1 GNU Autoconf NEWS - User visible changes.
3 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.65a (????-??-??) [experimental]
6 ** AC_FUNC_MMAP works in C++ mode again. Regression introduced in 2.65.
8 ** Use of m4_divert without a named diversion now issues a syntax warning,
9 since it is seldom right to change diversions behind autoconf's back.
11 ** The macros AC_TYPE_INT8_T, AC_TYPE_INT16_T, AC_TYPE_INT32_T, and
12 AC_TYPE_INT64_T work again. Regression introduced in 2.65.
14 ** AC_PROG_INSTALL correctly uses `shtool' again. Regression introduced
17 ** Autoconf should work on EBCDIC hosts.
19 ** AC_CHECK_DECL and AC_CHECK_DECLS accept optional function argument types
20 for overloaded C++ functions.
22 ** AS_SET_CATFILE accepts nonliterals in its variable name argument now.
24 ** Autotest testsuites accept an option --recheck to rerun tests that
25 failed or passed unexpectedly during the last non-debug testsuite run.
27 ** AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH now also accept `+' signs in `--enable-*'
28 and `--with-*' arguments, converting them to underscores for the variable
31 ** In configure scripts, loading CONFIG_SITE no longer searches PATH,
32 and problems in loading the configuration site files are diagnosed.
34 ** Autotest testsuites may optionally provide colored test results.
36 ** The previously undocumented Autotest macros AT_ARG_OPTION and
37 AT_ARG_OPTION_ARG have seen bug fixes and are documented now.
38 AT_ARG_OPTION has been changed in that the negative of a long option
39 --OPTION is now --no-OPTION rather than --noOPTION.
41 ** The macro AS_LITERAL_IF is slightly more conservative; text
42 containing shell quotes are no longer treated as literals.
43 Furthermore, a new macro, AS_LITERAL_WORD_IF, adds an additional
44 level of checking that no whitespace occurs in literals.
46 ** The macros AS_TR_SH and AS_TR_CPP no longer expand their results.
48 ** The following macros are now documented:
51 ** New macro AC_FC_FIXEDFORM to accept fixed-form Fortran.
54 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.65 (2009-11-21) [stable]
55 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.64.*.
57 ** Autoconf is now licensed under the General Public License version 3
58 or later (GPLv3+). As with earlier versions, the license includes
59 an exception clause so that you may release a configure script
60 generated by autoconf under the license of your own program.
62 ** New macros to support Objective C++.
63 AC_PROG_OBJCXX AC_PROG_OBJCXXCPP
65 ** The following undocumented autoconf macros, removed in Autoconf 2.64,
69 These macros are present only for backwards compatibility purposes.
71 ** The macro AC_LANG_COMPILER no longer fails on embedded systems that
72 lack fopen in the C library, such as AVR or RTEMS (regression
75 ** The AC_FC_FREEFORM macro no longer suffers from a whitespace bug that
76 made it fail with some Fortran compilers (regression introduced in
79 ** The AC_TYPE_UINT64_T and AC_TYPE_INT64_T macros have been fixed to no
80 longer mistakenly select a 32-bit type on some compilers (bug present
81 since macros were introduced in 2.59c).
83 ** The AC_FUNC_MMAP macro has been fixed to be portable to systems like
84 Cygwin (bug present since macro was introduced in 2.0).
86 ** The following documented autotest macros are new:
89 ** The following m4sugar macros now quote their expansion:
92 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
95 ** The m4sugar macro m4_text_wrap now copes with embedded quoting without
96 requiring quadrigraphs. For uses like AC_ARG_VAR([a], [[b c]]),
97 this gives the intuitive behavior of "[b c]" in the output (2.63
98 gave the output of "[b], [c]", and 2.64 encountered a failure).
100 ** The `$tmp' temporary directory used in config.status is documented for
103 ** config.status now provides a --config option to produce the configuration.
105 ** Many cache variables used by Autoconf's macros are now documented.
107 ** Configure scripts work better on DJGPP by avoiding a bug present in
108 the DJGPP port of bash 2.04 in handling 'return' in a shell
109 function (regression introduced in 2.64).
111 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.64 (2009-07-26) [stable]
112 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63b.*.
114 ** Autoconf now requires GNU M4 1.4.6 or later. Earlier versions of M4
115 have a bug in regular expression handling that interferes with some
116 of the speedups provided since Autoconf 2.63. GNU M4 1.4.13 or
117 later is recommended.
119 ** AS_IF and AS_CASE have been taught to avoid syntax errors even when
120 given arguments that expand to just whitespace.
122 ** The following documented autoconf macros are new:
123 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_ERTS_VER
125 ** The autoheader tool now understands m4 macro arguments passed to
126 AC_DEFINE and AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
128 ** Ensure AT_CHECK can support commands that include a # given with
129 proper m4 quoting. For shell comments, this is a new feature; for
130 non-shell comments, this fixes a regression introduced in 2.63b.
131 Additionally, AT_CHECK correctly supplies shell escapes for
132 metacharacters occurring in m4 macro expansions within the expected
133 stdout and stderr parameters.
135 ** The macro AT_CHECK now understands the concept of hard failure. If
136 a test exits with an unexpected status 99, cleanup actions for the
137 test are inhibited and the test is treated as a failure regardless
138 of AT_XFAIL_IF. It also understands the new directives
139 ignore-nolog, stdout-nolog, and stderr-nolog.
141 ** The following documented autotest macros are new:
142 AT_CHECK_UNQUOTED AT_FAIL_IF AT_SKIP_IF
144 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
145 m4_argn m4_copy_force m4_default_nblank m4_default_nblank_quoted
146 m4_ifblank m4_ifnblank m4_rename_force
148 ** The autoconf testsuite now exercises all Erlang macros.
150 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63b (2009-03-31) [beta]
151 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63.*.
153 ** The manual is now shipped under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
155 ** AC_REQUIRE now detects the case of an outer macro which first expands
156 then later indirectly requires the same inner macro. Previously,
157 this case led to silent out-of-order expansion (bug present since
158 2.50); it now issues a syntax warning, and duplicates the expansion
159 of the inner macro to guarantee dependencies have been met. See
160 the manual for advice on how to refactor macros in order to avoid
161 the bug in earlier autoconf versions and avoid increased script
162 size in the current version.
164 ** AC_DEFUN_ONCE has improved semantics. Previously, a macro declared
165 with AC_DEFUN_ONCE warned on a second invocation; and out-of-order
166 expansion was still possible. Now, dependencies are guaranteed,
167 and subsequent invocations are a silent no-op. This makes
168 AC_DEFUN_ONCE an ideal macro for silencing AC_REQUIRE warnings.
170 ** The following macros are now defined with AC_DEFUN_ONCE. This means
171 a subtle change in semantics; previously, an AC_DEFUN macro could
172 expand one of these macros multiple times or surround the macro
173 inside shell conditional text to bypass the effects of these
174 macros, but now the macro will expand exactly once, and prior to
175 the start of any enclosing AC_DEFUN macro:
176 AC_CANONICAL_BUILD AC_CANONICAL_HOST AC_CANONICAL_TARGET
177 AC_HEADER_ASSERT AC_PROG_INSTALL AC_PROG_MKDIR_P
178 AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
180 ** AC_LANG_ERLANG works once again (regression introduced in 2.61a).
182 ** AC_HEADER_ASSERT is fixed so that './configure --enable-assert' no
183 longer mistakenly disables assertions.
185 ** AC_INIT now takes an optional fifth parameter that can be used to
186 set AC_PACKAGE_URL, a URL for the package's home page; the URL is
187 used in `configure --help' and is also available via AC_DEFINE.
189 ** Autotest testsuites accept an option --jobs[=N] for parallel testing.
190 This feature is still in testing, and may not work on every
191 platform, help in improving it would be appreciated.
193 ** Autotest testsuites do not attempt to write startup error messages
194 to the log file before that is opened (regression introduced in 2.63).
196 ** Configure scripts now use shell functions. This feature leads to
197 smaller configure files and faster execution.
199 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled: Autoconf will now proceed with
200 the compiler's result if a header is present but cannot be compiled.
201 The warning is still printed, and you should really fix it by
202 providing a fourth parameter to AC_CHECK_HEADER/AC_CHECK_HEADERS.
204 ** Autoreconf added aclocal to the set of programs affected by the
205 `autoreconf -I dir' option.
207 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
208 m4_chomp m4_chomp_all m4_cleardivert m4_curry m4_default_quoted
209 m4_esyscmd_s m4_map_args m4_map_args_pair m4_map_args_sep
210 m4_map_args_w m4_set_map m4_set_map_sep m4_stack_foreach
211 m4_stack_foreach_lifo m4_stack_foreach_sep
212 m4_stack_foreach_sep_lifo
214 ** The following m4sugar macros are documented now, but in some cases
215 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
216 undocumented version had:
217 m4_copy m4_dumpdefs m4_rename m4_version_prereq
219 ** The m4sugar macro m4_expand has been taught to handle unterminated
220 comments and shell case statements. As a result, it is used
221 internally in more places, such as AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK. Most
222 uses of AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK should not behave any differently;
223 however, it may be necessary to add double-quoting around
224 unbalanced `(' where single-quoting used to be sufficient.
226 ** The following documented m4sh macros are new:
227 AS_INIT_GENERATED AS_LINENO_PREPARE AS_ME_PREPARE AS_SET_STATUS
228 AS_VAR_APPEND AS_VAR_ARITH AS_VAR_COPY
230 ** The following m4sh macros are documented now, but in some cases
231 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
232 undocumented version had:
233 AS_ECHO AS_ECHO_N AS_ESCAPE AS_EXIT AS_LITERAL_IF AS_UNSET
234 AS_VAR_IF AS_VAR_POPDEF AS_VAR_PUSHDEF AS_VAR_SET AS_VAR_SET_IF
235 AS_VAR_TEST_SET AS_VERSION_COMPARE
237 ** The m4sh macros AS_IF and AS_CASE can now be used in shell lists.
238 The responsibility for supplying a trailing newline now belongs to
239 the call site, but since most users did not add dnl, this generally
240 results in fewer empty lines in configure.
243 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63 (2008-09-09) [stable]
244 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.62.*.
246 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN does not mistakenly report "universal" for some
247 bigendian hosts, a regression introduced with universal binary
250 ** AC_PATH_X now includes /lib64 and /usr/lib64 in its list of default
253 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS no longer conflicts with an external
254 AC_DEFINE([__EXTENSIONS__]). This fixes a regression introduced in
255 2.62 when using macros such as AC_AIX that were made obsolete in
256 favor of the more portable AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS.
258 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS is usable in the non-cross-compile case.
260 ** Newly obsolete macros
261 The following macro has been marked obsolete, since current porting
262 targets can safely assume C89 semantics that signal handlers return
263 void. We have no current plans to remove the macro.
267 ** The macros m4_map and m4_map_sep now ignore any list elements
268 consisting of just empty quotes, and m4_map_sep now expands its
269 separator. This fixes a regression in 2.62 when these macros were
270 first documented, for the sake of clients expecting the semantics
271 that these macros had prior to that time. The new macros m4_mapall
272 and m4_mapall_sep, along with extra quoting of the separator, can
273 be used to get the semantics that m4_map_sep had in 2.62.
275 ** Clients of m4_expand, such as AS_HELP_STRING and AT_SETUP, can now
276 handle properly quoted but otherwise unbalanced parentheses (for
277 some macros, this fixes a regression in 2.62).
279 ** Two new quadrigraphs have been introduced: @{:@ for (, and @:}@ for ),
280 allowing the output of unbalanced parentheses in more contexts.
282 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
283 m4_cleardivert m4_joinall m4_mapall m4_mapall_sep m4_reverse
284 m4_set_add m4_set_add_all m4_set_contains m4_set_contents
285 m4_set_delete m4_set_difference m4_set_dump m4_set_empty
286 m4_set_foreach m4_set_intersection m4_set_list m4_set_listc
287 m4_set_remove m4_set_size m4_set_union
289 ** The following m4sugar macros now accept multiple arguments, as is the
290 case with underlying m4:
291 m4_defn m4_popdef m4_undefine
293 ** The following m4sugar macros now guarantee linear scaling; they
294 previously had linear scaling with m4 1.6 but quadratic scaling
295 when using m4 1.4.x. All macros built on top of these also gain
296 the scaling improvements.
297 m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_case m4_cond m4_do m4_dquote_elt
298 m4_foreach m4_join m4_list_cmp m4_map m4_map_sep m4_max
301 ** AT_KEYWORDS once again performs expansion on its argument, such that
302 AT_KEYWORDS([m4_if([$1], [], [default])]) no longer complains about
303 the possibly unexpanded m4_if [regression introduced in 2.62].
305 ** Config header templates `#undef UNDEFINED /* comment */' do not lead to
306 nested comments any more; regression introduced in 2.62.
309 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.62 (2008-04-05) [stable]
310 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.61a.*.
312 ** Many optimizations have been applied to make overall execution faster.
314 ** Autotest now makes use of shell functions.
316 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed also for config headers.
318 - As a side effect, AC_DEFINE and AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED now handle multi-line
319 values, i.e., backslash-newline combinations are handled correctly.
320 Further, for config headers, the total size of values is not limited by
321 the POSIX length limit of text lines any more, only each single line.
323 ** New config variable `top_build_prefix'.
325 ** New Autoconf macros:
326 AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION AC_OPENMP AC_PATH_PROGS_FEATURE_CHECK
328 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN now supports universal binaries a la Mac OS X.
330 ** AC_C_RESTRICT now prefers to #define 'restrict' to a variant spelling
331 like '__restrict' if the variant spelling is available, as this is
332 more likely to work when mixing C and C++ code.
334 ** AC_CHECK_ALIGNOF's type argument T is now documented better: it must
335 be a string of tokens such that "T y;" is a valid member declaration
338 ** AC_CHECK_SIZEOF now accepts objects as well as types: the general rule
339 is that sizeof (X) works, then AC_CHECK_SIZEOF (X) should work.
341 ** AC_CHECK_TYPE and AC_CHECK_TYPES now work on any C type-name; formerly,
342 they did not work for function types. In C++, they now work on any
343 type-id that can be the operand of sizeof; this is similar to C,
344 except it excludes anonymous struct and union types. Formerly,
345 some (but not all) C++ types involving anonymous struct and union
346 were accepted, though this was not documented.
348 ** AC_CONFIG_LINKS now prefers to link against files in the build tree
349 if found, and it works to link against a file of the same name in
350 the source tree, even if both trees coincide.
352 ** AC_INIT no longer alters $@; regression introduced in 2.60.
354 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _ALL_SOURCE for Interix platforms.
356 ** AS_HELP_STRING no longer underquotes its first argument; it also handles
357 the case where the first argument contains single-quoted commas.
358 For example, "AS_HELP_STRING([-a, [--arg[=foo]]], [bar])" produces:
359 " -a, --arg[=foo] bar"
360 Additionally, the macro now takes two additional arguments,
361 indent-column and wrap-column; these should not normally be needed,
362 but can be used to fine-tune how the output text is wrapped.
364 ** AC_PROG_INSTALL now requires an install program that can install multiple
365 files into a target directory.
367 ** The command 'autoconf -' now correctly processes a file from stdin.
369 ** 'autoreconf -m' now honors $MAKE.
371 ** For all of the directory arguments for 'configure', such as '--prefix'
372 or '--bindir', trailing slashes are stripped. As an example, if
373 tab completion in the user's shell appends trailing slashes, the
374 command './configure --prefix=/usr/' will still result in an
375 expanded libdir value of /usr/lib, not /usr//lib.
377 ** `configure --help=recursive' now works in read-only trees and from
378 unconfigured build trees.
380 ** If precious variables differ only in whitespace, then the cache consistency
381 check warns instead of fails, and reuses the old value.
383 ** AT_BANNER is now documented.
385 ** AT_SETUP now handles macro expansions properly when calculating line
388 ** Autotest now determines $srcdir correctly.
390 ** Testsuites built by autotest now accept a -C/--directory=DIR option
391 to adjust the working directory prior to creating files.
393 ** Autoconf now requires GNU M4 1.4.5 or later. Earlier versions of M4 have
394 a bug in macro tracing that interferes with the interaction between
395 Autoconf and Automake. GNU M4 1.4.11 or later is recommended. The
396 configure search for a working M4 is improved.
398 ** For portability with the eventual M4 2.0, macros should no longer use
399 anything larger than $9 to refer to arguments.
401 ** Documentation for m4sugar is improved.
403 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
404 interfaces; the macros are now documented as stable interfaces.
406 __oline__ m4_assert m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_car m4_case
407 m4_cdr m4_default m4_divert_once m4_divert_pop m4_divert_push
408 m4_divert_text m4_do m4_errprintn m4_fatal m4_flatten
409 m4_ifndef m4_ifset m4_ifval m4_ifvaln m4_location
410 m4_n m4_shiftn m4_strip m4_warn
412 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
413 interfaces, but had bug fixes or semantic changes as part of this
414 release. Packages that relied on the undocumented behavior
415 should be analyzed to make sure they will still work with the
416 new documented behavior.
418 m4_cmp m4_list_cmp m4_join m4_map m4_map_sep m4_sign
419 m4_text_box m4_text_wrap m4_version_compare
421 - The m4_wrap macro used to have unspecified order, but now
422 guarantees FIFO order. m4_wrap_lifo was added to guarantee LIFO
425 - Packages using the undocumented m4sugar macro m4_PACKAGE_VERSION
426 should consider using the new AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION instead.
428 - m4sugar macros that are not documented in the manual are still
429 deemed experimental, and should not be used outside of Autoconf.
431 ** The m4sugar macros m4_append and m4_append_uniq, first documented in
432 2.60, have been fixed to treat both the string and the separator
433 arguments consistently with regards to quoting. Prior to this fix,
434 m4_append_uniq could mistakenly duplicate entries if the expansion
435 of the separator resulted in a different string (for example, if it
436 contained quotes, a comma, or a macro name). However, it means
437 that programs previously using
438 m4_append([name], [string], [[, ]])
439 are now using a four-character separator instead of the intended
440 comma and space. If you need portability to earlier versions of
441 Autoconf, you can insert the following snippet after AC_INIT but
442 before any other macro expansions, to enforce the new semantics:
443 m4_pushdef([m4_append], [m4_define([$1],
444 m4_ifdef([$1], [m4_defn([$1])[$3]])[$2])])
445 Additionally, m4_append_uniq now takes optional parameters that can
446 be used to take action depending on whether anything was appended,
447 and warns if a non-empty separator occurs within the string being
448 appended, since that can lead to duplicates.
450 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
451 m4_append_uniq_w m4_apply m4_combine m4_cond m4_count
452 m4_dquote_elt m4_echo m4_expand m4_ignore m4_make_list m4_max
453 m4_min m4_newline m4_shift2 m4_shift3 m4_unquote m4_wrap_lifo
455 ** Warnings are now generated by default when an installer invokes
456 'configure' with an unknown --enable-* or --with-* option.
457 These warnings can be disabled with the new AC_DISABLE_OPTION_CHECKING
458 macro, or by invoking 'configure' with --disable-option-checking.
460 ** Existing obsolete macros
461 The documentation for the following macros is adjusted to make it
462 more clear that they have previously been marked obsolete, as their
463 functionality can be accomplished by other macros. We have no
464 current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
466 AC_ENABLE AC_STRUCT_ST_BLKSIZE AC_STRUCT_ST_RDEV AC_WITH
468 ** Newly obsolete macros
469 The following macros have been marked obsolete, as they only
470 perform a subset of AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS. We have no current
471 plans to remove them.
473 AC_AIX AC_GNU_SOURCE AC_ISC_POSIX AC_MINIX
475 ** AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent.
476 The documentation now says that AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent: it
477 tests for problems that are so old that it is no longer of
478 practical importance on current systems. New programs need not use
479 AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE. We have no current plans to remove it.
481 ** AC_DIAGNOSE, AC_WARNING, and AC_FATAL are obsolescent.
482 The documentation now favors the use of M4sugar macros m4_warn and
483 m4_fatal, since the naming makes it more obvious that the
484 diagnostics are associated with M4 expansion (ie. when running
485 `autoconf'), and offers less confusion with the AC_MSG_ERROR,
486 AC_MSG_FAILURE, and AC_MSG_WARN macros which manage diagnostics
487 when running `configure'. We have no current plans to remove these
491 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61a (2006-12-11)
493 ** AC_FUNC_FSEEKO was broken in 2.61; it didn't make fseeko and ftello visible
494 on many platforms. This has been fixed.
496 ** AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED is now obsolete. It is still defined for backward
497 compatibility but it does nothing. The macro was already
498 obsolescent, as the last systems to have the problem were those
499 based on SVR2, which became obsolete in 1987. The macro had bugs
500 on some modern systems and could no longer be maintained reliably
501 due to lack of ancient systems to test it on.
503 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed for most substitutions, for speed.
505 - As a side effect multi-line values of substituted variables no
506 longer have a small limit in total size, though for portability
507 each line should not exceed the POSIX length limit for text lines.
509 - It is now documented that Makefile.in should not contain
510 overlapping variable occurrences, e.g., @VAR1@VAR2@.
511 Autoconf's behavior was always iffy in such cases, and the
512 awk implementation has changed the behavior.
514 ** Many uses of 'echo' have been rewritten so that Autoconf-generated
515 scripts have fewer problems with strings or file names containing
516 embedded special characters such as backslash or leading "-". This
517 was implemented by using `printf '%s\n' "$foo"' instead of `echo
518 "$foo"' when printf works. Due to the implementation technique
519 used, Autoconf-generated scripts now run considerably more slowly
520 on ancient implementations lacking printf. However, this should
521 not be a problem, since Autoconf-generated scripts in practice
522 invariably find a more-modern shell these days.
525 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61 (2006-11-17)
527 ** New macros AC_C_FLEXIBLE_ARRAY_MEMBER, AC_C_VARARRAYS.
529 ** AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH now allow '.' in feature and package names.
532 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60b (2006-10-22)
535 Autoconf-generated shell scripts no longer export BIN_SH, due to
536 configuration hassles with this. Installers who need BIN_SH in
537 their environment should set it before invoking 'configure' and
538 'make'. As far as we know, this affects only Unixware installations.
540 ** Obsolescent macros
541 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent,
542 as they are superseded by Gnulib:
544 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU AC_FUNC_GETLOADVG AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH
546 New programs should use the Gnulib counterparts of these macros.
547 We have no current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
549 ** AC_COMPUTE_INT no longer caches or reports results.
551 ** AC_CHECK_DECL now also works with aggregate objects.
553 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _TANDEM_SOURCE for NonStop platforms.
555 ** GNU M4 1.4.7 or later is now recommended.
558 New M4sugar macro, which is more secure than the POSIX M4 maketemp.
561 Now an alias for m4_mkstemp.
563 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60a (2006-08-25)
565 ** GNU M4 1.4.6 or later is now recommended.
567 ** The check for C99 now tests for varargs macros, as documented.
568 It also tests that the preprocessor supports 64-bit integers.
570 ** Autoconf now uses constructs like "#ifdef HAVE_STDLIB_H" rather than
571 "#if HAVE_STDLIB_H", so that it now works with "gcc -Wundef -Werror".
573 ** The functionality of the undocumented _AC_COMPUTE_INT is now provided
574 by a public and documented macro, AC_COMPUTE_INT. The parameters to the
575 two macros are different, so autoupdate will not change the old private name
576 to the new one. _AC_COMPUTE_INT may be removed in a future release.
578 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT and AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT now require
579 that long long types be at least 64 bits wide, as C99 and tradition
580 requires. Formerly, they accepted implementations of any width.
583 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60
585 Released 2006-06-23, by Ralf Wildenhues.
587 ** Autoconf no longer depends on whether m4wrap is FIFO (as Posix requires)
588 or LIFO (as in GNU M4 1.4.x). GNU M4 2.0 is expected to conform to Posix
589 here, so m4wrap/m4_wrap users should no longer depend on LIFO behavior.
591 ** Provide a way to turn off warnings about the changed directory variables.
593 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59d
595 Released 2006-06-05, by Ralf Wildenhues.
597 ** GNU make now recommended for VPATH builds
598 INSTALL now suggests VPATH builds (e.g., "sh ../srcdir/configure")
599 only if you use GNU make. In practice, other 'make' implementations
600 have too many subtle incompatibilities in their support for VPATH.
601 Many packages (including Autoconf itself) are portable to other
602 'make' implementations, but some packages are not, and recommending
603 GNU make keeps the installation instructions simpler.
605 ** Even more safety checks for the new Directory variables:
606 Warn about suspicious `${datarootdir}' found in config files output.
608 ** AC_TRY_COMMAND, AC_TRY_EVAL, ac_config_guess, ac_config_sub, ac_configure
609 These never-documented macros and variables have been marked with
610 comments saying that they may be removed in a future release,
611 because their use can lead to unintended code being executed.
612 If you need functionality that only these macros or variables
613 currently supply, please write bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
615 ** AC_SUBST, AC_DEFINE
616 Literal arguments to these are passed to m4_pattern_allow now.
619 Passing 'ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc=no' to 'configure' now sets ac_cv_prog_cc_c99
620 and ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 to 'no' as well, for backward compatibility with
621 obsolete K&R tests in the Automake test suite.
630 Now more robust with special characters in file names, or when
631 multiple processes create the same directory at the same time.
633 ** Obsolescent macros
634 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent:
635 they test for problems that are so old that they are no longer of
636 practical importance on current systems.
638 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A AC_FUNC_MEMCMP AC_HEADER_DIRENT
639 AC_C_CONST AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES AC_HEADER_STAT
640 AC_C_PROTOTYPES AC_FUNC_SETPGRP AC_HEADER_STDC
641 AC_C_STRINGIZE AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT
642 AC_C_VOLATILE AC_FUNC_STAT AC_HEADER_TIME
643 AC_FUNC_CLOSEDIR_VOID AC_FUNC_STRFTIME AC_ISC_POSIX
644 AC_FUNC_GETPGRP AC_FUNC_UTIME_NULL AC_PROG_GCC_TRADITIONAL
645 AC_FUNC_LSTAT AC_FUNC_VPRINTF AC_STRUCT_TM
647 New programs need not use these macros. We have no current plans to
651 For compatibility with future Libtool 2.0, autoreconf will invoke
652 libtoolize with the option `--ltdl' now, if LT_CONFIG_LTDL_DIR is
655 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59c
657 Released 2006-04-12, by Ralf Wildenhues.
659 ** The configure command now redirects standard input from /dev/null,
660 to help avoid problems with subsidiary commands that might mistakenly
661 read standard input. AS_ORIGINAL_STDIN_FD points to the original
662 standard input before this redirection, if you really want configure to
663 read from standard input.
665 ** Directory variables adjusted to recent changes in the GNU Coding Standards.
666 The following directory variables are new:
668 datarootdir read-only architecture-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
669 localedir locale-specific message catalogs [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
670 docdir documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/PACKAGE]
671 htmldir html documentation [DOCDIR]
672 dvidir dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
673 pdfdir pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
674 psdir ps documentation [DOCDIR]
676 The following variables have new default values:
678 datadir read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
679 infodir info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
680 mandir man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
682 This means that if you use any of `@datadir@', `@infodir@', or
683 `@mandir@' in a file, you will have to ensure `${datarootdir}' is
684 defined in this file. As a temporary measure, if any of those are
685 found but no mention of `datarootdir', the substitutions will be
686 replaced with values that do not contain `${datarootdir}', and a
687 warning will be issued.
689 ** @top_builddir@ is now a dir name: it is always nonempty and doesn't have
690 a trailing slash. Similar change will be made to ac_top_builddir in a
691 future release; the old style value, which matches (../)*, is (and will
692 continue to be) available as ac_top_build_prefix.
695 New macro to check for support of 'typeof' syntax a la GNU C.
697 ** AC_CHECK_DECLS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_FUNCS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_HEADERS_ONCE
698 New "once-only" variants of commonly-used macros, to make 'configure'
699 smaller and faster in common cases.
702 New macro to check for strtold with C99 semantics.
705 New macro that lets builder disable assertions at 'configure'-time.
708 Now checks for X11/Xlib.h and XrmInitialize (X proper) rather than
709 X11/Intrinsic.h and XtMalloc (Xt).
711 ** AC_PRESERVE_HELP_ORDER
712 New macro that causes `configure' to display help strings for AC_ARG_ENABLE
713 and AC_ARG_WITH arguments in one region, in the order defined. The default
714 behavior is to group options of each classes separately.
716 ** AC_PROG_CC, AC_PROG_CXX
717 No longer automatically arrange to declare the 'exit' function of C,
718 when a C++ compiler is used. Standard Autoconf macros no longer use
719 'exit', so this is no longer an issue for them. If you use C++, and
720 want to call 'exit', you'll have to arrange for its declaration
721 yourself. But we now suggest you return from 'main' instead.
723 ** AC_PROG_CC_C89, AC_PROG_CC_C99
724 New macros for ISO C99 support. AC_PROG_CC_C89 and AC_PROG_CC_C99
725 check for ANSI C89 and ISO C99 support respectively.
728 Has been unobsoleted, and will check if the compiler supports ISO
729 C99, falling back to ANSI C89 if not. ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc is
730 retained for backwards compatibility, assuming the value of
731 ac_cv_prog_cc_c99 or ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 (whichever is valid, in
734 ** AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_INO, AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
735 New macros for checking commonly-used members of struct dirent.
738 The substituted value can now contain newlines.
741 The substitution now occurs only when @variable@ is on a line by itself,
742 optionally surrounded by spaces and tabs. The whole line is replaced.
744 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE, AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE_WIDER
745 New macros to check for long double, and whether it is wider than double.
746 The old macro AC_C_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE has been marked as obsolete;
747 applications should switch to the new macro.
749 ** AC_TYPE_INT8_T, AC_TYPE_INT16_T, AC_TYPE_INT32_T, AC_TYPE_INT64_T,
750 AC_TYPE_INTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_INTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT, AC_TYPE_SSIZE_T,
751 AC_TYPE_UINT8_T, AC_TYPE_UINT16_T, AC_TYPE_UINT32_T, AC_TYPE_UINT64_T,
752 AC_TYPE_UINTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_UINTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT
753 New macros to check for C99 and POSIX types.
755 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
756 New macro to enable extensions to Posix.
759 New macro which is defined to the name of the first declared config header
760 or undefined if no config headers have been declared yet.
763 The macro correctly handles quadrigraphs now.
765 ** AS_BOURNE_COMPATIBLE, AS_SHELL_SANITIZE, AS_CASE
766 These macros are new or published now.
769 New macro for copyright notices in testsuite files.
771 ** ALLOCA, LIBOBJS, LTLIBOBJS
772 Object names added to these variables are now prefixed with `${LIBOBJDIR}',
773 as in `${LIBOBJDIR}alloca.o'. LIBOBJDIR is meant to be defined from
774 `Makefile.in' in case the object files lie in a different directory.
775 The LIBOBJDIR feature is experimental.
778 Supports --no-recursive now.
780 ** New macros to support Erlang/OTP.
781 New macros for configuring paths to Erlang tools and libraries:
782 AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERL,
783 AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERL, AC_ERLANG_CHECK_LIB, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_ROOT_DIR,
784 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_LIB_DIR.
786 New macros for configuring installation of Erlang libraries:
787 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_DIR, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_SUBDIR.
789 ** The manual now mentions Gnulib more prominently.
791 ** New macros to support Objective C.
792 AC_PROG_OBJC, AC_PROG_OBJCPP.
794 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59b
796 Released 2004-08-20, by Paul Eggert.
799 New macro that computes the default alignment of a type.
801 ** AC_CHECK_TOOL, AC_PATH_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TOOLS
802 When cross-compiling, these macros will give a warning if the tool
803 is not prefixed. In the future, unprefixed cross tools will not
804 be detected; please consult the info documentation for information
805 about the reason of this change.
807 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOL, AC_PATH_TARGET_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS
808 New macros that detect programs whose name is prefixed with the
809 target type, if the build type and target type are different.
811 ** AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE
812 New trace macro that declares expected auxiliary files.
815 New macro that tests for a grep program that accepts as a long a line
818 ** AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP
819 These macros now require AC_PROG_GREP, and try EGREP="$GREP -E" and
820 FGREP="$GREP -F" respectively if possible, or else run a path search for
821 a program that accepts as long a line as possible.
824 New macro that tests for a sed program that truncates as few characters
827 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59
829 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
831 ** ac_abs_builddir etc.
832 Absolute file names were actually relative in 2.58.
834 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.58
836 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
839 core.* files are no longer removed, as they may be valid user files.
841 ** autoreconf and auxiliary directory
842 Autoreconf creates the auxiliary directory if needed. This is
843 especially useful for initial "bootstrapping" of fresh CVS checkouts.
845 ** AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR
846 Use this macro to declare the directory for local M4 macros for aclocal.
849 No longer includes twice the same file in LIBOBJS if invoked
852 ** AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
853 The directory for its first argument is automatically created. For
856 AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS([src/modules.hh], [...])
858 $top_builddir/src/ is created if needed.
860 ** Autotest and local.at
861 The optional file local.at is always included in Autotest test suites.
864 The warnings are always issued, including with cached runs.
865 This became a significant problem since aclocal and automake can
866 run autoconf behind the scene.
868 ** autoheader warnings
869 The warnings of autoheader can be turned off, using --warning.
870 For instance, -Wno-obsolete disables the complaints about acconfig.h
871 and other deprecated constructs.
874 AC_C_RESTRICT, AC_INCLUDES_DEFAULT, AC_LANG_ASSERT, AC_LANG_WERROR,
877 ** AC_DECL_SYS_SIGLIST
881 Now checks that mktime is the inverse of localtime.
883 ** Improve DJGPP portability
884 The Autoconf tools and configure behave better under DJGPP.
886 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled
887 New FAQ section dedicated to the mystic
889 configure: WARNING: pi.h: present but cannot be compiled
890 configure: WARNING: pi.h: check for missing prerequisite headers?
891 configure: WARNING: pi.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's result
894 ** Concurrent executions of autom4te
895 autom4te now locks its internal files, which enables concurrent
896 executions of autom4te, likely to happen if automake, autoconf,
897 autoheader etc. are run simultaneously.
900 Use of Libtool 1.5 and higher is encouraged. Compatibility with
901 Libtool pre-1.4 is not checked.
904 Testsuites no longer rerun failed tests in verbose mode; instead,
905 failures are logged while the test is run.
907 In addition, expected failures can be marked as such.
909 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.57
911 Released 2002-12-03 by Paul Eggert.
913 Bug fixes for problems with AIX linker, with freestanding C compilers,
914 with GNU M4 limitations, and with obsolete copies of GNU documents.
916 The Free Documentation License has been upgraded from 1.1 to 1.2.
918 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.56
920 Released 2002-11-15 by Akim Demaille.
922 One packaging problem fixed (config/install-sh was not executable).
924 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.55
926 Released 2002-11-14 by Akim Demaille.
930 Have your configure.ac checked by autoscan ("autoscan").
931 Try the warning options ("autoreconf -fv -Wall").
935 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
936 More information on proper use.
938 - Writing Test Programs
940 This sections explains how to write good test sources to use with
941 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE etc. It documents AC_LANG_PROGRAM and so forth.
943 - AC_FOO_IFELSE vs. AC_TRY_FOO
945 Explains why Autoconf moves from AC_TRY_COMPILE etc. to
946 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE and AC_LANG_PROGRAM etc.
950 - Is more robust to different Gettext installations.
952 - Produces messages (when --verbose) to be understood by Emacs'
955 - Supports -W/--warnings.
958 Once the GNU Build System reinstalled, run `./config.status
959 --recheck && ./config.status && make' if possible.
963 - Supports --cache, and --no-cache.
965 - ~/.autom4te.cfg makes it possible to disable the caching mechanism
966 (autom4te.cache). See `Customizing autom4te' in the documentation.
973 Support for the obsoleted options -m, --macrodir, -l, --localdir is
974 dropped in favor of the safer --include/--prepend-include scheme.
979 AC_COMPILER_IFELSE, AC_FUNC_MBRTOWC, AC_HEADER_STDBOOL,
980 AC_LANG_CONFTEST, AC_LANG_SOURCE, AC_LANG_PROGRAM, AC_LANG_CALL,
981 AC_LANG_FUNC_TRY_LINK, AC_MSG_FAILURE, AC_PREPROC_IFELSE.
984 Obsoleted macros are kept for Autoconf backward compatibility, but
985 should be avoided in configure.ac. Running autoupdate is advised.
988 - AC_DEFINE/AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED
990 We have to stop using the old compatibility scheme --that tried to
991 avoid useless backslashes-- because Libtool 1.4.3 contains a
993 AC_DEFINE([error_t], [int],
994 [Define to a type to use for \`error_t' if it is not
995 otherwise available.])
997 We have to quote the single quotes and backslashes with \. The old
998 compatibility scheme saw that ` was backslashed, and therefore did
999 not quote the single quote... Failure. Hence, Autoconf 2.54 is not
1000 compatible with Libtool. Autoconf 2.55 is, but in some cases might
1001 produce more \ than wanted.
1003 Please, note that in the future the same problem will happen with
1004 AC_MSG_*: use `autoreconf -f -Wall'.
1008 - Portability of the Autoconf package to Solaris.
1010 - Spurious warnings caused by config.status.
1011 This bug is benign, but painful: on some systems (typically
1012 FreeBSD), warnings such as:
1014 config.status: creating Makefile
1015 mv: Makefile: set owner/group (was: 1357/0): Operation not permitted
1017 could be issued. This is fixed.
1020 Simultaneous executions of config.status are possible again.
1022 - Precious variables accumulation
1024 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
1028 ** Plans for later versions
1030 - ./configure <host>
1032 The compatibility hooks with the old scheme will be completely
1033 removed. Please, advice/use `--build', `--host', and `--target'
1036 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
1038 The tests will be stricter, please make sure your invocations are
1043 Shell functions will gradually be introduced, probably starting with
1044 Autotest. If you know machines which are in use that you suspect
1045 *not* to support shell functions, please run the test suite of
1046 Autoconf 2.55 on it, and report the results to
1047 bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
1051 Special characters in AC_MSG_* need not be quoted. Currently,
1052 Autoconf has heuristics to decide when a string is escaped, or has
1053 to be escaped. This scheme is fragile, and will be removed; the
1054 only risk is uglified messages. Please, run `autoreconf -f -Wall'
1055 to find occurrences that will be affected.
1057 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.54
1059 Released 2002-09-13 by Akim Demaille.
1063 - autoreconf no longer changes the version of the gettext/po/intl
1064 support files. It now adds the files the correspond to the
1065 AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared in configure.ac.
1067 Warning: It now relies on the 'autopoint' program, which is part
1068 of GNU gettext 0.11.4 and newer.
1070 Please note that you need to have a GNU gettext version that
1071 corresponds at least to the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared
1072 in configure.ac. You can upgrade to newer GNU gettext versions,
1073 though, without needing to change configure.ac.
1075 - The -I DIR or --include=DIR option now appends DIR to the include path
1076 instead of prepending; this is for consistency with other GNU tools.
1077 The new -B DIR or --prepend-include=DIR option has the old behavior.
1082 Now handles all the gory details about LIBOBJS and LTLIBOBJS.
1083 Please, remove lines such as
1085 # This is necessary so that .o files in LIBOBJS are also
1086 # built via the ANSI2KNR-filtering rules.
1087 LIBOBJS=`echo $LIBOBJS|sed 's/\.o /\$U.o /g;s/\.o$/\$U.o/'`
1089 and read the `AC_LIBOBJ vs LIBOBJS' section. Do not define U in
1090 your Makefiles either.
1092 - AC_CONFIG_LINKS now makes copies if it can't make links.
1094 - AC_FUNC_FNMATCH now tests only for POSIX compatibility, reverting to
1095 Autoconf 2.13 behavior. The new macro AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU also
1096 tests for GNU extensions to fnmatch, and replaces fnmatch if needed.
1098 - AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED no longer fails when cross-compiling.
1100 - AC_PROG_CC_STDC is integrated into AC_PROG_CC.
1102 - AC_PROG_F77 default search no longer includes cf77 and cfg77.
1106 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A, AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR, AC_GNU_SOURCE,
1107 AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP, AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH,
1108 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU, AC_FUNC_REALLOC, AC_TYPE_MBSTATE_T.
1110 - AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
1111 looks for getloadavg.c in the CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR.
1114 Now defines HAVE_MALLOC to 0 if `malloc' does not work, and asks
1115 for an AC_LIBOBJ replacement.
1119 - Spurious complaints from `m4_bmatch' about invalid regular
1120 expressions are suppressed.
1122 - Empty top_builddirs are properly handled.
1124 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER works correctly when the member is an aggregate.
1127 Now colon in the optional path arguments are properly handled.
1129 ** Improved portability
1131 - Both Autoconf the package, and the scripts it produces, should run
1132 more reliably with Zsh. Bear in mind it is the default Bourne shell
1135 - Autoconf and the scripts it produces no longer assume the existence of
1136 the obsolescent commands egrep and fgrep.
1140 - Limitations of Make
1144 The GNATS base moved to
1145 http://bugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?database=autoconf
1146 (It is no longer available, though.)
1151 Now contains the list of ouput variables and files (AC_SUBST,
1154 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.53
1156 Released 2002-03-08 by Akim Demaille.
1160 Perl 5.005_03 or later is required: autom4te is written in Perl and is
1161 needed by autoconf. autoheader, autoreconf, ifnames, and autoscan are
1167 Argument requirements, output variables, defined macros.
1168 - M4sugar, M4sh, Autotest
1170 - Double quoting macros
1171 AC_TRY_CPP, AC_TRY_COMPILE, AC_TRY_LINK and AC_TRY_RUN.
1173 The Autoconf manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1174 - Section `Hosts and Cross-Compilation'
1175 Explains the rationale for the 2.5x changes in the cross-compilation
1176 chain, and in the relationships between build, host, and target
1178 Emphasizes that `cross-compilation' == `--host is given'.
1179 If you are working on compilers etc., be sure to read this section.
1180 - Section `AC_LIBOBJ vs. LIBOBJS'
1181 Explains why assigning LIBOBJS directly is now an error.
1182 Details how to update the code.
1187 Now used instead of hard coded line numbers.
1188 This eases the comparison of `configure's, and diminishes the
1189 pressure over control version archives.
1190 Automatic replacement for shells that don't support this feature.
1191 - New output variables
1192 @builddir@, @top_builddir@, @abs_srcdir@, @abs_top_srcdir@, @abs_builddir@,
1197 Autoconf and Autotest modes are provided.
1202 New, used by the Autoconf suite to cache and speed up most processing.
1204 Supported by autom4te, autoconf and autoheader.
1206 Replaces --autoconf-dir and --localdir in autoconf, autoheader,
1207 autoupdate, and autoreconf.
1209 No longer passes --cygnus, --foreign, --gnits, --gnu, --include-deps:
1210 automake options are to be given via AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
1212 Runs gettextize and libtoolize when appropriate.
1214 --m4dir is no longer supported.
1216 Now runs only in the specified directories, defaulting to `.',
1217 but understands AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS for dependent directories.
1218 Before, it used to run on all the `configure.ac' found in the
1220 Independent packages are properly updated.
1224 - The top level $prefix is propagated to the AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS configures.
1226 Under the user pressure, $? is finally available. Probably a mistake.
1227 - AC_F77_LIBRARY_LDFLAGS now supports the HP/UX f90 compiler.
1228 - Precious variables accumulation
1229 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
1231 - AC_PATH_PROG and family.
1232 Works properly when given a literal path.
1234 Somewhere since 2.13, the result had been reversed.
1238 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN supports the cross-compiling case.
1239 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN accepts ACTION-IF-TRUE, ACTION-IF-FALSE, and
1240 ACTION-IF-UNKNOWN arguments. All are facultative, and the default
1241 for ACTION-IF-TRUE is to define WORDS_BIGENDIAN like AC_C_BIGENDIAN
1243 - AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE now succeeds only if `long double' has more range or
1244 precision than `double'.
1249 It now defines the preprocessor symbols PACKAGE_NAME,
1250 PACKAGE_TARNAME, PACKAGE_VERSION, PACKAGE_STRING, and
1254 Admits a fourth optional parameter: the tar name.
1256 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS.
1257 Provide the user with srcdir, ac_srcdir, ac_top_srcdir, ac_builddir,
1258 ac_top_builddir, ac_abs_srcdir, ac_abs_top_srcdir, ac_abs_builddir,
1259 ac_abs_top_builddir.
1261 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS and AC_OUTPUT.
1262 Are much less expensive when using long lists of files.
1265 Works with shell variables, and non alphanumeric names.
1269 - AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R now sets STRERROR_R_CHAR_P, not HAVE_WORKING_STRERROR_R,
1270 because POSIX 1003.1-200x draft 7 says strerror_r returns int, not char *.
1272 - AC_FUNC_STRTOD substitutes POW_LIB.
1277 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.52
1279 Released 2001-07-18 by Akim Demaille.
1284 This feature was present in autoconf 2.50 but was not documented.
1285 For example, `@<:@' is translated to `[' just before output. This
1286 is useful when writing strings that contain unbalanced quotes, or
1287 other hard-to-quote constructs.
1288 - m4_pattern_forbid, m4_pattern_allow
1289 - Tips for upgrading from 2.13.
1290 - Using autoscan to maintain a configure.ac.
1293 - Now include stdint.h.
1294 - sys/types.h and sys/stat.h are guarded.
1295 - strings.h is included if available, and not conflicting with string.h.
1298 - The test suite is more robust and presents less false failures.
1299 - Invocation of GNU M4 now robust to POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1300 - configure accepts --prefix='' again.
1301 - AC_CHECK_LIB works properly when its first argument is not a
1303 - HAVE_INTTYPES_H is defined only if not conflicting with sys/types.h.
1304 - build_, host_, and target_alias are AC_SUBST as in 2.13.
1305 - AC_ARG_VAR properly propagates precious variables inherited from the
1306 environment to ./config.status.
1307 - Using --program-suffix/--program-prefix is portable.
1308 - Failures to detect the default compiler's output extension are less
1310 - `config.status foo' works properly when `foo' depends on variables
1311 set in an AC_CONFIG_THING INIT-CMD.
1312 - autoheader is more robust to broken input.
1313 - Fixed Fortran name-mangling and link tests on a number of systems,
1314 e.g. NetBSD; see AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, below.
1317 - AC_CHECK_HEADER and AC_CHECK_HEADERS support a fourth argument to
1318 specify pre-includes. In this case, the headers are compiled with
1319 cc, not merely preprocessed by cpp. Therefore it is the _usability_
1320 of a header which is checked for, not just its availability.
1321 - AC_ARG_VAR refuses to run configure when precious variables have
1323 - Versions of compilers are dumped in the logs.
1324 - AC_CHECK_TYPE recognizes use of `foo_t' as a replacement type.
1327 - AC_PATH_XTRA only adds -ldnet to $LIBS if it's needed to link.
1328 - AC_FUNC_WAIT3 and AC_SYS_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS are obsoleted.
1329 - AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_FNMATCH, AM_FUNC_MKTIME,
1330 AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, and AM_FUNC_STRTOD are now activated.
1331 Be sure to read `Upgrading from Version 2.13' to understand why
1332 running `autoupdate' is needed.
1333 - AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, AC_F77_MAIN: new macros to detect whether
1334 a main-like routine is required/possible when linking C/C++ with
1335 Fortran. Users of e.g. AC_F77_WRAPPERS should be aware of these.
1336 - AC_FUNC_GETPGRG behaves better when cross-compiling.
1338 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.51
1339 There was no release of Autoconf 2.51 since some packagers had used
1340 this version number without permission to ship intermediary versions
1341 of 2.50. The version was skipped to avoid confusion.
1343 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.50
1345 Released 2001-05-21 by Akim Demaille.
1347 ** Lots of bug fixes
1348 There have been far too many to enumerate them here. Check out
1349 ChangeLog if you really want to know more.
1351 ** Improved documentation
1352 In particular, portability issues are better covered.
1355 All the standard GNU Makefile targets are supported. The layout has
1356 changed: m4/ holds the M4 extensions Autoconf needs for its
1357 configuration, doc/ contains the documentation, and tests/ contains
1360 ** Man pages are provided
1361 For autoconf, autoreconf, autoupdate, autoheader, autoscan, ifnames,
1362 config.guess, config.sub.
1366 Provides a safe and powerful means to trace the macro uses. This
1367 provide the parsing layer for tools which need to `study'
1371 Specify what category of warnings should be enabled.
1373 - When recursing into subdirectories, try for configure.gnu before
1374 configure to adapt for packages not using autoconf on case-insensitive
1378 More errors are now caught (circular AC_REQUIRE dependencies,
1379 AC_DEFINE in the action part of an AC_CACHE_CHECK, too many pops
1380 etc.). In addition, their location and call stack are given.
1383 autoupdate is much more powerful, and is able to provide the glue code
1384 which might be needed to move from an old macro to its newer
1387 You are strongly encouraged to use it to modernize both your
1388 `configure.in' and your .m4 extension files.
1391 The internal machinery of autoheader has completely changed. As a
1392 result, using `acconfig.h' should be considered to be obsoleted, and
1393 you are encouraged to get rid of it using the AH macros.
1398 ** Fortran 77 compilers
1399 Globally, the support for Fortran 77 is considerably improved.
1401 Support for automatically determining a Fortran 77 compiler's
1402 name-mangling scheme. New CPP macros F77_FUNC and F77_FUNC_ are
1403 provided to wrap C/C++ identifiers, thus making it easier and more
1404 transparent for C/C++ to call Fortran 77 routines, and Fortran 77 to
1405 call C/C++ routines. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1408 The test suite no longer uses DejaGNU. It should be easy to submit
1409 test cases in this new framework.
1412 - --help, --help=long, -hl
1413 no longer dumps useless items.
1415 lists only specific options.
1416 - --help=recursive, -hr
1417 displays the help of all the embedded packages.
1418 - Remembers environment variables when reconfiguring.
1419 The previous scheme to set envvar before running configure was
1421 what prevented configure from remembering the environment in which
1422 it was run, therefore --recheck was run in an inconsistent
1423 environment. Now, one should run
1425 and then --recheck will work properly. Variables declared with
1426 AC_ARG_VAR are also preserved.
1428 $build defaults to `config.guess`, $host to $build, and then $target
1430 Cross-compilation is a global status of the package, it no longer
1431 depends upon the current language.
1432 Cross compilation is enabled iff the user specified `--host'.
1433 `configure' now fails if it can't run the executables it compiles,
1434 unless cross-compilation is enabled.
1436 The cache file is disabled by default. The new options
1437 `--config-cache', `-C' set the cache to `config.cache'.
1441 Much faster on most architectures.
1442 - concurrent executions
1443 It is safe to use `make -j' with config.status.
1444 - human interface improved
1445 It is possible to invoke
1446 ./config.status foobar
1447 instead of the former form (still valid)
1448 CONFIG_COMMANDS= CONFIG_HEADERS= CONFIG_LINKS= \
1449 CONFIG_FILES=foobar:foo.in:bar.in \
1451 The same holds for configuration headers and links.
1452 You can instantiate unknown files and headers:
1453 ./config.status --header foo.h:foo.h.in --file bar:baz
1454 - has a useful --help
1455 - accepts special file name "-" for stdin/stdout
1460 Specify additional copyright information.
1463 Now expects the identity of the package as argument.
1467 Most macros, if not all, now strictly follow the `one quotation
1468 level' rule. This results in a more predictable expansion.
1471 A sly bug in the AC_REQUIRE machinery, which could produce incorrect
1472 configure scripts, was fixed by Axel Thimm.
1476 Document and ask for the registration of an envvar.
1479 Specifies the file which `configure' should look for when trying to
1480 find the source tree (used to be handled by AC_INIT).
1482 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
1483 To add new actions to config.status. Should be used instead of
1487 Replaces AC_LINK_FILES.
1489 - AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS,
1490 AC_CONFIG_LINKS, and AC_CONFIG_FILES
1491 They now obey sh: you should no longer use shell variables as
1492 argument. Instead of
1494 test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes && $my_subdirs="$my_subdirs foo"
1495 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS($my_subdirs)
1499 if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
1500 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
1504 To format an Autoconf macro's help string so that it looks pretty
1505 when the user executes `configure --help'.
1508 ** Generic Test Macros
1510 The interface of the AC_CHECK families of macros (decl, header,
1511 type, member, func) is now uniform. They support the same set of
1514 - AC_CHECK_DECL, AC_CHECK_DECLS
1515 To check whether a symbol is declared.
1517 - AC_CHECK_SIZEOF, AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED.
1518 No longer need a cross-compilation default.
1521 The test it performs is much more robust than previously, and makes
1522 it possible to test builtin types in addition to typedefs.
1523 It is now schizophrenic:
1524 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, REPLACEMENT)
1525 remains for backward compatibility, but its use is discouraged.
1526 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, IF-FOUND, IF-NOT-FOUND, INCLUDES)
1527 behaves exactly like the other AC_CHECK macros.
1530 Checks whether given types are supported by the system.
1532 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER, AC_CHECK_MEMBERS
1533 Check for given members in aggregates (e.g., pw_gecos in struct
1537 Checks if the compiler supports ISO C, included when needs special
1541 Checking whether the preprocessor indicates missing includes by the
1542 error code. stderr is checked by AC_TRY_CPP only as a fallback.
1545 Takes a language as argument and replaces AC_LANG_C,
1546 AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS and AC_LANG_FORTRAN77.
1548 - AC_LANG_PUSH, AC_LANG_POP
1549 Are preferred to AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE.
1552 - AC_FUNC_CHOWN, AC_FUNC_MALLOC, AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R,
1553 AC_FUNC_LSTAT_FOLLOWS_SLASHED_SYMLINK, AC_FUNC_STAT, AC_FUNC_LSTAT,
1554 AC_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AC_FUNC_OBSTACK, AC_FUNC_STRTOD, AC_FUNC_FSEEKO.
1558 Sets GETGROUPS_LIBS.
1560 - AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
1561 Defines `HAVE_STRUCT_NLIST_N_UN_N_NAME' instead of `NLIST_NAME_UNION'.
1564 Now integrates `AC_DECL_YYTEXT' which is obsoleted.
1567 Arrange for large-file support.
1569 - AC_EXEEXT, AC_OBJEXT
1570 You are no longer expected to use them: their computation is
1571 performed by default.
1573 ** C++ compatibility
1574 Every macro has been revisited in order to support at best CC=c++.
1576 Major changes in Autoconf 2.14:
1577 There was no release of GNU Autoconf 2.14.
1579 Major changes in Autoconf 2.13:
1581 Released 1999-05-01 by Ben Elliston.
1583 * Support for building on Win32 systems where the only available C or
1584 C++ compiler is the Microsoft Visual C++ command line compiler
1585 (`cl'). Additional support for building on Win32 systems which are
1586 using the Cygwin or Mingw32 environments.
1587 * Support for alternative object file and executable file extensions.
1588 On Win32, for example, these are .obj and .exe. These are discovered
1589 using AC_OBJEXT and AC_EXEEXT, which substitute @OBJEXT@ and
1590 @EXEEXT@ in the output, respectively.
1591 * New macros: AC_CACHE_LOAD, AC_CACHE_SAVE, AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES,
1592 AC_VALIDATE_CACHED_SYSTEM_TUPLE, AC_SEARCH_LIBS, AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC,
1593 AC_C_STRINGIZE, AC_CHECK_FILE(S), AC_PROG_F77 (and friends).
1594 * AC_DEFINE now has an optional third argument for a description to be
1595 placed in the config header input file (e.g. config.h.in).
1596 * The C++ code fragment compiled for the C++ compiler test had to be
1597 improved to include an explicit return type for main(). This was
1598 causing failures on systems using recent versions of the EGCS C++
1600 * Fixed an important bug in AC_CHECK_TYPE that would cause a configure
1601 script to report that `sometype_t' was present when only `type_t'
1603 * Merge of the FSF version of config.guess and config.sub to modernize
1604 these scripts. Add support for a few new hosts in config.guess.
1605 Incorporate latest versions of install-sh, mkinstalldirs and
1606 texinfo.tex from the FSF.
1607 * autoreconf is capable of running automake if necessary (and
1609 * Support for Fortran 77. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1610 * Bug fixes and workarounds for quirky bugs in vendor utilities.
1612 Major changes in Autoconf 2.12:
1614 Released 1996-11-26 by David J. MacKenzie
1616 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER can create output files by
1617 concatenating multiple input files separated by colons, like so:
1618 AC_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h:conf.pre:config.h.in:conf.post)
1619 AC_OUTPUT(Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.rules)
1620 The arguments may be shell variables, to compute the lists on the fly.
1621 * AC_LINK_FILES and AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS may be called multiple times.
1622 * New macro AC_OUTPUT_COMMANDS adds more commands to run in config.status.
1625 Major changes in Autoconf 2.11:
1627 Released November 18th, 1996, by David J. MacKenzie
1629 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX check whether the compiler works.
1630 They also default CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to "-g -O2" for gcc, instead of "-g -O".
1631 * AC_REPLACE_FUNCS defines HAVE_foo if the system has the function `foo'.
1632 * AC_CONFIG_HEADER expands shell variables in its argument.
1633 * New macros: AC_FUNC_FNMATCH, AC_FUNC_SETPGRP.
1634 * The "checking..." messages and the source code for test programs that
1635 fail are saved in config.log.
1636 * Another workaround has been added for seds with small command length limits.
1637 * config.sub and config.guess recognize more system types.
1640 Major changes in Autoconf 2.10:
1642 Released May 7th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1645 * The cache variable names used by `AC_CHECK_LIB(LIB, FUNC, ...)' has
1646 changed: now $ac_cv_lib_LIB_FUNC, previously $ac_cv_lib_LIB.
1648 Major changes in Autoconf 2.9:
1650 Released March 16th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1654 Major changes in Autoconf 2.8:
1656 Released March 8th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1660 Major changes in Autoconf 2.7:
1662 Released November 22nd, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1666 Major changes in Autoconf 2.6:
1668 Released November 20th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1672 Major changes in Autoconf 2.5:
1674 Released November 17th, 1995, by Roland McGrath
1676 * New configure options --bindir, --libdir, --datadir, etc., with
1677 corresponding output variables.
1678 * New macro: AC_CACHE_CHECK, to make using the cache easier.
1679 * config.log contains the command being run as well as any output from it.
1680 * AC_CHECK_LIB can check for libraries with "." or "/" or "+" in their name.
1681 * AC_PROG_INSTALL doesn't cache a name for install-sh, for sharing caches.
1682 * AC_CHECK_PROG, AC_PATH_PROG, AC_CHECK_PROGS, AC_PATH_PROGS, and
1683 AC_CHECK_TOOL can search a path other than $PATH.
1684 * AC_CHECK_SIZEOF takes an optional size to use when cross-compiling.
1686 Major changes in Autoconf 2.4:
1688 Released June 14th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1690 * Fix a few bugs found by Emacs testers.
1692 Major changes in Autoconf 2.3:
1694 Released March 27th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1696 * Fix the cleanup trap in several ways.
1697 * Handle C compilers that are picky about option placement.
1698 * ifnames gets the version number from the right directory.
1700 Major changes in Autoconf 2.2:
1702 Released March 8th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1704 * The ifnames utility is much faster but requires a "new awk" interpreter.
1705 * AC_CHECK_LIB and AC_HAVE_LIBRARY check and add the new
1706 library before existing libs, not after, in case it uses them.
1707 * New macros: AC_FUNC_GETPGRP, AC_CHECK_TOOL.
1708 * Lots of bug fixes.
1709 * Many additions to the TODO file :-)
1711 Major changes in Autoconf 2.1:
1713 Released November 4th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1716 * More explanations in the manual.
1717 * Fix a spurious failure in the testsuite.
1718 * Clarify some warning messages.
1719 * autoreconf by default only rebuilds configure and config.h.in files
1720 that are older than any of their particular input files; there is a
1721 --force option to use after installing a new version of Autoconf.
1723 Thanks to everybody who's submitted changes and additions to Autoconf!
1724 I've incorporated many of them, and am still considering others for
1725 future releases -- but I didn't want to postpone this release indefinitely.
1727 Caution: don't indiscriminately rebuild configure scripts with
1728 Autoconf version 2. Some configure.in files need minor adjustments to
1729 work with it; the documentation has a chapter on upgrading. A few
1730 configure.in files, including those for GNU Emacs and the GNU C
1731 Library, need major changes because they relied on undocumented
1732 internals of version 1. Future releases of those packages will have
1733 updated configure.in files.
1735 It's best to use GNU M4 1.3 (or later) with Autoconf version 2.
1736 Autoconf now makes heavy use of M4 diversions, which were implemented
1737 inefficiently in GNU M4 releases before 1.3.
1739 Major changes in Autoconf 2.0:
1741 Released October 26th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1743 ** New copyright terms:
1744 * There are no restrictions on distribution or use of configure scripts.
1747 * Autoconf manual is reorganized to make information easier to find
1748 and has several new indexes.
1749 * INSTALL is reorganized and clearer and is now made from Texinfo source.
1752 * autoscan to generate a preliminary configure.in for a package by
1753 scanning its source code for commonly used nonportable functions,
1754 programs, and header files.
1755 * ifnames to list the symbols used in #if and #ifdef directives in a
1757 * autoupdate to update a configure.in to use the version 2 macro names.
1758 * autoreconf to recursively remake configure and configuration header
1759 files in a source tree.
1761 ** Changed utilities:
1762 * autoheader can take pieces of acconfig.h to replace config.h.{top,bot}.
1763 * autoconf and autoheader can look for package-local definition files
1764 in an alternate directory.
1767 * AC_CACHE_VAL to share results of tests between configure runs.
1768 * AC_DEFUN to define macros, automatically AC_PROVIDE them, and ensure
1769 that macros invoked with AC_REQUIRE don't interrupt other macros.
1770 * AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM, AC_CANONICAL_HOST, AC_LINK_FILES to
1771 support deciding unguessable features based on the host and target types.
1772 * AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS to recursively configure a source tree.
1773 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM to use the options --program-prefix,
1774 --program-suffix, and --program-transform-name to change the names
1775 of programs being installed.
1776 * AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT to change the default installation prefix.
1777 * AC_TRY_COMPILE to compile a test program without linking it.
1778 * AC_CHECK_TYPE to check whether sys/types.h or stdlib.h defines a given type.
1779 * AC_CHECK_LIB to check for a particular function and library.
1780 * AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT to print test results, on a single line,
1781 whether or not the test succeeds. They obsolete AC_CHECKING and AC_VERBOSE.
1782 * AC_SUBST_FILE to insert one file into another.
1783 * AC_FUNC_MEMCMP to check whether memcmp is 8-bit clean.
1784 * AC_FUNC_STRFTIME to find strftime even if it's in -lintl.
1785 * AC_FUNC_GETMNTENT to find getmntent even if it's in -lsun or -lseq.
1786 * AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT to check whether sys/wait.h is POSIX.1 compatible.
1789 * Many macros renamed systematically, but old names are accepted for
1790 backward compatibility.
1791 * AC_OUTPUT adds the "automatically generated" comment to
1792 non-Makefiles where it finds @configure_input@ in an input file, to
1793 support files with various comment syntaxes.
1794 * AC_OUTPUT does not replace "prefix" and "exec_prefix" in generated
1795 files when they are not enclosed in @ signs.
1796 * AC_OUTPUT allows the optional environment variable CONFIG_STATUS to
1797 override the file name "config.status".
1798 * AC_OUTPUT takes an optional argument for passing variables from
1799 configure to config.status.
1800 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER allow you to override the input-file names.
1801 * AC_OUTPUT automatically substitutes the values of CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS,
1802 CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS from the environment.
1803 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX now set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, respectively.
1804 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install-sh or install.sh in the directory
1805 specified by AC_CONFIG_AUXDIR, or srcdir or srcdir/.. or
1806 srcdir/../.. by default.
1807 * AC_DEFINE, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED, and AC_SUBST are more robust and smaller.
1808 * AC_DEFINE no longer prints anything, because of the new result reporting
1809 mechanism (AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT).
1810 * AC_VERBOSE pays attention to --quiet/--silent, not --verbose.
1811 * AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH support whitespace in the arguments to
1812 --enable- and --with- options.
1813 * AC_CHECK_FUNCS and AC_CHECK_HEADERS take optional shell commands to
1814 execute on success or failure.
1815 * Checking for C functions in C++ works.
1818 * AC_REMOTE_TAPE and AC_RSH removed; too specific to tar and cpio, and
1819 better maintained with them.
1820 * AC_ARG_ARRAY removed because no one was likely using it.
1821 * AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG replaced with AC_SYS_INTERPRETER, which doesn't
1822 take arguments, for consistency with all of the other specific checks.
1825 * Comes with config.sub and config.guess, and uses them optionally.
1826 * Uses config.cache to cache test results. An alternate cache file
1827 can be selected with the --cache-file=FILE option.
1828 * Uses optional shell scripts $prefix/share/config.site and
1829 $prefix/etc/config.site to perform site or system specific initializations.
1830 * configure saves compiler output to ./config.log for debugging.
1831 * New files autoconf.m4 and autoheader.m4 load the other Autoconf macros.
1832 * acsite.m4 is the new name for the system-wide aclocal.m4.
1833 * Has a DejaGnu test suite.
1835 Major changes in Autoconf 1.11:
1837 * AC_PROG_INSTALL calls install.sh with the -c option.
1838 * AC_SET_MAKE cleans up after itself.
1839 * AC_OUTPUT sets prefix and exec_prefix if they weren't set already.
1840 * AC_OUTPUT prevents shells from looking in PATH for config.status.
1842 Plus a few other bug fixes.
1844 Major changes in Autoconf 1.10:
1846 * autoheader uses config.h.bot if present, analogous to config.h.top.
1847 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install.sh in srcdir or srcdir/.. and
1849 * AC_PROG_CXX looks for cxx as a C++ compiler.
1851 Plus several bugs fixed.
1853 Major changes in Autoconf 1.9:
1855 * AC_YYTEXT_POINTER replaces AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT.
1856 * AC_SIZEOF_TYPE generates the cpp symbol name automatically,
1857 and autoheader generates entries for those names automatically.
1858 * AC_FIND_X gets the result from xmkmf correctly.
1859 * AC_FIND_X assumes no X if --without-x was given.
1860 * AC_FIND_XTRA adds libraries to the variable X_EXTRA_LIBS.
1861 * AC_PROG_INSTALL finds OSF/1 installbsd.
1863 Major changes in Autoconf 1.8:
1866 * New macros AC_LANG_C, AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS, AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE,
1867 AC_PROG_CXX, AC_PROG_CXXCPP, AC_REQUIRE_CPP
1868 for checking both C++ and C features in one configure script.
1869 * New macros AC_CHECKING, AC_VERBOSE, AC_WARN, AC_ERROR for printing messages.
1870 * New macros AC_FIND_XTRA, AC_MMAP, AC_SIZEOF_TYPE, AC_PREREQ,
1871 AC_SET_MAKE, AC_ENABLE.
1874 * AC_FIND_X looks for X in more places.
1875 * AC_PROG_INSTALL defaults to install.sh instead of cp, if it's in srcdir.
1876 install.sh is distributed with Autoconf.
1877 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT has been removed because it can't work, pending
1878 a rewrite of quoting in AC_DEFINE.
1879 * AC_OUTPUT adds its comments in C format when substituting in C files.
1880 * AC_COMPILE_CHECK protects its ECHO-TEXT argument with double quotes.
1882 ** New or changed command line options:
1883 * configure accepts --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] and --disable-FEATURE options.
1884 * configure accepts --without-PACKAGE, which sets withval=no.
1885 * configure accepts --x-includes=DIR and --x-libraries=DIR.
1886 * Giving --with-PACKAGE no argument sets withval=yes instead of withval=1.
1887 * configure accepts --help, --version, --silent/--quiet, --no-create options.
1888 * configure accepts and ignores most other Cygnus configure options, and
1889 warns about unknown options.
1890 * config.status accepts --help, --version options.
1892 ** File names and other changes:
1893 * Relative srcdir values are not made absolute.
1894 * The values of @prefix@ and @exec_prefix@ and @top_srcdir@ get substituted.
1895 * Autoconf library files are installed in ${datadir}/autoconf, not ${datadir}.
1896 * autoheader optionally copies config.h.top to the beginning of config.h.in.
1897 * The example Makefile dependencies for configure et al. work better.
1898 * Namespace cleanup: all shell variables used internally by Autoconf
1899 have names beginning with `ac_'.
1901 More big improvements are in process for future releases, but have not
1902 yet been (variously) finished, integrated, tested, or documented enough
1905 Major changes in Autoconf 1.7:
1907 * New macro AC_OBSOLETE.
1908 * Bugs in Makefile.in fixed.
1909 * AC_LONG_FILE_NAMES improved.
1911 Major changes in Autoconf 1.6:
1913 * New macro AC_LONG_64_BITS.
1914 * Multiple .h files can be created.
1915 * AC_FIND_X looks for X files directly if it doesn't find xmkmf.
1916 * AC_ALLOCA defines C_ALLOCA if using alloca.c.
1917 * --with-NAME can take a value, e.g., --with-targets=sun4,hp300bsd.
1918 * Unused --no-create option to configure removed.
1919 * autoheader doesn't change the timestamp of its output file if
1920 the file didn't change.
1921 * All macros that look for libraries now use AC_HAVE_LIBRARY.
1922 * config.status checks three optional environment variables to
1923 modify its behavior.
1924 * The usual bug fixes.
1926 Major changes in Autoconf 1.5:
1928 * New macros AC_FIND_X, AC_OFF_T, AC_STAT_MACROS_BROKEN, AC_REVISION.
1929 * autoconf and autoheader scripts have GNU standards conforming
1930 --version and --help options (they print their message and exit).
1933 Major changes in Autoconf 1.4:
1935 * New macros AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG, AC_TIME_WITH_SYS_TIME, AC_LONG_DOUBLE,
1936 AC_GETGROUPS_T, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
1937 * autoconf and autoheader use the M4 environment variable to determine the
1938 name of the M4 program to use.
1939 * The --macrodir option to autoconf and autoheader specifies the directory
1940 in which acspecific.m4, acgeneral.m4, etc. reside if not the default.
1941 * autoconf and autoheader can take `-' as their file names, which means to
1942 read stdin as input.
1943 * Resulting configure scripts can take a --verbose option which causes them
1944 to print the results of their tests.
1945 * AC_DEFINE quotes its second argument in such a way that spaces, magic
1946 shell characters, etc. will be preserved during various stages of
1947 expansion done by the shell. If you don't want this, use
1948 AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED instead.
1949 * Much textual processing done with external calls to tr and sed have been
1950 internalized with builtin M4 `patsubst' and `translit' calls.
1951 * AC_OUTPUT doesn't hardwire the file names it outputs. Instead, you can
1952 set the shell variables `gen_files' and `gen_config' to the list of
1953 file names to output.
1954 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT does an AC_SUBST of `LEX_OUTPUT_ROOT', which may be
1955 "lex.yy" or "lexyy", depending on the system.
1956 * AC_PROGRAMS_CHECK takes an optional third arg. If given, it is used as
1958 * If AC_ALLOCA chooses alloca.c, it also defines STACK_DIRECTION.
1959 * AC_CONST works much more reliably on more systems.
1962 Major changes in Autoconf 1.3:
1964 configure no longer requires awk for packages that use a config.h.
1965 Support handling --with-PACKAGE options.
1966 New `autoheader' script to create `config.h.in' from `configure.in'.
1967 Ignore troublesome -lucb and -lPW when searching for alloca.
1968 Rename --exec_prefix to --exec-prefix for GNU standards conformance.
1969 Improve detection of STDC library.
1970 Add AC_HAVE_LIBRARY to check for non-default libraries.
1971 Function checking should work with future GNU libc releases.
1973 Major changes in Autoconf 1.2:
1975 The --srcdir option is now usually unnecessary.
1976 Add a file containing sample comments describing CPP macros.
1977 A comment in config.status tells which host it was configured on.
1978 Substituted variable values can now contain commas.
1979 Fix bugs in various feature checks.
1981 Major changes in Autoconf 1.1:
1983 Added AC_STRCOLL macro.
1984 Made AC_GETLOADAVG check for more things.
1985 AC_OUTPUT argument is now optional.
1990 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
1991 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation,
1994 Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
1995 are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
1996 notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is,
1997 without warranty of any kind.