
306 ** Autotest testsuites do not attempt to write startup error messages
307 to the log file before that is opened (regression introduced in 2.63).
309 ** Configure scripts now use shell functions. This feature leads to
310 smaller configure files and faster execution.
312 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled: Autoconf will now proceed with
313 the compiler's result if a header is present but cannot be compiled.
314 The warning is still printed, and you should really fix it by
315 providing a fourth parameter to AC_CHECK_HEADER/AC_CHECK_HEADERS.
317 ** Autoreconf added aclocal to the set of programs affected by the
318 `autoreconf -I dir' option.
320 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
321 m4_chomp m4_chomp_all m4_cleardivert m4_curry m4_default_quoted
322 m4_esyscmd_s m4_map_args m4_map_args_pair m4_map_args_sep
323 m4_map_args_w m4_set_map m4_set_map_sep m4_stack_foreach
324 m4_stack_foreach_lifo m4_stack_foreach_sep
325 m4_stack_foreach_sep_lifo
327 ** The following m4sugar macros are documented now, but in some cases
328 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
329 undocumented version had:
330 m4_copy m4_dumpdefs m4_rename m4_version_prereq
332 ** The m4sugar macro m4_expand has been taught to handle unterminated
333 comments and shell case statements. As a result, it is used
334 internally in more places, such as AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK. Most
335 uses of AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK should not behave any differently;
336 however, it may be necessary to add double-quoting around
337 unbalanced `(' where single-quoting used to be sufficient.
339 ** The following documented m4sh macros are new:
340 AS_INIT_GENERATED AS_LINENO_PREPARE AS_ME_PREPARE AS_SET_STATUS
341 AS_VAR_APPEND AS_VAR_ARITH AS_VAR_COPY
343 ** The following m4sh macros are documented now, but in some cases
344 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
345 undocumented version had:
346 AS_ECHO AS_ECHO_N AS_ESCAPE AS_EXIT AS_LITERAL_IF AS_UNSET
347 AS_VAR_IF AS_VAR_POPDEF AS_VAR_PUSHDEF AS_VAR_SET AS_VAR_SET_IF
348 AS_VAR_TEST_SET AS_VERSION_COMPARE
350 ** The m4sh macros AS_IF and AS_CASE can now be used in shell lists.
351 The responsibility for supplying a trailing newline now belongs to
352 the call site, but since most users did not add dnl, this generally
353 results in fewer empty lines in configure.
356 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63 (2008-09-09) [stable]
357 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.62.*.
359 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN does not mistakenly report "universal" for some
360 bigendian hosts, a regression introduced with universal binary
363 ** AC_PATH_X now includes /lib64 and /usr/lib64 in its list of default
366 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS no longer conflicts with an external
367 AC_DEFINE([__EXTENSIONS__]). This fixes a regression introduced in
368 2.62 when using macros such as AC_AIX that were made obsolete in
369 favor of the more portable AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS.
371 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS is usable in the non-cross-compile case.
373 ** Newly obsolete macros
374 The following macro has been marked obsolete, since current porting
375 targets can safely assume C89 semantics that signal handlers return
376 void. We have no current plans to remove the macro.
380 ** The macros m4_map and m4_map_sep now ignore any list elements
381 consisting of just empty quotes, and m4_map_sep now expands its
382 separator. This fixes a regression in 2.62 when these macros were
383 first documented, for the sake of clients expecting the semantics
384 that these macros had prior to that time. The new macros m4_mapall
385 and m4_mapall_sep, along with extra quoting of the separator, can
386 be used to get the semantics that m4_map_sep had in 2.62.
388 ** Clients of m4_expand, such as AS_HELP_STRING and AT_SETUP, can now
389 handle properly quoted but otherwise unbalanced parentheses (for
390 some macros, this fixes a regression in 2.62).
392 ** Two new quadrigraphs have been introduced: @{:@ for (, and @:}@ for ),
393 allowing the output of unbalanced parentheses in more contexts.
395 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
396 m4_cleardivert m4_joinall m4_mapall m4_mapall_sep m4_reverse
397 m4_set_add m4_set_add_all m4_set_contains m4_set_contents
398 m4_set_delete m4_set_difference m4_set_dump m4_set_empty
399 m4_set_foreach m4_set_intersection m4_set_list m4_set_listc
400 m4_set_remove m4_set_size m4_set_union
402 ** The following m4sugar macros now accept multiple arguments, as is the
403 case with underlying m4:
404 m4_defn m4_popdef m4_undefine
406 ** The following m4sugar macros now guarantee linear scaling; they
407 previously had linear scaling with m4 1.6 but quadratic scaling
408 when using m4 1.4.x. All macros built on top of these also gain
409 the scaling improvements.
410 m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_case m4_cond m4_do m4_dquote_elt
411 m4_foreach m4_join m4_list_cmp m4_map m4_map_sep m4_max
414 ** AT_KEYWORDS once again performs expansion on its argument, such that
415 AT_KEYWORDS([m4_if([$1], [], [default])]) no longer complains about
416 the possibly unexpanded m4_if [regression introduced in 2.62].
418 ** Config header templates `#undef UNDEFINED /* comment */' do not lead to
419 nested comments any more; regression introduced in 2.62.
422 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.62 (2008-04-05) [stable]
423 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.61a.*.
425 ** Many optimizations have been applied to make overall execution faster.
427 ** Autotest now makes use of shell functions.
429 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed also for config headers.
431 - As a side effect, AC_DEFINE and AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED now handle multi-line
432 values, i.e., backslash-newline combinations are handled correctly.
433 Further, for config headers, the total size of values is not limited by
434 the POSIX length limit of text lines any more, only each single line.
436 ** New config variable `top_build_prefix'.
438 ** New Autoconf macros:
439 AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION AC_OPENMP AC_PATH_PROGS_FEATURE_CHECK
441 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN now supports universal binaries a la Mac OS X.
443 ** AC_C_RESTRICT now prefers to #define 'restrict' to a variant spelling
444 like '__restrict' if the variant spelling is available, as this is
445 more likely to work when mixing C and C++ code.
447 ** AC_CHECK_ALIGNOF's type argument T is now documented better: it must
448 be a string of tokens such that "T y;" is a valid member declaration
451 ** AC_CHECK_SIZEOF now accepts objects as well as types: the general rule
452 is that sizeof (X) works, then AC_CHECK_SIZEOF (X) should work.
454 ** AC_CHECK_TYPE and AC_CHECK_TYPES now work on any C type-name; formerly,
455 they did not work for function types. In C++, they now work on any
456 type-id that can be the operand of sizeof; this is similar to C,
457 except it excludes anonymous struct and union types. Formerly,
458 some (but not all) C++ types involving anonymous struct and union
459 were accepted, though this was not documented.
461 ** AC_CONFIG_LINKS now prefers to link against files in the build tree
462 if found, and it works to link against a file of the same name in
463 the source tree, even if both trees coincide.
465 ** AC_INIT no longer alters $@; regression introduced in 2.60.
467 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _ALL_SOURCE for Interix platforms.
469 ** AS_HELP_STRING no longer underquotes its first argument; it also handles
470 the case where the first argument contains single-quoted commas.
471 For example, "AS_HELP_STRING([-a, [--arg[=foo]]], [bar])" produces:
472 " -a, --arg[=foo] bar"
473 Additionally, the macro now takes two additional arguments,
474 indent-column and wrap-column; these should not normally be needed,
475 but can be used to fine-tune how the output text is wrapped.
477 ** AC_PROG_INSTALL now requires an install program that can install multiple
478 files into a target directory.
480 ** The command 'autoconf -' now correctly processes a file from stdin.
482 ** 'autoreconf -m' now honors $MAKE.
484 ** For all of the directory arguments for 'configure', such as '--prefix'
485 or '--bindir', trailing slashes are stripped. As an example, if
486 tab completion in the user's shell appends trailing slashes, the
487 command './configure --prefix=/usr/' will still result in an
488 expanded libdir value of /usr/lib, not /usr//lib.
490 ** `configure --help=recursive' now works in read-only trees and from
491 unconfigured build trees.
493 ** If precious variables differ only in whitespace, then the cache consistency
494 check warns instead of fails, and reuses the old value.
496 ** AT_BANNER is now documented.
498 ** AT_SETUP now handles macro expansions properly when calculating line
501 ** Autotest now determines $srcdir correctly.
503 ** Testsuites built by autotest now accept a -C/--directory=DIR option
504 to adjust the working directory prior to creating files.
506 ** Autoconf now requires GNU M4 1.4.5 or later. Earlier versions of M4 have
507 a bug in macro tracing that interferes with the interaction between
508 Autoconf and Automake. GNU M4 1.4.11 or later is recommended. The
509 configure search for a working M4 is improved.
511 ** For portability with the eventual M4 2.0, macros should no longer use
512 anything larger than $9 to refer to arguments.
514 ** Documentation for m4sugar is improved.
516 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
517 interfaces; the macros are now documented as stable interfaces.
519 __oline__ m4_assert m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_car m4_case
520 m4_cdr m4_default m4_divert_once m4_divert_pop m4_divert_push
521 m4_divert_text m4_do m4_errprintn m4_fatal m4_flatten
522 m4_ifndef m4_ifset m4_ifval m4_ifvaln m4_location
523 m4_n m4_shiftn m4_strip m4_warn
525 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
526 interfaces, but had bug fixes or semantic changes as part of this
527 release. Packages that relied on the undocumented behavior
528 should be analyzed to make sure they will still work with the
529 new documented behavior.
531 m4_cmp m4_list_cmp m4_join m4_map m4_map_sep m4_sign
532 m4_text_box m4_text_wrap m4_version_compare
534 - The m4_wrap macro used to have unspecified order, but now
535 guarantees FIFO order. m4_wrap_lifo was added to guarantee LIFO
538 - Packages using the undocumented m4sugar macro m4_PACKAGE_VERSION
539 should consider using the new AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION instead.
541 - m4sugar macros that are not documented in the manual are still
542 deemed experimental, and should not be used outside of Autoconf.
544 ** The m4sugar macros m4_append and m4_append_uniq, first documented in
545 2.60, have been fixed to treat both the string and the separator
546 arguments consistently with regards to quoting. Prior to this fix,
547 m4_append_uniq could mistakenly duplicate entries if the expansion
548 of the separator resulted in a different string (for example, if it
549 contained quotes, a comma, or a macro name). However, it means
550 that programs previously using
551 m4_append([name], [string], [[, ]])
552 are now using a four-character separator instead of the intended
553 comma and space. If you need portability to earlier versions of
554 Autoconf, you can insert the following snippet after AC_INIT but
555 before any other macro expansions, to enforce the new semantics:
556 m4_pushdef([m4_append], [m4_define([$1],
557 m4_ifdef([$1], [m4_defn([$1])[$3]])[$2])])
558 Additionally, m4_append_uniq now takes optional parameters that can
559 be used to take action depending on whether anything was appended,
560 and warns if a non-empty separator occurs within the string being
561 appended, since that can lead to duplicates.
563 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
564 m4_append_uniq_w m4_apply m4_combine m4_cond m4_count
565 m4_dquote_elt m4_echo m4_expand m4_ignore m4_make_list m4_max
566 m4_min m4_newline m4_shift2 m4_shift3 m4_unquote m4_wrap_lifo
568 ** Warnings are now generated by default when an installer invokes
569 'configure' with an unknown --enable-* or --with-* option.
570 These warnings can be disabled with the new AC_DISABLE_OPTION_CHECKING
571 macro, or by invoking 'configure' with --disable-option-checking.
573 ** Existing obsolete macros
574 The documentation for the following macros is adjusted to make it
575 more clear that they have previously been marked obsolete, as their
576 functionality can be accomplished by other macros. We have no
577 current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
579 AC_ENABLE AC_STRUCT_ST_BLKSIZE AC_STRUCT_ST_RDEV AC_WITH
581 ** Newly obsolete macros
582 The following macros have been marked obsolete, as they only
583 perform a subset of AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS. We have no current
584 plans to remove them.
586 AC_AIX AC_GNU_SOURCE AC_ISC_POSIX AC_MINIX
588 ** AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent.
589 The documentation now says that AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent: it
590 tests for problems that are so old that it is no longer of
591 practical importance on current systems. New programs need not use
592 AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE. We have no current plans to remove it.
594 ** AC_DIAGNOSE, AC_WARNING, and AC_FATAL are obsolescent.
595 The documentation now favors the use of M4sugar macros m4_warn and
596 m4_fatal, since the naming makes it more obvious that the
597 diagnostics are associated with M4 expansion (ie. when running
598 `autoconf'), and offers less confusion with the AC_MSG_ERROR,
599 AC_MSG_FAILURE, and AC_MSG_WARN macros which manage diagnostics
600 when running `configure'. We have no current plans to remove these
604 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61a (2006-12-11)
606 ** AC_FUNC_FSEEKO was broken in 2.61; it didn't make fseeko and ftello visible
607 on many platforms. This has been fixed.
609 ** AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED is now obsolete. It is still defined for backward
610 compatibility but it does nothing. The macro was already
611 obsolescent, as the last systems to have the problem were those
612 based on SVR2, which became obsolete in 1987. The macro had bugs
613 on some modern systems and could no longer be maintained reliably
614 due to lack of ancient systems to test it on.
616 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed for most substitutions, for speed.
618 - As a side effect multi-line values of substituted variables no
619 longer have a small limit in total size, though for portability
620 each line should not exceed the POSIX length limit for text lines.
622 - It is now documented that Makefile.in should not contain
623 overlapping variable occurrences, e.g., @VAR1@VAR2@.
624 Autoconf's behavior was always iffy in such cases, and the
625 awk implementation has changed the behavior.
627 ** Many uses of 'echo' have been rewritten so that Autoconf-generated
628 scripts have fewer problems with strings or file names containing
629 embedded special characters such as backslash or leading "-". This
630 was implemented by using `printf '%s\n' "$foo"' instead of `echo
631 "$foo"' when printf works. Due to the implementation technique
632 used, Autoconf-generated scripts now run considerably more slowly
633 on ancient implementations lacking printf. However, this should
634 not be a problem, since Autoconf-generated scripts in practice
635 invariably find a more-modern shell these days.
638 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61 (2006-11-17)
640 ** New macros AC_C_FLEXIBLE_ARRAY_MEMBER, AC_C_VARARRAYS.
642 ** AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH now allow '.' in feature and package names.
645 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60b (2006-10-22)
648 Autoconf-generated shell scripts no longer export BIN_SH, due to
649 configuration hassles with this. Installers who need BIN_SH in
650 their environment should set it before invoking 'configure' and
651 'make'. As far as we know, this affects only Unixware installations.
653 ** Obsolescent macros
654 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent,
655 as they are superseded by Gnulib:
657 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU AC_FUNC_GETLOADVG AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH
659 New programs should use the Gnulib counterparts of these macros.
660 We have no current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
662 ** AC_COMPUTE_INT no longer caches or reports results.
664 ** AC_CHECK_DECL now also works with aggregate objects.
666 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _TANDEM_SOURCE for NonStop platforms.
668 ** GNU M4 1.4.7 or later is now recommended.
671 New M4sugar macro, which is more secure than the POSIX M4 maketemp.
674 Now an alias for m4_mkstemp.
676 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60a (2006-08-25)
678 ** GNU M4 1.4.6 or later is now recommended.
680 ** The check for C99 now tests for varargs macros, as documented.
681 It also tests that the preprocessor supports 64-bit integers.
683 ** Autoconf now uses constructs like "#ifdef HAVE_STDLIB_H" rather than
684 "#if HAVE_STDLIB_H", so that it now works with "gcc -Wundef -Werror".
686 ** The functionality of the undocumented _AC_COMPUTE_INT is now provided
687 by a public and documented macro, AC_COMPUTE_INT. The parameters to the
688 two macros are different, so autoupdate will not change the old private name
689 to the new one. _AC_COMPUTE_INT may be removed in a future release.
691 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT and AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT now require
692 that long long types be at least 64 bits wide, as C99 and tradition
693 requires. Formerly, they accepted implementations of any width.
696 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60
698 Released 2006-06-23, by Ralf Wildenhues.
700 ** Autoconf no longer depends on whether m4wrap is FIFO (as Posix requires)
701 or LIFO (as in GNU M4 1.4.x). GNU M4 2.0 is expected to conform to Posix
702 here, so m4wrap/m4_wrap users should no longer depend on LIFO behavior.
704 ** Provide a way to turn off warnings about the changed directory variables.
706 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59d
708 Released 2006-06-05, by Ralf Wildenhues.
710 ** GNU make now recommended for VPATH builds
711 INSTALL now suggests VPATH builds (e.g., "sh ../srcdir/configure")
712 only if you use GNU make. In practice, other 'make' implementations
713 have too many subtle incompatibilities in their support for VPATH.
714 Many packages (including Autoconf itself) are portable to other
715 'make' implementations, but some packages are not, and recommending
716 GNU make keeps the installation instructions simpler.
718 ** Even more safety checks for the new Directory variables:
719 Warn about suspicious `${datarootdir}' found in config files output.
721 ** AC_TRY_COMMAND, AC_TRY_EVAL, ac_config_guess, ac_config_sub, ac_configure
722 These never-documented macros and variables have been marked with
723 comments saying that they may be removed in a future release,
724 because their use can lead to unintended code being executed.
725 If you need functionality that only these macros or variables
726 currently supply, please write bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
728 ** AC_SUBST, AC_DEFINE
729 Literal arguments to these are passed to m4_pattern_allow now.
732 Passing 'ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc=no' to 'configure' now sets ac_cv_prog_cc_c99
733 and ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 to 'no' as well, for backward compatibility with
734 obsolete K&R tests in the Automake test suite.
743 Now more robust with special characters in file names, or when
744 multiple processes create the same directory at the same time.
746 ** Obsolescent macros
747 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent:
748 they test for problems that are so old that they are no longer of
749 practical importance on current systems.
751 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A AC_FUNC_MEMCMP AC_HEADER_DIRENT
752 AC_C_CONST AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES AC_HEADER_STAT
753 AC_C_PROTOTYPES AC_FUNC_SETPGRP AC_HEADER_STDC
754 AC_C_STRINGIZE AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT
755 AC_C_VOLATILE AC_FUNC_STAT AC_HEADER_TIME
756 AC_FUNC_CLOSEDIR_VOID AC_FUNC_STRFTIME AC_ISC_POSIX
757 AC_FUNC_GETPGRP AC_FUNC_UTIME_NULL AC_PROG_GCC_TRADITIONAL
758 AC_FUNC_LSTAT AC_FUNC_VPRINTF AC_STRUCT_TM
760 New programs need not use these macros. We have no current plans to
764 For compatibility with future Libtool 2.0, autoreconf will invoke
765 libtoolize with the option `--ltdl' now, if LT_CONFIG_LTDL_DIR is
768 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59c
770 Released 2006-04-12, by Ralf Wildenhues.
772 ** The configure command now redirects standard input from /dev/null,
773 to help avoid problems with subsidiary commands that might mistakenly
774 read standard input. AS_ORIGINAL_STDIN_FD points to the original
775 standard input before this redirection, if you really want configure to
776 read from standard input.
778 ** Directory variables adjusted to recent changes in the GNU Coding Standards.
779 The following directory variables are new:
781 datarootdir read-only architecture-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
782 localedir locale-specific message catalogs [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
783 docdir documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/PACKAGE]
784 htmldir html documentation [DOCDIR]
785 dvidir dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
786 pdfdir pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
787 psdir ps documentation [DOCDIR]
789 The following variables have new default values:
791 datadir read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
792 infodir info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
793 mandir man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
795 This means that if you use any of `@datadir@', `@infodir@', or
796 `@mandir@' in a file, you will have to ensure `${datarootdir}' is
797 defined in this file. As a temporary measure, if any of those are
798 found but no mention of `datarootdir', the substitutions will be
799 replaced with values that do not contain `${datarootdir}', and a
800 warning will be issued.
802 ** @top_builddir@ is now a dir name: it is always nonempty and doesn't have
803 a trailing slash. Similar change will be made to ac_top_builddir in a
804 future release; the old style value, which matches (../)*, is (and will
805 continue to be) available as ac_top_build_prefix.
808 New macro to check for support of 'typeof' syntax a la GNU C.
810 ** AC_CHECK_DECLS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_FUNCS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_HEADERS_ONCE
811 New "once-only" variants of commonly-used macros, to make 'configure'
812 smaller and faster in common cases.
815 New macro to check for strtold with C99 semantics.
818 New macro that lets builder disable assertions at 'configure'-time.
821 Now checks for X11/Xlib.h and XrmInitialize (X proper) rather than
822 X11/Intrinsic.h and XtMalloc (Xt).
824 ** AC_PRESERVE_HELP_ORDER
825 New macro that causes `configure' to display help strings for AC_ARG_ENABLE
826 and AC_ARG_WITH arguments in one region, in the order defined. The default
827 behavior is to group options of each classes separately.
829 ** AC_PROG_CC, AC_PROG_CXX
830 No longer automatically arrange to declare the 'exit' function of C,
831 when a C++ compiler is used. Standard Autoconf macros no longer use
832 'exit', so this is no longer an issue for them. If you use C++, and
833 want to call 'exit', you'll have to arrange for its declaration
834 yourself. But we now suggest you return from 'main' instead.
836 ** AC_PROG_CC_C89, AC_PROG_CC_C99
837 New macros for ISO C99 support. AC_PROG_CC_C89 and AC_PROG_CC_C99
838 check for ANSI C89 and ISO C99 support respectively.
841 Has been unobsoleted, and will check if the compiler supports ISO
842 C99, falling back to ANSI C89 if not. ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc is
843 retained for backwards compatibility, assuming the value of
844 ac_cv_prog_cc_c99 or ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 (whichever is valid, in
847 ** AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_INO, AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
848 New macros for checking commonly-used members of struct dirent.
851 The substituted value can now contain newlines.
854 The substitution now occurs only when @variable@ is on a line by itself,
855 optionally surrounded by spaces and tabs. The whole line is replaced.
857 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE, AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE_WIDER
858 New macros to check for long double, and whether it is wider than double.
859 The old macro AC_C_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE has been marked as obsolete;
860 applications should switch to the new macro.
862 ** AC_TYPE_INT8_T, AC_TYPE_INT16_T, AC_TYPE_INT32_T, AC_TYPE_INT64_T,
863 AC_TYPE_INTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_INTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT, AC_TYPE_SSIZE_T,
864 AC_TYPE_UINT8_T, AC_TYPE_UINT16_T, AC_TYPE_UINT32_T, AC_TYPE_UINT64_T,
865 AC_TYPE_UINTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_UINTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT
866 New macros to check for C99 and POSIX types.
868 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
869 New macro to enable extensions to Posix.
872 New macro which is defined to the name of the first declared config header
873 or undefined if no config headers have been declared yet.
876 The macro correctly handles quadrigraphs now.
878 ** AS_BOURNE_COMPATIBLE, AS_SHELL_SANITIZE, AS_CASE
879 These macros are new or published now.
882 New macro for copyright notices in testsuite files.
884 ** ALLOCA, LIBOBJS, LTLIBOBJS
885 Object names added to these variables are now prefixed with `${LIBOBJDIR}',
886 as in `${LIBOBJDIR}alloca.o'. LIBOBJDIR is meant to be defined from
887 `Makefile.in' in case the object files lie in a different directory.
888 The LIBOBJDIR feature is experimental.
891 Supports --no-recursive now.
893 ** New macros to support Erlang/OTP.
894 New macros for configuring paths to Erlang tools and libraries:
895 AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERL,
896 AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERL, AC_ERLANG_CHECK_LIB, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_ROOT_DIR,
897 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_LIB_DIR.
899 New macros for configuring installation of Erlang libraries:
900 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_DIR, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_SUBDIR.
902 ** The manual now mentions Gnulib more prominently.
904 ** New macros to support Objective C.
905 AC_PROG_OBJC, AC_PROG_OBJCPP.
907 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59b
909 Released 2004-08-20, by Paul Eggert.
912 New macro that computes the default alignment of a type.
914 ** AC_CHECK_TOOL, AC_PATH_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TOOLS
915 When cross-compiling, these macros will give a warning if the tool
916 is not prefixed. In the future, unprefixed cross tools will not
917 be detected; please consult the info documentation for information
918 about the reason of this change.
920 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOL, AC_PATH_TARGET_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS
921 New macros that detect programs whose name is prefixed with the
922 target type, if the build type and target type are different.
924 ** AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE
925 New trace macro that declares expected auxiliary files.
928 New macro that tests for a grep program that accepts as a long a line
931 ** AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP
932 These macros now require AC_PROG_GREP, and try EGREP="$GREP -E" and
933 FGREP="$GREP -F" respectively if possible, or else run a path search for
934 a program that accepts as long a line as possible.
937 New macro that tests for a sed program that truncates as few characters
940 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59
942 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
944 ** ac_abs_builddir etc.
945 Absolute file names were actually relative in 2.58.
947 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.58
949 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
952 core.* files are no longer removed, as they may be valid user files.
954 ** autoreconf and auxiliary directory
955 Autoreconf creates the auxiliary directory if needed. This is
956 especially useful for initial "bootstrapping" of fresh CVS checkouts.
958 ** AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR
959 Use this macro to declare the directory for local M4 macros for aclocal.
962 No longer includes twice the same file in LIBOBJS if invoked
965 ** AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
966 The directory for its first argument is automatically created. For
969 AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS([src/modules.hh], [...])
971 $top_builddir/src/ is created if needed.
973 ** Autotest and local.at
974 The optional file local.at is always included in Autotest test suites.
977 The warnings are always issued, including with cached runs.
978 This became a significant problem since aclocal and automake can
979 run autoconf behind the scene.
981 ** autoheader warnings
982 The warnings of autoheader can be turned off, using --warning.
983 For instance, -Wno-obsolete disables the complaints about acconfig.h
984 and other deprecated constructs.
987 AC_C_RESTRICT, AC_INCLUDES_DEFAULT, AC_LANG_ASSERT, AC_LANG_WERROR,
990 ** AC_DECL_SYS_SIGLIST
994 Now checks that mktime is the inverse of localtime.
996 ** Improve DJGPP portability
997 The Autoconf tools and configure behave better under DJGPP.
999 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled
1000 New FAQ section dedicated to the mystic
1002 configure: WARNING: pi.h: present but cannot be compiled
1003 configure: WARNING: pi.h: check for missing prerequisite headers?
1004 configure: WARNING: pi.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's result
1007 ** Concurrent executions of autom4te
1008 autom4te now locks its internal files, which enables concurrent
1009 executions of autom4te, likely to happen if automake, autoconf,
1010 autoheader etc. are run simultaneously.
1013 Use of Libtool 1.5 and higher is encouraged. Compatibility with
1014 Libtool pre-1.4 is not checked.
1017 Testsuites no longer rerun failed tests in verbose mode; instead,
1018 failures are logged while the test is run.
1020 In addition, expected failures can be marked as such.
1022 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.57
1024 Released 2002-12-03 by Paul Eggert.
1026 Bug fixes for problems with AIX linker, with freestanding C compilers,
1027 with GNU M4 limitations, and with obsolete copies of GNU documents.
1029 The Free Documentation License has been upgraded from 1.1 to 1.2.
1031 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.56
1033 Released 2002-11-15 by Akim Demaille.
1035 One packaging problem fixed (config/install-sh was not executable).
1037 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.55
1039 Released 2002-11-14 by Akim Demaille.
1043 Have your configure.ac checked by autoscan ("autoscan").
1044 Try the warning options ("autoreconf -fv -Wall").
1048 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
1049 More information on proper use.
1051 - Writing Test Programs
1053 This sections explains how to write good test sources to use with
1054 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE etc. It documents AC_LANG_PROGRAM and so forth.
1056 - AC_FOO_IFELSE vs. AC_TRY_FOO
1058 Explains why Autoconf moves from AC_TRY_COMPILE etc. to
1059 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE and AC_LANG_PROGRAM etc.
1063 - Is more robust to different Gettext installations.
1065 - Produces messages (when --verbose) to be understood by Emacs'
1068 - Supports -W/--warnings.
1071 Once the GNU Build System reinstalled, run `./config.status
1072 --recheck && ./config.status && make' if possible.
1076 - Supports --cache, and --no-cache.
1078 - ~/.autom4te.cfg makes it possible to disable the caching mechanism
1079 (autom4te.cache). See `Customizing autom4te' in the documentation.
1086 Support for the obsoleted options -m, --macrodir, -l, --localdir is
1087 dropped in favor of the safer --include/--prepend-include scheme.
1092 AC_COMPILER_IFELSE, AC_FUNC_MBRTOWC, AC_HEADER_STDBOOL,
1093 AC_LANG_CONFTEST, AC_LANG_SOURCE, AC_LANG_PROGRAM, AC_LANG_CALL,
1094 AC_LANG_FUNC_TRY_LINK, AC_MSG_FAILURE, AC_PREPROC_IFELSE.
1097 Obsoleted macros are kept for Autoconf backward compatibility, but
1098 should be avoided in configure.ac. Running autoupdate is advised.
1099 AC_DECL_SYS_SIGLIST.
1101 - AC_DEFINE/AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED
1103 We have to stop using the old compatibility scheme --that tried to
1104 avoid useless backslashes-- because Libtool 1.4.3 contains a
1106 AC_DEFINE([error_t], [int],
1107 [Define to a type to use for \`error_t' if it is not
1108 otherwise available.])
1110 We have to quote the single quotes and backslashes with \. The old
1111 compatibility scheme saw that ` was backslashed, and therefore did
1112 not quote the single quote... Failure. Hence, Autoconf 2.54 is not
1113 compatible with Libtool. Autoconf 2.55 is, but in some cases might
1114 produce more \ than wanted.
1116 Please, note that in the future the same problem will happen with
1117 AC_MSG_*: use `autoreconf -f -Wall'.
1121 - Portability of the Autoconf package to Solaris.
1123 - Spurious warnings caused by config.status.
1124 This bug is benign, but painful: on some systems (typically
1125 FreeBSD), warnings such as:
1127 config.status: creating Makefile
1128 mv: Makefile: set owner/group (was: 1357/0): Operation not permitted
1130 could be issued. This is fixed.
1133 Simultaneous executions of config.status are possible again.
1135 - Precious variables accumulation
1137 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
1141 ** Plans for later versions
1143 - ./configure <host>
1145 The compatibility hooks with the old scheme will be completely
1146 removed. Please, advice/use `--build', `--host', and `--target'
1149 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
1151 The tests will be stricter, please make sure your invocations are
1156 Shell functions will gradually be introduced, probably starting with
1157 Autotest. If you know machines which are in use that you suspect
1158 *not* to support shell functions, please run the test suite of
1159 Autoconf 2.55 on it, and report the results to
1160 bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
1164 Special characters in AC_MSG_* need not be quoted. Currently,
1165 Autoconf has heuristics to decide when a string is escaped, or has
1166 to be escaped. This scheme is fragile, and will be removed; the
1167 only risk is uglified messages. Please, run `autoreconf -f -Wall'
1168 to find occurrences that will be affected.
1170 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.54
1172 Released 2002-09-13 by Akim Demaille.
1176 - autoreconf no longer changes the version of the gettext/po/intl
1177 support files. It now adds the files the correspond to the
1178 AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared in configure.ac.
1180 Warning: It now relies on the 'autopoint' program, which is part
1181 of GNU gettext 0.11.4 and newer.
1183 Please note that you need to have a GNU gettext version that
1184 corresponds at least to the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared
1185 in configure.ac. You can upgrade to newer GNU gettext versions,
1186 though, without needing to change configure.ac.
1188 - The -I DIR or --include=DIR option now appends DIR to the include path
1189 instead of prepending; this is for consistency with other GNU tools.
1190 The new -B DIR or --prepend-include=DIR option has the old behavior.
1195 Now handles all the gory details about LIBOBJS and LTLIBOBJS.
1196 Please, remove lines such as
1198 # This is necessary so that .o files in LIBOBJS are also
1199 # built via the ANSI2KNR-filtering rules.
1200 LIBOBJS=`echo $LIBOBJS|sed 's/\.o /\$U.o /g;s/\.o$/\$U.o/'`
1202 and read the `AC_LIBOBJ vs LIBOBJS' section. Do not define U in
1203 your Makefiles either.
1205 - AC_CONFIG_LINKS now makes copies if it can't make links.
1207 - AC_FUNC_FNMATCH now tests only for POSIX compatibility, reverting to
1208 Autoconf 2.13 behavior. The new macro AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU also
1209 tests for GNU extensions to fnmatch, and replaces fnmatch if needed.
1211 - AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED no longer fails when cross-compiling.
1213 - AC_PROG_CC_STDC is integrated into AC_PROG_CC.
1215 - AC_PROG_F77 default search no longer includes cf77 and cfg77.
1219 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A, AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR, AC_GNU_SOURCE,
1220 AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP, AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH,
1221 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU, AC_FUNC_REALLOC, AC_TYPE_MBSTATE_T.
1223 - AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
1224 looks for getloadavg.c in the CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR.
1227 Now defines HAVE_MALLOC to 0 if `malloc' does not work, and asks
1228 for an AC_LIBOBJ replacement.
1232 - Spurious complaints from `m4_bmatch' about invalid regular
1233 expressions are suppressed.
1235 - Empty top_builddirs are properly handled.
1237 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER works correctly when the member is an aggregate.
1240 Now colon in the optional path arguments are properly handled.
1242 ** Improved portability
1244 - Both Autoconf the package, and the scripts it produces, should run
1245 more reliably with Zsh. Bear in mind it is the default Bourne shell
1248 - Autoconf and the scripts it produces no longer assume the existence of
1249 the obsolescent commands egrep and fgrep.
1253 - Limitations of Make
1257 The GNATS base moved to
1258 http://bugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?database=autoconf
1259 (It is no longer available, though.)
1264 Now contains the list of output variables and files (AC_SUBST,
1267 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.53
1269 Released 2002-03-08 by Akim Demaille.
1273 Perl 5.005_03 or later is required: autom4te is written in Perl and is
1274 needed by autoconf. autoheader, autoreconf, ifnames, and autoscan are
1280 Argument requirements, output variables, defined macros.
1281 - M4sugar, M4sh, Autotest
1283 - Double quoting macros
1284 AC_TRY_CPP, AC_TRY_COMPILE, AC_TRY_LINK and AC_TRY_RUN.
1286 The Autoconf manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1287 - Section `Hosts and Cross-Compilation'
1288 Explains the rationale for the 2.5x changes in the cross-compilation
1289 chain, and in the relationships between build, host, and target
1291 Emphasizes that `cross-compilation' == `--host is given'.
1292 If you are working on compilers etc., be sure to read this section.
1293 - Section `AC_LIBOBJ vs. LIBOBJS'
1294 Explains why assigning LIBOBJS directly is now an error.
1295 Details how to update the code.
1300 Now used instead of hard coded line numbers.
1301 This eases the comparison of `configure's, and diminishes the
1302 pressure over control version archives.
1303 Automatic replacement for shells that don't support this feature.
1304 - New output variables
1305 @builddir@, @top_builddir@, @abs_srcdir@, @abs_top_srcdir@, @abs_builddir@,
1310 Autoconf and Autotest modes are provided.
1315 New, used by the Autoconf suite to cache and speed up most processing.
1317 Supported by autom4te, autoconf and autoheader.
1319 Replaces --autoconf-dir and --localdir in autoconf, autoheader,
1320 autoupdate, and autoreconf.
1322 No longer passes --cygnus, --foreign, --gnits, --gnu, --include-deps:
1323 automake options are to be given via AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
1325 Runs gettextize and libtoolize when appropriate.
1327 --m4dir is no longer supported.
1329 Now runs only in the specified directories, defaulting to `.',
1330 but understands AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS for dependent directories.
1331 Before, it used to run on all the `configure.ac' found in the
1333 Independent packages are properly updated.
1337 - The top level $prefix is propagated to the AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS configures.
1339 Under the user pressure, $? is finally available. Probably a mistake.
1340 - AC_F77_LIBRARY_LDFLAGS now supports the HP/UX f90 compiler.
1341 - Precious variables accumulation
1342 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
1344 - AC_PATH_PROG and family.
1345 Works properly when given a literal path.
1347 Somewhere since 2.13, the result had been reversed.
1351 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN supports the cross-compiling case.
1352 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN accepts ACTION-IF-TRUE, ACTION-IF-FALSE, and
1353 ACTION-IF-UNKNOWN arguments. All are optional, and the default
1354 for ACTION-IF-TRUE is to define WORDS_BIGENDIAN like AC_C_BIGENDIAN
1356 - AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE now succeeds only if `long double' has more range or
1357 precision than `double'.
1362 It now defines the preprocessor symbols PACKAGE_NAME,
1363 PACKAGE_TARNAME, PACKAGE_VERSION, PACKAGE_STRING, and
1367 Admits a fourth optional parameter: the tar name.
1369 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS.
1370 Provide the user with srcdir, ac_srcdir, ac_top_srcdir, ac_builddir,
1371 ac_top_builddir, ac_abs_srcdir, ac_abs_top_srcdir, ac_abs_builddir,
1372 ac_abs_top_builddir.
1374 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS and AC_OUTPUT.
1375 Are much less expensive when using long lists of files.
1378 Works with shell variables, and non alphanumeric names.
1382 - AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R now sets STRERROR_R_CHAR_P, not HAVE_WORKING_STRERROR_R,
1383 because POSIX 1003.1-200x draft 7 says strerror_r returns int, not char *.
1385 - AC_FUNC_STRTOD substitutes POW_LIB.
1390 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.52
1392 Released 2001-07-18 by Akim Demaille.
1397 This feature was present in autoconf 2.50 but was not documented.
1398 For example, `@<:@' is translated to `[' just before output. This
1399 is useful when writing strings that contain unbalanced quotes, or
1400 other hard-to-quote constructs.
1401 - m4_pattern_forbid, m4_pattern_allow
1402 - Tips for upgrading from 2.13.
1403 - Using autoscan to maintain a configure.ac.
1406 - Now include stdint.h.
1407 - sys/types.h and sys/stat.h are guarded.
1408 - strings.h is included if available, and not conflicting with string.h.
1411 - The test suite is more robust and presents less false failures.
1412 - Invocation of GNU M4 now robust to POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1413 - configure accepts --prefix='' again.
1414 - AC_CHECK_LIB works properly when its first argument is not a
1416 - HAVE_INTTYPES_H is defined only if not conflicting with sys/types.h.
1417 - build_, host_, and target_alias are AC_SUBST as in 2.13.
1418 - AC_ARG_VAR properly propagates precious variables inherited from the
1419 environment to ./config.status.
1420 - Using --program-suffix/--program-prefix is portable.
1421 - Failures to detect the default compiler's output extension are less
1423 - `config.status foo' works properly when `foo' depends on variables
1424 set in an AC_CONFIG_THING INIT-CMD.
1425 - autoheader is more robust to broken input.
1426 - Fixed Fortran name-mangling and link tests on a number of systems,
1427 e.g. NetBSD; see AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, below.
1430 - AC_CHECK_HEADER and AC_CHECK_HEADERS support a fourth argument to
1431 specify pre-includes. In this case, the headers are compiled with
1432 cc, not merely preprocessed by cpp. Therefore it is the _usability_
1433 of a header which is checked for, not just its availability.
1434 - AC_ARG_VAR refuses to run configure when precious variables have
1436 - Versions of compilers are dumped in the logs.
1437 - AC_CHECK_TYPE recognizes use of `foo_t' as a replacement type.
1440 - AC_PATH_XTRA only adds -ldnet to $LIBS if it's needed to link.
1441 - AC_FUNC_WAIT3 and AC_SYS_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS are obsoleted.
1442 - AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_FNMATCH, AM_FUNC_MKTIME,
1443 AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, and AM_FUNC_STRTOD are now activated.
1444 Be sure to read `Upgrading from Version 2.13' to understand why
1445 running `autoupdate' is needed.
1446 - AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, AC_F77_MAIN: new macros to detect whether
1447 a main-like routine is required/possible when linking C/C++ with
1448 Fortran. Users of e.g. AC_F77_WRAPPERS should be aware of these.
1449 - AC_FUNC_GETPGRG behaves better when cross-compiling.
1451 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.51
1452 There was no release of Autoconf 2.51 since some packagers had used
1453 this version number without permission to ship intermediary versions
1454 of 2.50. The version was skipped to avoid confusion.
1456 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.50
1458 Released 2001-05-21 by Akim Demaille.
1460 ** Lots of bug fixes
1461 There have been far too many to enumerate them here. Check out
1462 ChangeLog if you really want to know more.
1464 ** Improved documentation
1465 In particular, portability issues are better covered.
1468 All the standard GNU Makefile targets are supported. The layout has
1469 changed: m4/ holds the M4 extensions Autoconf needs for its
1470 configuration, doc/ contains the documentation, and tests/ contains
1473 ** Man pages are provided
1474 For autoconf, autoreconf, autoupdate, autoheader, autoscan, ifnames,
1475 config.guess, config.sub.
1479 Provides a safe and powerful means to trace the macro uses. This
1480 provide the parsing layer for tools which need to `study'
1484 Specify what category of warnings should be enabled.
1486 - When recursing into subdirectories, try for configure.gnu before
1487 configure to adapt for packages not using autoconf on case-insensitive
1491 More errors are now caught (circular AC_REQUIRE dependencies,
1492 AC_DEFINE in the action part of an AC_CACHE_CHECK, too many pops
1493 etc.). In addition, their location and call stack are given.
1496 autoupdate is much more powerful, and is able to provide the glue code
1497 which might be needed to move from an old macro to its newer
1500 You are strongly encouraged to use it to modernize both your
1501 `configure.in' and your .m4 extension files.
1504 The internal machinery of autoheader has completely changed. As a
1505 result, using `acconfig.h' should be considered to be obsoleted, and
1506 you are encouraged to get rid of it using the AH macros.
1511 ** Fortran 77 compilers
1512 Globally, the support for Fortran 77 is considerably improved.
1514 Support for automatically determining a Fortran 77 compiler's
1515 name-mangling scheme. New CPP macros F77_FUNC and F77_FUNC_ are
1516 provided to wrap C/C++ identifiers, thus making it easier and more
1517 transparent for C/C++ to call Fortran 77 routines, and Fortran 77 to
1518 call C/C++ routines. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1521 The test suite no longer uses DejaGNU. It should be easy to submit
1522 test cases in this new framework.
1525 - --help, --help=long, -hl
1526 no longer dumps useless items.
1528 lists only specific options.
1529 - --help=recursive, -hr
1530 displays the help of all the embedded packages.
1531 - Remembers environment variables when reconfiguring.
1532 The previous scheme to set envvar before running configure was
1534 what prevented configure from remembering the environment in which
1535 it was run, therefore --recheck was run in an inconsistent
1536 environment. Now, one should run
1538 and then --recheck will work properly. Variables declared with
1539 AC_ARG_VAR are also preserved.
1541 $build defaults to `config.guess`, $host to $build, and then $target
1543 Cross-compilation is a global status of the package, it no longer
1544 depends upon the current language.
1545 Cross compilation is enabled iff the user specified `--host'.
1546 `configure' now fails if it can't run the executables it compiles,
1547 unless cross-compilation is enabled.
1549 The cache file is disabled by default. The new options
1550 `--config-cache', `-C' set the cache to `config.cache'.
1554 Much faster on most architectures.
1555 - concurrent executions
1556 It is safe to use `make -j' with config.status.
1557 - human interface improved
1558 It is possible to invoke
1559 ./config.status foobar
1560 instead of the former form (still valid)
1561 CONFIG_COMMANDS= CONFIG_HEADERS= CONFIG_LINKS= \
1562 CONFIG_FILES=foobar:foo.in:bar.in \
1564 The same holds for configuration headers and links.
1565 You can instantiate unknown files and headers:
1566 ./config.status --header foo.h:foo.h.in --file bar:baz
1567 - has a useful --help
1568 - accepts special file name "-" for stdin/stdout
1573 Specify additional copyright information.
1576 Now expects the identity of the package as argument.
1580 Most macros, if not all, now strictly follow the `one quotation
1581 level' rule. This results in a more predictable expansion.
1584 A sly bug in the AC_REQUIRE machinery, which could produce incorrect
1585 configure scripts, was fixed by Axel Thimm.
1589 Document and ask for the registration of an envvar.
1592 Specifies the file which `configure' should look for when trying to
1593 find the source tree (used to be handled by AC_INIT).
1595 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
1596 To add new actions to config.status. Should be used instead of
1600 Replaces AC_LINK_FILES.
1602 - AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS,
1603 AC_CONFIG_LINKS, and AC_CONFIG_FILES
1604 They now obey sh: you should no longer use shell variables as
1605 argument. Instead of
1607 test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes && $my_subdirs="$my_subdirs foo"
1608 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS($my_subdirs)
1612 if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
1613 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
1617 To format an Autoconf macro's help string so that it looks pretty
1618 when the user executes `configure --help'.
1621 ** Generic Test Macros
1623 The interface of the AC_CHECK families of macros (decl, header,
1624 type, member, func) is now uniform. They support the same set of
1627 - AC_CHECK_DECL, AC_CHECK_DECLS
1628 To check whether a symbol is declared.
1630 - AC_CHECK_SIZEOF, AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED.
1631 No longer need a cross-compilation default.
1634 The test it performs is much more robust than previously, and makes
1635 it possible to test builtin types in addition to typedefs.
1636 It is now schizophrenic:
1637 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, REPLACEMENT)
1638 remains for backward compatibility, but its use is discouraged.
1639 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, IF-FOUND, IF-NOT-FOUND, INCLUDES)
1640 behaves exactly like the other AC_CHECK macros.
1643 Checks whether given types are supported by the system.
1645 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER, AC_CHECK_MEMBERS
1646 Check for given members in aggregates (e.g., pw_gecos in struct
1650 Checks if the compiler supports ISO C, included when needs special
1654 Checking whether the preprocessor indicates missing includes by the
1655 error code. stderr is checked by AC_TRY_CPP only as a fallback.
1658 Takes a language as argument and replaces AC_LANG_C,
1659 AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS and AC_LANG_FORTRAN77.
1661 - AC_LANG_PUSH, AC_LANG_POP
1662 Are preferred to AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE.
1665 - AC_FUNC_CHOWN, AC_FUNC_MALLOC, AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R,
1666 AC_FUNC_LSTAT_FOLLOWS_SLASHED_SYMLINK, AC_FUNC_STAT, AC_FUNC_LSTAT,
1667 AC_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AC_FUNC_OBSTACK, AC_FUNC_STRTOD, AC_FUNC_FSEEKO.
1671 Sets GETGROUPS_LIBS.
1673 - AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
1674 Defines `HAVE_STRUCT_NLIST_N_UN_N_NAME' instead of `NLIST_NAME_UNION'.
1677 Now integrates `AC_DECL_YYTEXT' which is obsoleted.
1680 Arrange for large-file support.
1682 - AC_EXEEXT, AC_OBJEXT
1683 You are no longer expected to use them: their computation is
1684 performed by default.
1686 ** C++ compatibility
1687 Every macro has been revisited in order to support at best CC=c++.
1689 Major changes in Autoconf 2.14:
1690 There was no release of GNU Autoconf 2.14.
1692 Major changes in Autoconf 2.13:
1694 Released 1999-05-01 by Ben Elliston.
1696 * Support for building on 32-bit Windows systems where the only available C or
1697 C++ compiler is the Microsoft Visual C++ command line compiler
1698 (`cl'). Additional support for building on 32-bit Windows systems which are
1699 using the Cygwin or Mingw32 environments.
1700 * Support for alternative object file and executable file extensions.
1701 On 32-bit Windows, for example, these are .obj and .exe. These are discovered
1702 using AC_OBJEXT and AC_EXEEXT, which substitute @OBJEXT@ and
1703 @EXEEXT@ in the output, respectively.
1704 * New macros: AC_CACHE_LOAD, AC_CACHE_SAVE, AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES,
1705 AC_VALIDATE_CACHED_SYSTEM_TUPLE, AC_SEARCH_LIBS, AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC,
1706 AC_C_STRINGIZE, AC_CHECK_FILE(S), AC_PROG_F77 (and friends).
1707 * AC_DEFINE now has an optional third argument for a description to be
1708 placed in the config header input file (e.g. config.h.in).
1709 * The C++ code fragment compiled for the C++ compiler test had to be
1710 improved to include an explicit return type for main(). This was
1711 causing failures on systems using recent versions of the EGCS C++
1713 * Fixed an important bug in AC_CHECK_TYPE that would cause a configure
1714 script to report that `sometype_t' was present when only `type_t'
1716 * Merge of the FSF version of config.guess and config.sub to modernize
1717 these scripts. Add support for a few new hosts in config.guess.
1718 Incorporate latest versions of install-sh, mkinstalldirs and
1719 texinfo.tex from the FSF.
1720 * autoreconf is capable of running automake if necessary (and
1722 * Support for Fortran 77. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1723 * Bug fixes and workarounds for quirky bugs in vendor utilities.
1725 Major changes in Autoconf 2.12:
1727 Released 1996-11-26 by David J. MacKenzie
1729 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER can create output files by
1730 concatenating multiple input files separated by colons, like so:
1731 AC_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h:conf.pre:config.h.in:conf.post)
1732 AC_OUTPUT(Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.rules)
1733 The arguments may be shell variables, to compute the lists on the fly.
1734 * AC_LINK_FILES and AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS may be called multiple times.
1735 * New macro AC_OUTPUT_COMMANDS adds more commands to run in config.status.
1738 Major changes in Autoconf 2.11:
1740 Released November 18th, 1996, by David J. MacKenzie
1742 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX check whether the compiler works.
1743 They also default CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to "-g -O2" for gcc, instead of "-g -O".
1744 * AC_REPLACE_FUNCS defines HAVE_foo if the system has the function `foo'.
1745 * AC_CONFIG_HEADER expands shell variables in its argument.
1746 * New macros: AC_FUNC_FNMATCH, AC_FUNC_SETPGRP.
1747 * The "checking..." messages and the source code for test programs that
1748 fail are saved in config.log.
1749 * Another workaround has been added for seds with small command length limits.
1750 * config.sub and config.guess recognize more system types.
1753 Major changes in Autoconf 2.10:
1755 Released May 7th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1758 * The cache variable names used by `AC_CHECK_LIB(LIB, FUNC, ...)' has
1759 changed: now $ac_cv_lib_LIB_FUNC, previously $ac_cv_lib_LIB.
1761 Major changes in Autoconf 2.9:
1763 Released March 16th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1767 Major changes in Autoconf 2.8:
1769 Released March 8th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1773 Major changes in Autoconf 2.7:
1775 Released November 22nd, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1779 Major changes in Autoconf 2.6:
1781 Released November 20th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1785 Major changes in Autoconf 2.5:
1787 Released November 17th, 1995, by Roland McGrath
1789 * New configure options --bindir, --libdir, --datadir, etc., with
1790 corresponding output variables.
1791 * New macro: AC_CACHE_CHECK, to make using the cache easier.
1792 * config.log contains the command being run as well as any output from it.
1793 * AC_CHECK_LIB can check for libraries with "." or "/" or "+" in their name.
1794 * AC_PROG_INSTALL doesn't cache a name for install-sh, for sharing caches.
1795 * AC_CHECK_PROG, AC_PATH_PROG, AC_CHECK_PROGS, AC_PATH_PROGS, and
1796 AC_CHECK_TOOL can search a path other than $PATH.
1797 * AC_CHECK_SIZEOF takes an optional size to use when cross-compiling.
1799 Major changes in Autoconf 2.4:
1801 Released June 14th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1803 * Fix a few bugs found by Emacs testers.
1805 Major changes in Autoconf 2.3:
1807 Released March 27th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1809 * Fix the cleanup trap in several ways.
1810 * Handle C compilers that are picky about option placement.
1811 * ifnames gets the version number from the right directory.
1813 Major changes in Autoconf 2.2:
1815 Released March 8th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1817 * The ifnames utility is much faster but requires a "new awk" interpreter.
1818 * AC_CHECK_LIB and AC_HAVE_LIBRARY check and add the new
1819 library before existing libs, not after, in case it uses them.
1820 * New macros: AC_FUNC_GETPGRP, AC_CHECK_TOOL.
1821 * Lots of bug fixes.
1822 * Many additions to the TODO file :-)
1824 Major changes in Autoconf 2.1:
1826 Released November 4th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1829 * More explanations in the manual.
1830 * Fix a spurious failure in the testsuite.
1831 * Clarify some warning messages.
1832 * autoreconf by default only rebuilds configure and config.h.in files
1833 that are older than any of their particular input files; there is a
1834 --force option to use after installing a new version of Autoconf.
1836 Thanks to everybody who's submitted changes and additions to Autoconf!
1837 I've incorporated many of them, and am still considering others for
1838 future releases -- but I didn't want to postpone this release indefinitely.
1840 Caution: don't indiscriminately rebuild configure scripts with
1841 Autoconf version 2. Some configure.in files need minor adjustments to
1842 work with it; the documentation has a chapter on upgrading. A few
1843 configure.in files, including those for GNU Emacs and the GNU C
1844 Library, need major changes because they relied on undocumented
1845 internals of version 1. Future releases of those packages will have
1846 updated configure.in files.
1848 It's best to use GNU M4 1.3 (or later) with Autoconf version 2.
1849 Autoconf now makes heavy use of M4 diversions, which were implemented
1850 inefficiently in GNU M4 releases before 1.3.
1852 Major changes in Autoconf 2.0:
1854 Released October 26th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1856 ** New copyright terms:
1857 * There are no restrictions on distribution or use of configure scripts.
1860 * Autoconf manual is reorganized to make information easier to find
1861 and has several new indexes.
1862 * INSTALL is reorganized and clearer and is now made from Texinfo source.
1865 * autoscan to generate a preliminary configure.in for a package by
1866 scanning its source code for commonly used nonportable functions,
1867 programs, and header files.
1868 * ifnames to list the symbols used in #if and #ifdef directives in a
1870 * autoupdate to update a configure.in to use the version 2 macro names.
1871 * autoreconf to recursively remake configure and configuration header
1872 files in a source tree.
1874 ** Changed utilities:
1875 * autoheader can take pieces of acconfig.h to replace config.h.{top,bot}.
1876 * autoconf and autoheader can look for package-local definition files
1877 in an alternate directory.
1880 * AC_CACHE_VAL to share results of tests between configure runs.
1881 * AC_DEFUN to define macros, automatically AC_PROVIDE them, and ensure
1882 that macros invoked with AC_REQUIRE don't interrupt other macros.
1883 * AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM, AC_CANONICAL_HOST, AC_LINK_FILES to
1884 support deciding unguessable features based on the host and target types.
1885 * AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS to recursively configure a source tree.
1886 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM to use the options --program-prefix,
1887 --program-suffix, and --program-transform-name to change the names
1888 of programs being installed.
1889 * AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT to change the default installation prefix.
1890 * AC_TRY_COMPILE to compile a test program without linking it.
1891 * AC_CHECK_TYPE to check whether sys/types.h or stdlib.h defines a given type.
1892 * AC_CHECK_LIB to check for a particular function and library.
1893 * AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT to print test results, on a single line,
1894 whether or not the test succeeds. They obsolete AC_CHECKING and AC_VERBOSE.
1895 * AC_SUBST_FILE to insert one file into another.
1896 * AC_FUNC_MEMCMP to check whether memcmp is 8-bit clean.
1897 * AC_FUNC_STRFTIME to find strftime even if it's in -lintl.
1898 * AC_FUNC_GETMNTENT to find getmntent even if it's in -lsun or -lseq.
1899 * AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT to check whether sys/wait.h is POSIX.1 compatible.
1902 * Many macros renamed systematically, but old names are accepted for
1903 backward compatibility.
1904 * AC_OUTPUT adds the "automatically generated" comment to
1905 non-Makefiles where it finds @configure_input@ in an input file, to
1906 support files with various comment syntaxes.
1907 * AC_OUTPUT does not replace "prefix" and "exec_prefix" in generated
1908 files when they are not enclosed in @ signs.
1909 * AC_OUTPUT allows the optional environment variable CONFIG_STATUS to
1910 override the file name "config.status".
1911 * AC_OUTPUT takes an optional argument for passing variables from
1912 configure to config.status.
1913 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER allow you to override the input-file names.
1914 * AC_OUTPUT automatically substitutes the values of CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS,
1915 CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS from the environment.
1916 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX now set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, respectively.
1917 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install-sh or install.sh in the directory
1918 specified by AC_CONFIG_AUXDIR, or srcdir or srcdir/.. or
1919 srcdir/../.. by default.
1920 * AC_DEFINE, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED, and AC_SUBST are more robust and smaller.
1921 * AC_DEFINE no longer prints anything, because of the new result reporting
1922 mechanism (AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT).
1923 * AC_VERBOSE pays attention to --quiet/--silent, not --verbose.
1924 * AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH support whitespace in the arguments to
1925 --enable- and --with- options.
1926 * AC_CHECK_FUNCS and AC_CHECK_HEADERS take optional shell commands to
1927 execute on success or failure.
1928 * Checking for C functions in C++ works.
1931 * AC_REMOTE_TAPE and AC_RSH removed; too specific to tar and cpio, and
1932 better maintained with them.
1933 * AC_ARG_ARRAY removed because no one was likely using it.
1934 * AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG replaced with AC_SYS_INTERPRETER, which doesn't
1935 take arguments, for consistency with all of the other specific checks.
1938 * Comes with config.sub and config.guess, and uses them optionally.
1939 * Uses config.cache to cache test results. An alternate cache file
1940 can be selected with the --cache-file=FILE option.
1941 * Uses optional shell scripts $prefix/share/config.site and
1942 $prefix/etc/config.site to perform site or system specific initializations.
1943 * configure saves compiler output to ./config.log for debugging.
1944 * New files autoconf.m4 and autoheader.m4 load the other Autoconf macros.
1945 * acsite.m4 is the new name for the system-wide aclocal.m4.
1946 * Has a DejaGnu test suite.
1948 Major changes in Autoconf 1.11:
1950 * AC_PROG_INSTALL calls install.sh with the -c option.
1951 * AC_SET_MAKE cleans up after itself.
1952 * AC_OUTPUT sets prefix and exec_prefix if they weren't set already.
1953 * AC_OUTPUT prevents shells from looking in PATH for config.status.
1955 Plus a few other bug fixes.
1957 Major changes in Autoconf 1.10:
1959 * autoheader uses config.h.bot if present, analogous to config.h.top.
1960 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install.sh in srcdir or srcdir/.. and
1962 * AC_PROG_CXX looks for cxx as a C++ compiler.
1964 Plus several bugs fixed.
1966 Major changes in Autoconf 1.9:
1968 * AC_YYTEXT_POINTER replaces AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT.
1969 * AC_SIZEOF_TYPE generates the cpp symbol name automatically,
1970 and autoheader generates entries for those names automatically.
1971 * AC_FIND_X gets the result from xmkmf correctly.
1972 * AC_FIND_X assumes no X if --without-x was given.
1973 * AC_FIND_XTRA adds libraries to the variable X_EXTRA_LIBS.
1974 * AC_PROG_INSTALL finds OSF/1 installbsd.
1976 Major changes in Autoconf 1.8:
1979 * New macros AC_LANG_C, AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS, AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE,
1980 AC_PROG_CXX, AC_PROG_CXXCPP, AC_REQUIRE_CPP
1981 for checking both C++ and C features in one configure script.
1982 * New macros AC_CHECKING, AC_VERBOSE, AC_WARN, AC_ERROR for printing messages.
1983 * New macros AC_FIND_XTRA, AC_MMAP, AC_SIZEOF_TYPE, AC_PREREQ,
1984 AC_SET_MAKE, AC_ENABLE.
1987 * AC_FIND_X looks for X in more places.
1988 * AC_PROG_INSTALL defaults to install.sh instead of cp, if it's in srcdir.
1989 install.sh is distributed with Autoconf.
1990 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT has been removed because it can't work, pending
1991 a rewrite of quoting in AC_DEFINE.
1992 * AC_OUTPUT adds its comments in C format when substituting in C files.
1993 * AC_COMPILE_CHECK protects its ECHO-TEXT argument with double quotes.
1995 ** New or changed command line options:
1996 * configure accepts --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] and --disable-FEATURE options.
1997 * configure accepts --without-PACKAGE, which sets withval=no.
1998 * configure accepts --x-includes=DIR and --x-libraries=DIR.
1999 * Giving --with-PACKAGE no argument sets withval=yes instead of withval=1.
2000 * configure accepts --help, --version, --silent/--quiet, --no-create options.
2001 * configure accepts and ignores most other Cygnus configure options, and
2002 warns about unknown options.
2003 * config.status accepts --help, --version options.
2005 ** File names and other changes:
2006 * Relative srcdir values are not made absolute.
2007 * The values of @prefix@ and @exec_prefix@ and @top_srcdir@ get substituted.
2008 * Autoconf library files are installed in ${datadir}/autoconf, not ${datadir}.
2009 * autoheader optionally copies config.h.top to the beginning of config.h.in.
2010 * The example Makefile dependencies for configure et al. work better.
2011 * Namespace cleanup: all shell variables used internally by Autoconf
2012 have names beginning with `ac_'.
2014 More big improvements are in process for future releases, but have not
2015 yet been (variously) finished, integrated, tested, or documented enough
2018 Major changes in Autoconf 1.7:
2020 * New macro AC_OBSOLETE.
2021 * Bugs in Makefile.in fixed.
2022 * AC_LONG_FILE_NAMES improved.
2024 Major changes in Autoconf 1.6:
2026 * New macro AC_LONG_64_BITS.
2027 * Multiple .h files can be created.
2028 * AC_FIND_X looks for X files directly if it doesn't find xmkmf.
2029 * AC_ALLOCA defines C_ALLOCA if using alloca.c.
2030 * --with-NAME can take a value, e.g., --with-targets=sun4,hp300bsd.
2031 * Unused --no-create option to configure removed.
2032 * autoheader doesn't change the timestamp of its output file if
2033 the file didn't change.
2034 * All macros that look for libraries now use AC_HAVE_LIBRARY.
2035 * config.status checks three optional environment variables to
2036 modify its behavior.
2037 * The usual bug fixes.
2039 Major changes in Autoconf 1.5:
2041 * New macros AC_FIND_X, AC_OFF_T, AC_STAT_MACROS_BROKEN, AC_REVISION.
2042 * autoconf and autoheader scripts have GNU standards conforming
2043 --version and --help options (they print their message and exit).
2046 Major changes in Autoconf 1.4:
2048 * New macros AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG, AC_TIME_WITH_SYS_TIME, AC_LONG_DOUBLE,
2049 AC_GETGROUPS_T, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
2050 * autoconf and autoheader use the M4 environment variable to determine the
2051 name of the M4 program to use.
2052 * The --macrodir option to autoconf and autoheader specifies the directory
2053 in which acspecific.m4, acgeneral.m4, etc. reside if not the default.
2054 * autoconf and autoheader can take `-' as their file names, which means to
2055 read stdin as input.
2056 * Resulting configure scripts can take a --verbose option which causes them
2057 to print the results of their tests.
2058 * AC_DEFINE quotes its second argument in such a way that spaces, magic
2059 shell characters, etc. will be preserved during various stages of
2060 expansion done by the shell. If you don't want this, use
2061 AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED instead.
2062 * Much textual processing done with external calls to tr and sed have been
2063 internalized with builtin M4 `patsubst' and `translit' calls.
2064 * AC_OUTPUT doesn't hardwire the file names it outputs. Instead, you can
2065 set the shell variables `gen_files' and `gen_config' to the list of
2066 file names to output.
2067 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT does an AC_SUBST of `LEX_OUTPUT_ROOT', which may be
2068 "lex.yy" or "lexyy", depending on the system.
2069 * AC_PROGRAMS_CHECK takes an optional third arg. If given, it is used as
2071 * If AC_ALLOCA chooses alloca.c, it also defines STACK_DIRECTION.
2072 * AC_CONST works much more reliably on more systems.
2075 Major changes in Autoconf 1.3:
2077 configure no longer requires awk for packages that use a config.h.
2078 Support handling --with-PACKAGE options.
2079 New `autoheader' script to create `config.h.in' from `configure.in'.
2080 Ignore troublesome -lucb and -lPW when searching for alloca.
2081 Rename --exec_prefix to --exec-prefix for GNU standards conformance.
2082 Improve detection of STDC library.
2083 Add AC_HAVE_LIBRARY to check for non-default libraries.
2084 Function checking should work with future GNU libc releases.
2086 Major changes in Autoconf 1.2:
2088 The --srcdir option is now usually unnecessary.
2089 Add a file containing sample comments describing CPP macros.
2090 A comment in config.status tells which host it was configured on.
2091 Substituted variable values can now contain commas.
2092 Fix bugs in various feature checks.
2094 Major changes in Autoconf 1.1:
2096 Added AC_STRCOLL macro.
2097 Made AC_GETLOADAVG check for more things.
2098 AC_OUTPUT argument is now optional.
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2105 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
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