1 GNU Autoconf NEWS - User visible changes.
3 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.64 (2009-??-??) [stable]
4 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63b.*.
6 ** AS_IF, AS_CASE, and AS_FOR have been taught to avoid syntax errors
7 even when given arguments that expand to just whitespace.
9 ** Ensure AT_CHECK can support commands that include a # given with
10 proper m4 quoting. For shell comments, this is a new feature; for
11 non-shell comments, this fixes a regression introduced in 2.63b.
13 ** The macro AT_CHECK now understands the concept of hard failure. If
14 a test exits with an unexpected status 99, cleanup actions for the
15 test are inhibited and the test is treated as a failure regardless
16 of AT_XFAIL_IF. It also understands the new directives
17 ignore-nolog, stdout-nolog, and stderr-nolog.
19 ** The following documented autotest macros are new:
22 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
23 m4_argn m4_default_nblank m4_default_nblank_quoted m4_ifblank
26 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63b (2009-03-31) [beta]
27 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.63.*.
29 ** The manual is now shipped under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
31 ** AC_REQUIRE now detects the case of an outer macro which first expands
32 then later indirectly requires the same inner macro. Previously,
33 this case led to silent out-of-order expansion (bug present since
34 2.50); it now issues a syntax warning, and duplicates the expansion
35 of the inner macro to guarantee dependencies have been met. See
36 the manual for advice on how to refactor macros in order to avoid
37 the bug in earlier autoconf versions and avoid increased script
38 size in the current version.
40 ** AC_DEFUN_ONCE has improved semantics. Previously, a macro declared
41 with AC_DEFUN_ONCE warned on a second invocation; and out-of-order
42 expansion was still possible. Now, dependencies are guaranteed,
43 and subsequent invocations are a silent no-op. This makes
44 AC_DEFUN_ONCE an ideal macro for silencing AC_REQUIRE warnings.
46 ** The following macros are now defined with AC_DEFUN_ONCE. This means
47 a subtle change in semantics; previously, an AC_DEFUN macro could
48 expand one of these macros multiple times or surround the macro
49 inside shell conditional text to bypass the effects of these
50 macros, but now the macro will expand exactly once, and prior to
51 the start of any enclosing AC_DEFUN macro:
52 AC_CANONICAL_BUILD AC_CANONICAL_HOST AC_CANONICAL_TARGET
53 AC_HEADER_ASSERT AC_PROG_INSTALL AC_PROG_MKDIR_P
54 AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
56 ** AC_LANG_ERLANG works once again (regression introduced in 2.61a).
58 ** AC_HEADER_ASSERT is fixed so that './configure --enable-assert' no
59 longer mistakenly disables assertions.
61 ** AC_INIT now takes an optional fifth parameter that can be used to
62 set AC_PACKAGE_URL, a URL for the package's home page; the URL is
63 used in `configure --help' and is also available via AC_DEFINE.
65 ** Autotest testsuites accept an option --jobs[=N] for parallel testing.
66 This feature is still in testing, and may not work on every
67 platform, help in improving it would be appreciated.
69 ** Autotest testsuites do not attempt to write startup error messages
70 to the log file before that is opened (regression introduced in 2.63).
72 ** Configure scripts now use shell functions. This feature leads to
73 smaller configure files and faster execution.
75 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled: Autoconf will now proceed with
76 the compiler's result if a header is present but cannot be compiled.
77 The warning is still printed, and you should really fix it by
78 providing a fourth parameter to AC_CHECK_HEADER/AC_CHECK_HEADERS.
80 ** Autoreconf added aclocal to the set of programs affected by the
81 `autoreconf -I dir' option.
83 ** The following documented m4sugar macros are new:
84 m4_chomp m4_chomp_all m4_cleardivert m4_curry m4_default_quoted
85 m4_esyscmd_s m4_map_args m4_map_args_pair m4_map_args_sep
86 m4_map_args_w m4_set_map m4_set_map_sep m4_stack_foreach
87 m4_stack_foreach_lifo m4_stack_foreach_sep
88 m4_stack_foreach_sep_lifo
90 ** The following m4sugar macros are documented now, but in some cases
91 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
92 undocumented version had:
93 m4_copy m4_dumpdefs m4_rename m4_version_prereq
95 ** The m4sugar macro m4_expand has been taught to handle unterminated
96 comments and shell case statements. As a result, it is used
97 internally in more places, such as AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK. Most
98 uses of AC_DEFINE and AT_CHECK should not behave any differently;
99 however, it may be necessary to add double-quoting around
100 unbalanced `(' where single-quoting used to be sufficient.
102 ** The following documented m4sh macros are new:
103 AS_INIT_GENERATED AS_LINENO_PREPARE AS_ME_PREPARE AS_SET_STATUS
104 AS_VAR_APPEND AS_VAR_ARITH AS_VAR_COPY
106 ** The following m4sh macros are documented now, but in some cases
107 with slightly different semantics than what the previous
108 undocumented version had:
109 AS_ECHO AS_ECHO_N AS_ESCAPE AS_EXIT AS_LITERAL_IF AS_UNSET
110 AS_VAR_IF AS_VAR_POPDEF AS_VAR_PUSHDEF AS_VAR_SET AS_VAR_SET_IF
111 AS_VAR_TEST_SET AS_VERSION_COMPARE
113 ** The m4sh macros AS_IF and AS_CASE can now be used in shell lists.
114 The responsibility for supplying a trailing newline now belongs to
115 the call site, but since most users did not add dnl, this generally
116 results in fewer empty lines in configure.
119 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.63 (2008-09-09) [stable]
120 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.62.*.
122 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN does not mistakenly report "universal" for some
123 bigendian hosts, a regression introduced with universal binary
126 ** AC_PATH_X now includes /lib64 and /usr/lib64 in its list of default
129 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS no longer conflicts with an external
130 AC_DEFINE([__EXTENSIONS__]). This fixes a regression introduced in
131 2.62 when using macros such as AC_AIX that were made obsolete in
132 favor of the more portable AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS.
134 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS is usable in the non-cross-compile case.
136 ** Newly obsolete macros
137 The following macro has been marked obsolete, since current porting
138 targets can safely assume C89 semantics that signal handlers return
139 void. We have no current plans to remove the macro.
143 ** The macros m4_map and m4_map_sep now ignore any list elements
144 consisting of just empty quotes, and m4_map_sep now expands its
145 separator. This fixes a regression in 2.62 when these macros were
146 first documented, for the sake of clients expecting the semantics
147 that these macros had prior to that time. The new macros m4_mapall
148 and m4_mapall_sep, along with extra quoting of the separator, can
149 be used to get the semantics that m4_map_sep had in 2.62.
151 ** Clients of m4_expand, such as AS_HELP_STRING and AT_SETUP, can now
152 handle properly quoted but otherwise unbalanced parentheses (for
153 some macros, this fixes a regression in 2.62).
155 ** Two new quadrigraphs have been introduced: @{:@ for (, and @:}@ for ),
156 allowing the output of unbalanced parentheses in more contexts.
158 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
159 m4_cleardivert m4_joinall m4_mapall m4_mapall_sep m4_reverse
160 m4_set_add m4_set_add_all m4_set_contains m4_set_contents
161 m4_set_delete m4_set_difference m4_set_dump m4_set_empty
162 m4_set_foreach m4_set_intersection m4_set_list m4_set_listc
163 m4_set_remove m4_set_size m4_set_union
165 ** The following m4sugar macros now accept multiple arguments, as is the
166 case with underlying m4:
167 m4_defn m4_popdef m4_undefine
169 ** The following m4sugar macros now guarantee linear scaling; they
170 previously had linear scaling with m4 1.6 but quadratic scaling
171 when using m4 1.4.x. All macros built on top of these also gain
172 the scaling improvements.
173 m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_case m4_cond m4_do m4_dquote_elt
174 m4_foreach m4_join m4_list_cmp m4_map m4_map_sep m4_max
177 ** AT_KEYWORDS once again performs expansion on its argument, such that
178 AT_KEYWORDS([m4_if([$1], [], [default])]) no longer complains about
179 the possibly unexpanded m4_if [regression introduced in 2.62].
181 ** Config header templates `#undef UNDEFINED /* comment */' do not lead to
182 nested comments any more; regression introduced in 2.62.
185 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.62 (2008-04-05) [stable]
186 Released by Eric Blake, based on git versions 2.61a.*.
188 ** Many optimizations have been applied to make overall execution faster.
190 ** Autotest now makes use of shell functions.
192 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed also for config headers.
194 - As a side effect, AC_DEFINE and AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED now handle multi-line
195 values, i.e., backslash-newline combinations are handled correctly.
196 Further, for config headers, the total size of values is not limited by
197 the POSIX length limit of text lines any more, only each single line.
199 ** New config variable `top_build_prefix'.
201 ** New Autoconf macros:
202 AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION AC_OPENMP AC_PATH_PROGS_FEATURE_CHECK
204 ** AC_C_BIGENDIAN now supports universal binaries a la Mac OS X.
206 ** AC_C_RESTRICT now prefers to #define 'restrict' to a variant spelling
207 like '__restrict' if the variant spelling is available, as this is
208 more likely to work when mixing C and C++ code.
210 ** AC_CHECK_ALIGNOF's type argument T is now documented better: it must
211 be a string of tokens such that "T y;" is a valid member declaration
214 ** AC_CHECK_SIZEOF now accepts objects as well as types: the general rule
215 is that sizeof (X) works, then AC_CHECK_SIZEOF (X) should work.
217 ** AC_CHECK_TYPE and AC_CHECK_TYPES now work on any C type-name; formerly,
218 they did not work for function types. In C++, they now work on any
219 type-id that can be the operand of sizeof; this is similar to C,
220 except it excludes anonymous struct and union types. Formerly,
221 some (but not all) C++ types involving anonymous struct and union
222 were accepted, though this was not documented.
224 ** AC_CONFIG_LINKS now prefers to link against files in the build tree
225 if found, and it works to link against a file of the same name in
226 the source tree, even if both trees coincide.
228 ** AC_INIT no longer alters $@; regression introduced in 2.60.
230 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _ALL_SOURCE for Interix platforms.
232 ** AS_HELP_STRING no longer underquotes its first argument; it also handles
233 the case where the first argument contains single-quoted commas.
234 For example, "AS_HELP_STRING([-a, [--arg[=foo]]], [bar])" produces:
235 " -a, --arg[=foo] bar"
236 Additionally, the macro now takes two additional arguments,
237 indent-column and wrap-column; these should not normally be needed,
238 but can be used to fine-tune how the output text is wrapped.
240 ** AC_PROG_INSTALL now requires an install program that can install multiple
241 files into a target directory.
243 ** The command 'autoconf -' now correctly processes a file from stdin.
245 ** 'autoreconf -m' now honors $MAKE.
247 ** For all of the directory arguments for 'configure', such as '--prefix'
248 or '--bindir', trailing slashes are stripped. As an example, if
249 tab completion in the user's shell appends trailing slashes, the
250 command './configure --prefix=/usr/' will still result in an
251 expanded libdir value of /usr/lib, not /usr//lib.
253 ** `configure --help=recursive' now works in read-only trees and from
254 unconfigured build trees.
256 ** If precious variables differ only in whitespace, then the cache consistency
257 check warns instead of fails, and reuses the old value.
259 ** AT_BANNER is now documented.
261 ** AT_SETUP now handles macro expansions properly when calculating line
264 ** Autotest now determines $srcdir correctly.
266 ** Testsuites built by autotest now accept a -C/--directory=DIR option
267 to adjust the working directory prior to creating files.
269 ** Autoconf now requires GNU M4 1.4.5 or later. Earlier versions of M4 have
270 a bug in macro tracing that interferes with the interaction between
271 Autoconf and Automake. GNU M4 1.4.11 or later is recommended. The
272 configure search for a working M4 is improved.
274 ** For portability with the eventual M4 2.0, macros should no longer use
275 anything larger than $9 to refer to arguments.
277 ** Documentation for m4sugar is improved.
279 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
280 interfaces; the macros are now documented as stable interfaces.
282 __oline__ m4_assert m4_bmatch m4_bpatsubsts m4_car m4_case
283 m4_cdr m4_default m4_divert_once m4_divert_pop m4_divert_push
284 m4_divert_text m4_do m4_errprintn m4_fatal m4_flatten
285 m4_ifndef m4_ifset m4_ifval m4_ifvaln m4_location
286 m4_n m4_shiftn m4_strip m4_warn
288 - The following macros were previously available as undocumented
289 interfaces, but had bug fixes or semantic changes as part of this
290 release. Packages that relied on the undocumented behavior
291 should be analyzed to make sure they will still work with the
292 new documented behavior.
294 m4_cmp m4_list_cmp m4_join m4_map m4_map_sep m4_sign
295 m4_text_box m4_text_wrap m4_version_compare
297 - The m4_wrap macro used to have unspecified order, but now
298 guarantees FIFO order. m4_wrap_lifo was added to guarantee LIFO
301 - Packages using the undocumented m4sugar macro m4_PACKAGE_VERSION
302 should consider using the new AC_AUTOCONF_VERSION instead.
304 - m4sugar macros that are not documented in the manual are still
305 deemed experimental, and should not be used outside of Autoconf.
307 ** The m4sugar macros m4_append and m4_append_uniq, first documented in
308 2.60, have been fixed to treat both the string and the separator
309 arguments consistently with regards to quoting. Prior to this fix,
310 m4_append_uniq could mistakenly duplicate entries if the expansion
311 of the separator resulted in a different string (for example, if it
312 contained quotes, a comma, or a macro name). However, it means
313 that programs previously using
314 m4_append([name], [string], [[, ]])
315 are now using a four-character separator instead of the intended
316 comma and space. If you need portability to earlier versions of
317 Autoconf, you can insert the following snippet after AC_INIT but
318 before any other macro expansions, to enforce the new semantics:
319 m4_pushdef([m4_append], [m4_define([$1],
320 m4_ifdef([$1], [m4_defn([$1])[$3]])[$2])])
321 Additionally, m4_append_uniq now takes optional parameters that can
322 be used to take action depending on whether anything was appended,
323 and warns if a non-empty separator occurs within the string being
324 appended, since that can lead to duplicates.
326 ** The following m4sugar macros are new:
327 m4_append_uniq_w m4_apply m4_combine m4_cond m4_count
328 m4_dquote_elt m4_echo m4_expand m4_ignore m4_make_list m4_max
329 m4_min m4_newline m4_shift2 m4_shift3 m4_unquote m4_wrap_lifo
331 ** Warnings are now generated by default when an installer invokes
332 'configure' with an unknown --enable-* or --with-* option.
333 These warnings can be disabled with the new AC_DISABLE_OPTION_CHECKING
334 macro, or by invoking 'configure' with --disable-option-checking.
336 ** Existing obsolete macros
337 The documentation for the following macros is adjusted to make it
338 more clear that they have previously been marked obsolete, as their
339 functionality can be accomplished by other macros. We have no
340 current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
342 AC_ENABLE AC_STRUCT_ST_BLKSIZE AC_STRUCT_ST_RDEV AC_WITH
344 ** Newly obsolete macros
345 The following macros have been marked obsolete, as they only
346 perform a subset of AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS. We have no current
347 plans to remove them.
349 AC_AIX AC_GNU_SOURCE AC_ISC_POSIX AC_MINIX
351 ** AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent.
352 The documentation now says that AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE is obsolescent: it
353 tests for problems that are so old that it is no longer of
354 practical importance on current systems. New programs need not use
355 AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE. We have no current plans to remove it.
357 ** AC_DIAGNOSE, AC_WARNING, and AC_FATAL are obsolescent.
358 The documentation now favors the use of M4sugar macros m4_warn and
359 m4_fatal, since the naming makes it more obvious that the
360 diagnostics are associated with M4 expansion (ie. when running
361 `autoconf'), and offers less confusion with the AC_MSG_ERROR,
362 AC_MSG_FAILURE, and AC_MSG_WARN macros which manage diagnostics
363 when running `configure'. We have no current plans to remove these
367 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61a (2006-12-11)
369 ** AC_FUNC_FSEEKO was broken in 2.61; it didn't make fseeko and ftello visible
370 on many platforms. This has been fixed.
372 ** AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED is now obsolete. It is still defined for backward
373 compatibility but it does nothing. The macro was already
374 obsolescent, as the last systems to have the problem were those
375 based on SVR2, which became obsolete in 1987. The macro had bugs
376 on some modern systems and could no longer be maintained reliably
377 due to lack of ancient systems to test it on.
379 ** config.status now uses awk instead of sed for most substitutions, for speed.
381 - As a side effect multi-line values of substituted variables no
382 longer have a small limit in total size, though for portability
383 each line should not exceed the POSIX length limit for text lines.
385 - It is now documented that Makefile.in should not contain
386 overlapping variable occurrences, e.g., @VAR1@VAR2@.
387 Autoconf's behavior was always iffy in such cases, and the
388 awk implementation has changed the behavior.
390 ** Many uses of 'echo' have been rewritten so that Autoconf-generated
391 scripts have fewer problems with strings or file names containing
392 embedded special characters such as backslash or leading "-". This
393 was implemented by using `printf '%s\n' "$foo"' instead of `echo
394 "$foo"' when printf works. Due to the implementation technique
395 used, Autoconf-generated scripts now run considerably more slowly
396 on ancient implementations lacking printf. However, this should
397 not be a problem, since Autoconf-generated scripts in practice
398 invariably find a more-modern shell these days.
401 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.61 (2006-11-17)
403 ** New macros AC_C_FLEXIBLE_ARRAY_MEMBER, AC_C_VARARRAYS.
405 ** AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH now allow '.' in feature and package names.
408 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60b (2006-10-22)
411 Autoconf-generated shell scripts no longer export BIN_SH, due to
412 configuration hassles with this. Installers who need BIN_SH in
413 their environment should set it before invoking 'configure' and
414 'make'. As far as we know, this affects only Unixware installations.
416 ** Obsolescent macros
417 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent,
418 as they are superseded by Gnulib:
420 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU AC_FUNC_GETLOADVG AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH
422 New programs should use the Gnulib counterparts of these macros.
423 We have no current plans to remove them from Autoconf.
425 ** AC_COMPUTE_INT no longer caches or reports results.
427 ** AC_CHECK_DECL now also works with aggregate objects.
429 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS now defines _TANDEM_SOURCE for NonStop platforms.
431 ** GNU M4 1.4.7 or later is now recommended.
434 New M4sugar macro, which is more secure than the POSIX M4 maketemp.
437 Now an alias for m4_mkstemp.
439 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60a (2006-08-25)
441 ** GNU M4 1.4.6 or later is now recommended.
443 ** The check for C99 now tests for varargs macros, as documented.
444 It also tests that the preprocessor supports 64-bit integers.
446 ** Autoconf now uses constructs like "#ifdef HAVE_STDLIB_H" rather than
447 "#if HAVE_STDLIB_H", so that it now works with "gcc -Wundef -Werror".
449 ** The functionality of the undocumented _AC_COMPUTE_INT is now provided
450 by a public and documented macro, AC_COMPUTE_INT. The parameters to the
451 two macros are different, so autoupdate will not change the old private name
452 to the new one. _AC_COMPUTE_INT may be removed in a future release.
454 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT and AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT now require
455 that long long types be at least 64 bits wide, as C99 and tradition
456 requires. Formerly, they accepted implementations of any width.
459 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.60
461 Released 2006-06-23, by Ralf Wildenhues.
463 ** Autoconf no longer depends on whether m4wrap is FIFO (as Posix requires)
464 or LIFO (as in GNU M4 1.4.x). GNU M4 2.0 is expected to conform to Posix
465 here, so m4wrap/m4_wrap users should no longer depend on LIFO behavior.
467 ** Provide a way to turn off warnings about the changed directory variables.
469 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59d
471 Released 2006-06-05, by Ralf Wildenhues.
473 ** GNU make now recommended for VPATH builds
474 INSTALL now suggests VPATH builds (e.g., "sh ../srcdir/configure")
475 only if you use GNU make. In practice, other 'make' implementations
476 have too many subtle incompatibilities in their support for VPATH.
477 Many packages (including Autoconf itself) are portable to other
478 'make' implementations, but some packages are not, and recommending
479 GNU make keeps the installation instructions simpler.
481 ** Even more safety checks for the new Directory variables:
482 Warn about suspicious `${datarootdir}' found in config files output.
484 ** AC_TRY_COMMAND, AC_TRY_EVAL, ac_config_guess, ac_config_sub, ac_configure
485 These never-documented macros and variables have been marked with
486 comments saying that they may be removed in a future release,
487 because their use can lead to unintended code being executed.
488 If you need functionality that only these macros or variables
489 currently supply, please write bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
491 ** AC_SUBST, AC_DEFINE
492 Literal arguments to these are passed to m4_pattern_allow now.
495 Passing 'ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc=no' to 'configure' now sets ac_cv_prog_cc_c99
496 and ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 to 'no' as well, for backward compatibility with
497 obsolete K&R tests in the Automake test suite.
506 Now more robust with special characters in file names, or when
507 multiple processes create the same directory at the same time.
509 ** Obsolescent macros
510 The documentation now says that the following macros are obsolescent:
511 they test for problems that are so old that they are no longer of
512 practical importance on current systems.
514 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A AC_FUNC_MEMCMP AC_HEADER_DIRENT
515 AC_C_CONST AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES AC_HEADER_STAT
516 AC_C_PROTOTYPES AC_FUNC_SETPGRP AC_HEADER_STDC
517 AC_C_STRINGIZE AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT
518 AC_C_VOLATILE AC_FUNC_STAT AC_HEADER_TIME
519 AC_FUNC_CLOSEDIR_VOID AC_FUNC_STRFTIME AC_ISC_POSIX
520 AC_FUNC_GETPGRP AC_FUNC_UTIME_NULL AC_PROG_GCC_TRADITIONAL
521 AC_FUNC_LSTAT AC_FUNC_VPRINTF AC_STRUCT_TM
523 New programs need not use these macros. We have no current plans to
527 For compatibility with future Libtool 2.0, autoreconf will invoke
528 libtoolize with the option `--ltdl' now, if LT_CONFIG_LTDL_DIR is
531 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59c
533 Released 2006-04-12, by Ralf Wildenhues.
535 ** The configure command now redirects standard input from /dev/null,
536 to help avoid problems with subsidiary commands that might mistakenly
537 read standard input. AS_ORIGINAL_STDIN_FD points to the original
538 standard input before this redirection, if you really want configure to
539 read from standard input.
541 ** Directory variables adjusted to recent changes in the GNU Coding Standards.
542 The following directory variables are new:
544 datarootdir read-only architecture-independent data root [PREFIX/share]
545 localedir locale-specific message catalogs [DATAROOTDIR/locale]
546 docdir documentation root [DATAROOTDIR/doc/PACKAGE]
547 htmldir html documentation [DOCDIR]
548 dvidir dvi documentation [DOCDIR]
549 pdfdir pdf documentation [DOCDIR]
550 psdir ps documentation [DOCDIR]
552 The following variables have new default values:
554 datadir read-only architecture-independent data [DATAROOTDIR]
555 infodir info documentation [DATAROOTDIR/info]
556 mandir man documentation [DATAROOTDIR/man]
558 This means that if you use any of `@datadir@', `@infodir@', or
559 `@mandir@' in a file, you will have to ensure `${datarootdir}' is
560 defined in this file. As a temporary measure, if any of those are
561 found but no mention of `datarootdir', the substitutions will be
562 replaced with values that do not contain `${datarootdir}', and a
563 warning will be issued.
565 ** @top_builddir@ is now a dir name: it is always nonempty and doesn't have
566 a trailing slash. Similar change will be made to ac_top_builddir in a
567 future release; the old style value, which matches (../)*, is (and will
568 continue to be) available as ac_top_build_prefix.
571 New macro to check for support of 'typeof' syntax a la GNU C.
573 ** AC_CHECK_DECLS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_FUNCS_ONCE, AC_CHECK_HEADERS_ONCE
574 New "once-only" variants of commonly-used macros, to make 'configure'
575 smaller and faster in common cases.
578 New macro to check for strtold with C99 semantics.
581 New macro that lets builder disable assertions at 'configure'-time.
584 Now checks for X11/Xlib.h and XrmInitialize (X proper) rather than
585 X11/Intrinsic.h and XtMalloc (Xt).
587 ** AC_PRESERVE_HELP_ORDER
588 New macro that causes `configure' to display help strings for AC_ARG_ENABLE
589 and AC_ARG_WITH arguments in one region, in the order defined. The default
590 behavior is to group options of each classes separately.
592 ** AC_PROG_CC, AC_PROG_CXX
593 No longer automatically arrange to declare the 'exit' function of C,
594 when a C++ compiler is used. Standard Autoconf macros no longer use
595 'exit', so this is no longer an issue for them. If you use C++, and
596 want to call 'exit', you'll have to arrange for its declaration
597 yourself. But we now suggest you return from 'main' instead.
599 ** AC_PROG_CC_C89, AC_PROG_CC_C99
600 New macros for ISO C99 support. AC_PROG_CC_C89 and AC_PROG_CC_C99
601 check for ANSI C89 and ISO C99 support respectively.
604 Has been unobsoleted, and will check if the compiler supports ISO
605 C99, falling back to ANSI C89 if not. ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc is
606 retained for backwards compatibility, assuming the value of
607 ac_cv_prog_cc_c99 or ac_cv_prog_cc_c89 (whichever is valid, in
610 ** AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_INO, AC_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
611 New macros for checking commonly-used members of struct dirent.
614 The substituted value can now contain newlines.
617 The substitution now occurs only when @variable@ is on a line by itself,
618 optionally surrounded by spaces and tabs. The whole line is replaced.
620 ** AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE, AC_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE_WIDER
621 New macros to check for long double, and whether it is wider than double.
622 The old macro AC_C_TYPE_LONG_DOUBLE has been marked as obsolete;
623 applications should switch to the new macro.
625 ** AC_TYPE_INT8_T, AC_TYPE_INT16_T, AC_TYPE_INT32_T, AC_TYPE_INT64_T,
626 AC_TYPE_INTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_INTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_LONG_LONG_INT, AC_TYPE_SSIZE_T,
627 AC_TYPE_UINT8_T, AC_TYPE_UINT16_T, AC_TYPE_UINT32_T, AC_TYPE_UINT64_T,
628 AC_TYPE_UINTMAX_T, AC_TYPE_UINTPTR_T, AC_TYPE_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG_INT
629 New macros to check for C99 and POSIX types.
631 ** AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS
632 New macro to enable extensions to Posix.
635 New macro which is defined to the name of the first declared config header
636 or undefined if no config headers have been declared yet.
639 The macro correctly handles quadrigraphs now.
641 ** AS_BOURNE_COMPATIBLE, AS_SHELL_SANITIZE, AS_CASE
642 These macros are new or published now.
645 New macro for copyright notices in testsuite files.
647 ** ALLOCA, LIBOBJS, LTLIBOBJS
648 Object names added to these variables are now prefixed with `${LIBOBJDIR}',
649 as in `${LIBOBJDIR}alloca.o'. LIBOBJDIR is meant to be defined from
650 `Makefile.in' in case the object files lie in a different directory.
651 The LIBOBJDIR feature is experimental.
654 Supports --no-recursive now.
656 ** New macros to support Erlang/OTP.
657 New macros for configuring paths to Erlang tools and libraries:
658 AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERLC, AC_ERLANG_PATH_ERL,
659 AC_ERLANG_NEED_ERL, AC_ERLANG_CHECK_LIB, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_ROOT_DIR,
660 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_LIB_DIR.
662 New macros for configuring installation of Erlang libraries:
663 AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_DIR, AC_ERLANG_SUBST_INSTALL_LIB_SUBDIR.
665 ** The manual now mentions Gnulib more prominently.
667 ** New macros to support Objective C.
668 AC_PROG_OBJC, AC_PROG_OBJCPP.
670 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59b
672 Released 2004-08-20, by Paul Eggert.
675 New macro that computes the default alignment of a type.
677 ** AC_CHECK_TOOL, AC_PATH_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TOOLS
678 When cross-compiling, these macros will give a warning if the tool
679 is not prefixed. In the future, unprefixed cross tools will not
680 be detected; please consult the info documentation for information
681 about the reason of this change.
683 ** AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOL, AC_PATH_TARGET_TOOL, AC_CHECK_TARGET_TOOLS
684 New macros that detect programs whose name is prefixed with the
685 target type, if the build type and target type are different.
687 ** AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE
688 New trace macro that declares expected auxiliary files.
691 New macro that tests for a grep program that accepts as a long a line
694 ** AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP
695 These macros now require AC_PROG_GREP, and try EGREP="$GREP -E" and
696 FGREP="$GREP -F" respectively if possible, or else run a path search for
697 a program that accepts as long a line as possible.
700 New macro that tests for a sed program that truncates as few characters
703 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.59
705 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
707 ** ac_abs_builddir etc.
708 Absolute file names were actually relative in 2.58.
710 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.58
712 Released 2003-11-04, by Akim Demaille
715 core.* files are no longer removed, as they may be valid user files.
717 ** autoreconf and auxiliary directory
718 Autoreconf creates the auxiliary directory if needed. This is
719 especially useful for initial "bootstrapping" of fresh CVS checkouts.
721 ** AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR
722 Use this macro to declare the directory for local M4 macros for aclocal.
725 No longer includes twice the same file in LIBOBJS if invoked
728 ** AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
729 The directory for its first argument is automatically created. For
732 AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS([src/modules.hh], [...])
734 $top_builddir/src/ is created if needed.
736 ** Autotest and local.at
737 The optional file local.at is always included in Autotest test suites.
740 The warnings are always issued, including with cached runs.
741 This became a significant problem since aclocal and automake can
742 run autoconf behind the scene.
744 ** autoheader warnings
745 The warnings of autoheader can be turned off, using --warning.
746 For instance, -Wno-obsolete disables the complaints about acconfig.h
747 and other deprecated constructs.
750 AC_C_RESTRICT, AC_INCLUDES_DEFAULT, AC_LANG_ASSERT, AC_LANG_WERROR,
753 ** AC_DECL_SYS_SIGLIST
757 Now checks that mktime is the inverse of localtime.
759 ** Improve DJGPP portability
760 The Autoconf tools and configure behave better under DJGPP.
762 ** Present But Cannot Be Compiled
763 New FAQ section dedicated to the mystic
765 configure: WARNING: pi.h: present but cannot be compiled
766 configure: WARNING: pi.h: check for missing prerequisite headers?
767 configure: WARNING: pi.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's result
770 ** Concurrent executions of autom4te
771 autom4te now locks its internal files, which enables concurrent
772 executions of autom4te, likely to happen if automake, autoconf,
773 autoheader etc. are run simultaneously.
776 Use of Libtool 1.5 and higher is encouraged. Compatibility with
777 Libtool pre-1.4 is not checked.
780 Testsuites no longer rerun failed tests in verbose mode; instead,
781 failures are logged while the test is run.
783 In addition, expected failures can be marked as such.
785 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.57
787 Released 2002-12-03 by Paul Eggert.
789 Bug fixes for problems with AIX linker, with freestanding C compilers,
790 with GNU M4 limitations, and with obsolete copies of GNU documents.
792 The Free Documentation License has been upgraded from 1.1 to 1.2.
794 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.56
796 Released 2002-11-15 by Akim Demaille.
798 One packaging problem fixed (config/install-sh was not executable).
800 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.55
802 Released 2002-11-14 by Akim Demaille.
806 Have your configure.ac checked by autoscan ("autoscan").
807 Try the warning options ("autoreconf -fv -Wall").
811 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
812 More information on proper use.
814 - Writing Test Programs
816 This sections explains how to write good test sources to use with
817 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE etc. It documents AC_LANG_PROGRAM and so forth.
819 - AC_FOO_IFELSE vs. AC_TRY_FOO
821 Explains why Autoconf moves from AC_TRY_COMPILE etc. to
822 AC_COMPILE_IFELSE and AC_LANG_PROGRAM etc.
826 - Is more robust to different Gettext installations.
828 - Produces messages (when --verbose) to be understood by Emacs'
831 - Supports -W/--warnings.
834 Once the GNU Build System reinstalled, run `./config.status
835 --recheck && ./config.status && make' if possible.
839 - Supports --cache, and --no-cache.
841 - ~/.autom4te.cfg makes it possible to disable the caching mechanism
842 (autom4te.cache). See `Customizing autom4te' in the documentation.
849 Support for the obsoleted options -m, --macrodir, -l, --localdir is
850 dropped in favor of the safer --include/--prepend-include scheme.
855 AC_COMPILER_IFELSE, AC_FUNC_MBRTOWC, AC_HEADER_STDBOOL,
856 AC_LANG_CONFTEST, AC_LANG_SOURCE, AC_LANG_PROGRAM, AC_LANG_CALL,
857 AC_LANG_FUNC_TRY_LINK, AC_MSG_FAILURE, AC_PREPROC_IFELSE.
860 Obsoleted macros are kept for Autoconf backward compatibility, but
861 should be avoided in configure.ac. Running autoupdate is advised.
864 - AC_DEFINE/AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED
866 We have to stop using the old compatibility scheme --that tried to
867 avoid useless backslashes-- because Libtool 1.4.3 contains a
869 AC_DEFINE([error_t], [int],
870 [Define to a type to use for \`error_t' if it is not
871 otherwise available.])
873 We have to quote the single quotes and backslashes with \. The old
874 compatibility scheme saw that ` was backslashed, and therefore did
875 not quote the single quote... Failure. Hence, Autoconf 2.54 is not
876 compatible with Libtool. Autoconf 2.55 is, but in some cases might
877 produce more \ than wanted.
879 Please, note that in the future the same problem will happen with
880 AC_MSG_*: use `autoreconf -f -Wall'.
884 - Portability of the Autoconf package to Solaris.
886 - Spurious warnings caused by config.status.
887 This bug is benign, but painful: on some systems (typically
888 FreeBSD), warnings such as:
890 config.status: creating Makefile
891 mv: Makefile: set owner/group (was: 1357/0): Operation not permitted
893 could be issued. This is fixed.
896 Simultaneous executions of config.status are possible again.
898 - Precious variables accumulation
900 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
904 ** Plans for later versions
908 The compatibility hooks with the old scheme will be completely
909 removed. Please, advice/use `--build', `--host', and `--target'
912 - AC_CHECK_HEADER, AC_CHECK_HEADERS
914 The tests will be stricter, please make sure your invocations are
919 Shell functions will gradually be introduced, probably starting with
920 Autotest. If you know machines which are in use that you suspect
921 *not* to support shell functions, please run the test suite of
922 Autoconf 2.55 on it, and report the results to
923 bug-autoconf@gnu.org.
927 Special characters in AC_MSG_* need not be quoted. Currently,
928 Autoconf has heuristics to decide when a string is escaped, or has
929 to be escaped. This scheme is fragile, and will be removed; the
930 only risk is uglified messages. Please, run `autoreconf -f -Wall'
931 to find occurrences that will be affected.
933 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.54
935 Released 2002-09-13 by Akim Demaille.
939 - autoreconf no longer changes the version of the gettext/po/intl
940 support files. It now adds the files the correspond to the
941 AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared in configure.ac.
943 Warning: It now relies on the 'autopoint' program, which is part
944 of GNU gettext 0.11.4 and newer.
946 Please note that you need to have a GNU gettext version that
947 corresponds at least to the AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION declared
948 in configure.ac. You can upgrade to newer GNU gettext versions,
949 though, without needing to change configure.ac.
951 - The -I DIR or --include=DIR option now appends DIR to the include path
952 instead of prepending; this is for consistency with other GNU tools.
953 The new -B DIR or --prepend-include=DIR option has the old behavior.
958 Now handles all the gory details about LIBOBJS and LTLIBOBJS.
959 Please, remove lines such as
961 # This is necessary so that .o files in LIBOBJS are also
962 # built via the ANSI2KNR-filtering rules.
963 LIBOBJS=`echo $LIBOBJS|sed 's/\.o /\$U.o /g;s/\.o$/\$U.o/'`
965 and read the `AC_LIBOBJ vs LIBOBJS' section. Do not define U in
966 your Makefiles either.
968 - AC_CONFIG_LINKS now makes copies if it can't make links.
970 - AC_FUNC_FNMATCH now tests only for POSIX compatibility, reverting to
971 Autoconf 2.13 behavior. The new macro AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU also
972 tests for GNU extensions to fnmatch, and replaces fnmatch if needed.
974 - AC_FUNC_SETVBUF_REVERSED no longer fails when cross-compiling.
976 - AC_PROG_CC_STDC is integrated into AC_PROG_CC.
978 - AC_PROG_F77 default search no longer includes cf77 and cfg77.
982 AC_C_BACKSLASH_A, AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR, AC_GNU_SOURCE,
983 AC_PROG_EGREP, AC_PROG_FGREP, AC_REPLACE_FNMATCH,
984 AC_FUNC_FNMATCH_GNU, AC_FUNC_REALLOC, AC_TYPE_MBSTATE_T.
987 looks for getloadavg.c in the CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR.
990 Now defines HAVE_MALLOC to 0 if `malloc' does not work, and asks
991 for an AC_LIBOBJ replacement.
995 - Spurious complaints from `m4_bmatch' about invalid regular
996 expressions are suppressed.
998 - Empty top_builddirs are properly handled.
1000 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER works correctly when the member is an aggregate.
1003 Now colon in the optional path arguments are properly handled.
1005 ** Improved portability
1007 - Both Autoconf the package, and the scripts it produces, should run
1008 more reliably with Zsh. Bear in mind it is the default Bourne shell
1011 - Autoconf and the scripts it produces no longer assume the existence of
1012 the obsolescent commands egrep and fgrep.
1016 - Limitations of Make
1020 The GNATS base moved to
1021 http://bugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?database=autoconf
1022 (It is no longer available, though.)
1027 Now contains the list of ouput variables and files (AC_SUBST,
1030 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.53
1032 Released 2002-03-08 by Akim Demaille.
1036 Perl 5.005_03 or later is required: autom4te is written in Perl and is
1037 needed by autoconf. autoheader, autoreconf, ifnames, and autoscan are
1043 Argument requirements, output variables, defined macros.
1044 - M4sugar, M4sh, Autotest
1046 - Double quoting macros
1047 AC_TRY_CPP, AC_TRY_COMPILE, AC_TRY_LINK and AC_TRY_RUN.
1049 The Autoconf manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1050 - Section `Hosts and Cross-Compilation'
1051 Explains the rationale for the 2.5x changes in the cross-compilation
1052 chain, and in the relationships between build, host, and target
1054 Emphasizes that `cross-compilation' == `--host is given'.
1055 If you are working on compilers etc., be sure to read this section.
1056 - Section `AC_LIBOBJ vs. LIBOBJS'
1057 Explains why assigning LIBOBJS directly is now an error.
1058 Details how to update the code.
1063 Now used instead of hard coded line numbers.
1064 This eases the comparison of `configure's, and diminishes the
1065 pressure over control version archives.
1066 Automatic replacement for shells that don't support this feature.
1067 - New output variables
1068 @builddir@, @top_builddir@, @abs_srcdir@, @abs_top_srcdir@, @abs_builddir@,
1073 Autoconf and Autotest modes are provided.
1078 New, used by the Autoconf suite to cache and speed up most processing.
1080 Supported by autom4te, autoconf and autoheader.
1082 Replaces --autoconf-dir and --localdir in autoconf, autoheader,
1083 autoupdate, and autoreconf.
1085 No longer passes --cygnus, --foreign, --gnits, --gnu, --include-deps:
1086 automake options are to be given via AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
1088 Runs gettextize and libtoolize when appropriate.
1090 --m4dir is no longer supported.
1092 Now runs only in the specified directories, defaulting to `.',
1093 but understands AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS for dependent directories.
1094 Before, it used to run on all the `configure.ac' found in the
1096 Independent packages are properly updated.
1100 - The top level $prefix is propagated to the AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS configures.
1102 Under the user pressure, $? is finally available. Probably a mistake.
1103 - AC_F77_LIBRARY_LDFLAGS now supports the HP/UX f90 compiler.
1104 - Precious variables accumulation
1105 config.status could stack several copies of the precious variables
1107 - AC_PATH_PROG and family.
1108 Works properly when given a literal path.
1110 Somewhere since 2.13, the result had been reversed.
1114 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN supports the cross-compiling case.
1115 - AC_C_BIGENDIAN accepts ACTION-IF-TRUE, ACTION-IF-FALSE, and
1116 ACTION-IF-UNKNOWN arguments. All are facultative, and the default
1117 for ACTION-IF-TRUE is to define WORDS_BIGENDIAN like AC_C_BIGENDIAN
1119 - AC_C_LONG_DOUBLE now succeeds only if `long double' has more range or
1120 precision than `double'.
1125 It now defines the preprocessor symbols PACKAGE_NAME,
1126 PACKAGE_TARNAME, PACKAGE_VERSION, PACKAGE_STRING, and
1130 Admits a fourth optional parameter: the tar name.
1132 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS.
1133 Provide the user with srcdir, ac_srcdir, ac_top_srcdir, ac_builddir,
1134 ac_top_builddir, ac_abs_srcdir, ac_abs_top_srcdir, ac_abs_builddir,
1135 ac_abs_top_builddir.
1137 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, HEADERS, FILES, LINKS and AC_OUTPUT.
1138 Are much less expensive when using long lists of files.
1141 Works with shell variables, and non alphanumeric names.
1145 - AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R now sets STRERROR_R_CHAR_P, not HAVE_WORKING_STRERROR_R,
1146 because POSIX 1003.1-200x draft 7 says strerror_r returns int, not char *.
1148 - AC_FUNC_STRTOD substitutes POW_LIB.
1153 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.52
1155 Released 2001-07-18 by Akim Demaille.
1160 This feature was present in autoconf 2.50 but was not documented.
1161 For example, `@<:@' is translated to `[' just before output. This
1162 is useful when writing strings that contain unbalanced quotes, or
1163 other hard-to-quote constructs.
1164 - m4_pattern_forbid, m4_pattern_allow
1165 - Tips for upgrading from 2.13.
1166 - Using autoscan to maintain a configure.ac.
1169 - Now include stdint.h.
1170 - sys/types.h and sys/stat.h are guarded.
1171 - strings.h is included if available, and not conflicting with string.h.
1174 - The test suite is more robust and presents less false failures.
1175 - Invocation of GNU M4 now robust to POSIXLY_CORRECT.
1176 - configure accepts --prefix='' again.
1177 - AC_CHECK_LIB works properly when its first argument is not a
1179 - HAVE_INTTYPES_H is defined only if not conflicting with sys/types.h.
1180 - build_, host_, and target_alias are AC_SUBST as in 2.13.
1181 - AC_ARG_VAR properly propagates precious variables inherited from the
1182 environment to ./config.status.
1183 - Using --program-suffix/--program-prefix is portable.
1184 - Failures to detect the default compiler's output extension are less
1186 - `config.status foo' works properly when `foo' depends on variables
1187 set in an AC_CONFIG_THING INIT-CMD.
1188 - autoheader is more robust to broken input.
1189 - Fixed Fortran name-mangling and link tests on a number of systems,
1190 e.g. NetBSD; see AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, below.
1193 - AC_CHECK_HEADER and AC_CHECK_HEADERS support a fourth argument to
1194 specify pre-includes. In this case, the headers are compiled with
1195 cc, not merely preprocessed by cpp. Therefore it is the _usability_
1196 of a header which is checked for, not just its availability.
1197 - AC_ARG_VAR refuses to run configure when precious variables have
1199 - Versions of compilers are dumped in the logs.
1200 - AC_CHECK_TYPE recognizes use of `foo_t' as a replacement type.
1203 - AC_PATH_XTRA only adds -ldnet to $LIBS if it's needed to link.
1204 - AC_FUNC_WAIT3 and AC_SYS_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS are obsoleted.
1205 - AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_FNMATCH, AM_FUNC_MKTIME,
1206 AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, and AM_FUNC_STRTOD are now activated.
1207 Be sure to read `Upgrading from Version 2.13' to understand why
1208 running `autoupdate' is needed.
1209 - AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, AC_F77_MAIN: new macros to detect whether
1210 a main-like routine is required/possible when linking C/C++ with
1211 Fortran. Users of e.g. AC_F77_WRAPPERS should be aware of these.
1212 - AC_FUNC_GETPGRG behaves better when cross-compiling.
1214 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.51
1215 There was no release of Autoconf 2.51 since some packagers had used
1216 this version number without permission to ship intermediary versions
1217 of 2.50. The version was skipped to avoid confusion.
1219 * Major changes in Autoconf 2.50
1221 Released 2001-05-21 by Akim Demaille.
1223 ** Lots of bug fixes
1224 There have been far too many to enumerate them here. Check out
1225 ChangeLog if you really want to know more.
1227 ** Improved documentation
1228 In particular, portability issues are better covered.
1231 All the standard GNU Makefile targets are supported. The layout has
1232 changed: m4/ holds the M4 extensions Autoconf needs for its
1233 configuration, doc/ contains the documentation, and tests/ contains
1236 ** Man pages are provided
1237 For autoconf, autoreconf, autoupdate, autoheader, autoscan, ifnames,
1238 config.guess, config.sub.
1242 Provides a safe and powerful means to trace the macro uses. This
1243 provide the parsing layer for tools which need to `study'
1247 Specify what category of warnings should be enabled.
1249 - When recursing into subdirectories, try for configure.gnu before
1250 configure to adapt for packages not using autoconf on case-insensitive
1254 More errors are now caught (circular AC_REQUIRE dependencies,
1255 AC_DEFINE in the action part of an AC_CACHE_CHECK, too many pops
1256 etc.). In addition, their location and call stack are given.
1259 autoupdate is much more powerful, and is able to provide the glue code
1260 which might be needed to move from an old macro to its newer
1263 You are strongly encouraged to use it to modernize both your
1264 `configure.in' and your .m4 extension files.
1267 The internal machinery of autoheader has completely changed. As a
1268 result, using `acconfig.h' should be considered to be obsoleted, and
1269 you are encouraged to get rid of it using the AH macros.
1274 ** Fortran 77 compilers
1275 Globally, the support for Fortran 77 is considerably improved.
1277 Support for automatically determining a Fortran 77 compiler's
1278 name-mangling scheme. New CPP macros F77_FUNC and F77_FUNC_ are
1279 provided to wrap C/C++ identifiers, thus making it easier and more
1280 transparent for C/C++ to call Fortran 77 routines, and Fortran 77 to
1281 call C/C++ routines. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1284 The test suite no longer uses DejaGNU. It should be easy to submit
1285 test cases in this new framework.
1288 - --help, --help=long, -hl
1289 no longer dumps useless items.
1291 lists only specific options.
1292 - --help=recursive, -hr
1293 displays the help of all the embedded packages.
1294 - Remembers environment variables when reconfiguring.
1295 The previous scheme to set envvar before running configure was
1297 what prevented configure from remembering the environment in which
1298 it was run, therefore --recheck was run in an inconsistent
1299 environment. Now, one should run
1301 and then --recheck will work properly. Variables declared with
1302 AC_ARG_VAR are also preserved.
1304 $build defaults to `config.guess`, $host to $build, and then $target
1306 Cross-compilation is a global status of the package, it no longer
1307 depends upon the current language.
1308 Cross compilation is enabled iff the user specified `--host'.
1309 `configure' now fails if it can't run the executables it compiles,
1310 unless cross-compilation is enabled.
1312 The cache file is disabled by default. The new options
1313 `--config-cache', `-C' set the cache to `config.cache'.
1317 Much faster on most architectures.
1318 - concurrent executions
1319 It is safe to use `make -j' with config.status.
1320 - human interface improved
1321 It is possible to invoke
1322 ./config.status foobar
1323 instead of the former form (still valid)
1324 CONFIG_COMMANDS= CONFIG_HEADERS= CONFIG_LINKS= \
1325 CONFIG_FILES=foobar:foo.in:bar.in \
1327 The same holds for configuration headers and links.
1328 You can instantiate unknown files and headers:
1329 ./config.status --header foo.h:foo.h.in --file bar:baz
1330 - has a useful --help
1331 - accepts special file name "-" for stdin/stdout
1336 Specify additional copyright information.
1339 Now expects the identity of the package as argument.
1343 Most macros, if not all, now strictly follow the `one quotation
1344 level' rule. This results in a more predictable expansion.
1347 A sly bug in the AC_REQUIRE machinery, which could produce incorrect
1348 configure scripts, was fixed by Axel Thimm.
1352 Document and ask for the registration of an envvar.
1355 Specifies the file which `configure' should look for when trying to
1356 find the source tree (used to be handled by AC_INIT).
1358 - AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
1359 To add new actions to config.status. Should be used instead of
1363 Replaces AC_LINK_FILES.
1365 - AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS,
1366 AC_CONFIG_LINKS, and AC_CONFIG_FILES
1367 They now obey sh: you should no longer use shell variables as
1368 argument. Instead of
1370 test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes && $my_subdirs="$my_subdirs foo"
1371 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS($my_subdirs)
1375 if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
1376 AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
1380 To format an Autoconf macro's help string so that it looks pretty
1381 when the user executes `configure --help'.
1384 ** Generic Test Macros
1386 The interface of the AC_CHECK families of macros (decl, header,
1387 type, member, func) is now uniform. They support the same set of
1390 - AC_CHECK_DECL, AC_CHECK_DECLS
1391 To check whether a symbol is declared.
1393 - AC_CHECK_SIZEOF, AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED.
1394 No longer need a cross-compilation default.
1397 The test it performs is much more robust than previously, and makes
1398 it possible to test builtin types in addition to typedefs.
1399 It is now schizophrenic:
1400 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, REPLACEMENT)
1401 remains for backward compatibility, but its use is discouraged.
1402 - AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, IF-FOUND, IF-NOT-FOUND, INCLUDES)
1403 behaves exactly like the other AC_CHECK macros.
1406 Checks whether given types are supported by the system.
1408 - AC_CHECK_MEMBER, AC_CHECK_MEMBERS
1409 Check for given members in aggregates (e.g., pw_gecos in struct
1413 Checks if the compiler supports ISO C, included when needs special
1417 Checking whether the preprocessor indicates missing includes by the
1418 error code. stderr is checked by AC_TRY_CPP only as a fallback.
1421 Takes a language as argument and replaces AC_LANG_C,
1422 AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS and AC_LANG_FORTRAN77.
1424 - AC_LANG_PUSH, AC_LANG_POP
1425 Are preferred to AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE.
1428 - AC_FUNC_CHOWN, AC_FUNC_MALLOC, AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R,
1429 AC_FUNC_LSTAT_FOLLOWS_SLASHED_SYMLINK, AC_FUNC_STAT, AC_FUNC_LSTAT,
1430 AC_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AC_FUNC_OBSTACK, AC_FUNC_STRTOD, AC_FUNC_FSEEKO.
1434 Sets GETGROUPS_LIBS.
1436 - AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
1437 Defines `HAVE_STRUCT_NLIST_N_UN_N_NAME' instead of `NLIST_NAME_UNION'.
1440 Now integrates `AC_DECL_YYTEXT' which is obsoleted.
1443 Arrange for large-file support.
1445 - AC_EXEEXT, AC_OBJEXT
1446 You are no longer expected to use them: their computation is
1447 performed by default.
1449 ** C++ compatibility
1450 Every macro has been revisited in order to support at best CC=c++.
1452 Major changes in Autoconf 2.14:
1453 There was no release of GNU Autoconf 2.14.
1455 Major changes in Autoconf 2.13:
1457 Released 1999-05-01 by Ben Elliston.
1459 * Support for building on Win32 systems where the only available C or
1460 C++ compiler is the Microsoft Visual C++ command line compiler
1461 (`cl'). Additional support for building on Win32 systems which are
1462 using the Cygwin or Mingw32 environments.
1463 * Support for alternative object file and executable file extensions.
1464 On Win32, for example, these are .obj and .exe. These are discovered
1465 using AC_OBJEXT and AC_EXEEXT, which substitute @OBJEXT@ and
1466 @EXEEXT@ in the output, respectively.
1467 * New macros: AC_CACHE_LOAD, AC_CACHE_SAVE, AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES,
1468 AC_VALIDATE_CACHED_SYSTEM_TUPLE, AC_SEARCH_LIBS, AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC,
1469 AC_C_STRINGIZE, AC_CHECK_FILE(S), AC_PROG_F77 (and friends).
1470 * AC_DEFINE now has an optional third argument for a description to be
1471 placed in the config header input file (e.g. config.h.in).
1472 * The C++ code fragment compiled for the C++ compiler test had to be
1473 improved to include an explicit return type for main(). This was
1474 causing failures on systems using recent versions of the EGCS C++
1476 * Fixed an important bug in AC_CHECK_TYPE that would cause a configure
1477 script to report that `sometype_t' was present when only `type_t'
1479 * Merge of the FSF version of config.guess and config.sub to modernize
1480 these scripts. Add support for a few new hosts in config.guess.
1481 Incorporate latest versions of install-sh, mkinstalldirs and
1482 texinfo.tex from the FSF.
1483 * autoreconf is capable of running automake if necessary (and
1485 * Support for Fortran 77. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
1486 * Bug fixes and workarounds for quirky bugs in vendor utilities.
1488 Major changes in Autoconf 2.12:
1490 Released 1996-11-26 by David J. MacKenzie
1492 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER can create output files by
1493 concatenating multiple input files separated by colons, like so:
1494 AC_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h:conf.pre:config.h.in:conf.post)
1495 AC_OUTPUT(Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.rules)
1496 The arguments may be shell variables, to compute the lists on the fly.
1497 * AC_LINK_FILES and AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS may be called multiple times.
1498 * New macro AC_OUTPUT_COMMANDS adds more commands to run in config.status.
1501 Major changes in Autoconf 2.11:
1503 Released November 18th, 1996, by David J. MacKenzie
1505 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX check whether the compiler works.
1506 They also default CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to "-g -O2" for gcc, instead of "-g -O".
1507 * AC_REPLACE_FUNCS defines HAVE_foo if the system has the function `foo'.
1508 * AC_CONFIG_HEADER expands shell variables in its argument.
1509 * New macros: AC_FUNC_FNMATCH, AC_FUNC_SETPGRP.
1510 * The "checking..." messages and the source code for test programs that
1511 fail are saved in config.log.
1512 * Another workaround has been added for seds with small command length limits.
1513 * config.sub and config.guess recognize more system types.
1516 Major changes in Autoconf 2.10:
1518 Released May 7th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1521 * The cache variable names used by `AC_CHECK_LIB(LIB, FUNC, ...)' has
1522 changed: now $ac_cv_lib_LIB_FUNC, previously $ac_cv_lib_LIB.
1524 Major changes in Autoconf 2.9:
1526 Released March 16th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1530 Major changes in Autoconf 2.8:
1532 Released March 8th, 1996, by Roland McGrath
1536 Major changes in Autoconf 2.7:
1538 Released November 22nd, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1542 Major changes in Autoconf 2.6:
1544 Released November 20th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1548 Major changes in Autoconf 2.5:
1550 Released November 17th, 1995, by Roland McGrath
1552 * New configure options --bindir, --libdir, --datadir, etc., with
1553 corresponding output variables.
1554 * New macro: AC_CACHE_CHECK, to make using the cache easier.
1555 * config.log contains the command being run as well as any output from it.
1556 * AC_CHECK_LIB can check for libraries with "." or "/" or "+" in their name.
1557 * AC_PROG_INSTALL doesn't cache a name for install-sh, for sharing caches.
1558 * AC_CHECK_PROG, AC_PATH_PROG, AC_CHECK_PROGS, AC_PATH_PROGS, and
1559 AC_CHECK_TOOL can search a path other than $PATH.
1560 * AC_CHECK_SIZEOF takes an optional size to use when cross-compiling.
1562 Major changes in Autoconf 2.4:
1564 Released June 14th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1566 * Fix a few bugs found by Emacs testers.
1568 Major changes in Autoconf 2.3:
1570 Released March 27th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1572 * Fix the cleanup trap in several ways.
1573 * Handle C compilers that are picky about option placement.
1574 * ifnames gets the version number from the right directory.
1576 Major changes in Autoconf 2.2:
1578 Released March 8th, 1995, by David J. MacKenzie
1580 * The ifnames utility is much faster but requires a "new awk" interpreter.
1581 * AC_CHECK_LIB and AC_HAVE_LIBRARY check and add the new
1582 library before existing libs, not after, in case it uses them.
1583 * New macros: AC_FUNC_GETPGRP, AC_CHECK_TOOL.
1584 * Lots of bug fixes.
1585 * Many additions to the TODO file :-)
1587 Major changes in Autoconf 2.1:
1589 Released November 4th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1592 * More explanations in the manual.
1593 * Fix a spurious failure in the testsuite.
1594 * Clarify some warning messages.
1595 * autoreconf by default only rebuilds configure and config.h.in files
1596 that are older than any of their particular input files; there is a
1597 --force option to use after installing a new version of Autoconf.
1599 Thanks to everybody who's submitted changes and additions to Autoconf!
1600 I've incorporated many of them, and am still considering others for
1601 future releases -- but I didn't want to postpone this release indefinitely.
1603 Caution: don't indiscriminately rebuild configure scripts with
1604 Autoconf version 2. Some configure.in files need minor adjustments to
1605 work with it; the documentation has a chapter on upgrading. A few
1606 configure.in files, including those for GNU Emacs and the GNU C
1607 Library, need major changes because they relied on undocumented
1608 internals of version 1. Future releases of those packages will have
1609 updated configure.in files.
1611 It's best to use GNU M4 1.3 (or later) with Autoconf version 2.
1612 Autoconf now makes heavy use of M4 diversions, which were implemented
1613 inefficiently in GNU M4 releases before 1.3.
1615 Major changes in Autoconf 2.0:
1617 Released October 26th, 1994, by David J. MacKenzie
1619 ** New copyright terms:
1620 * There are no restrictions on distribution or use of configure scripts.
1623 * Autoconf manual is reorganized to make information easier to find
1624 and has several new indexes.
1625 * INSTALL is reorganized and clearer and is now made from Texinfo source.
1628 * autoscan to generate a preliminary configure.in for a package by
1629 scanning its source code for commonly used nonportable functions,
1630 programs, and header files.
1631 * ifnames to list the symbols used in #if and #ifdef directives in a
1633 * autoupdate to update a configure.in to use the version 2 macro names.
1634 * autoreconf to recursively remake configure and configuration header
1635 files in a source tree.
1637 ** Changed utilities:
1638 * autoheader can take pieces of acconfig.h to replace config.h.{top,bot}.
1639 * autoconf and autoheader can look for package-local definition files
1640 in an alternate directory.
1643 * AC_CACHE_VAL to share results of tests between configure runs.
1644 * AC_DEFUN to define macros, automatically AC_PROVIDE them, and ensure
1645 that macros invoked with AC_REQUIRE don't interrupt other macros.
1646 * AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM, AC_CANONICAL_HOST, AC_LINK_FILES to
1647 support deciding unguessable features based on the host and target types.
1648 * AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS to recursively configure a source tree.
1649 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM to use the options --program-prefix,
1650 --program-suffix, and --program-transform-name to change the names
1651 of programs being installed.
1652 * AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT to change the default installation prefix.
1653 * AC_TRY_COMPILE to compile a test program without linking it.
1654 * AC_CHECK_TYPE to check whether sys/types.h or stdlib.h defines a given type.
1655 * AC_CHECK_LIB to check for a particular function and library.
1656 * AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT to print test results, on a single line,
1657 whether or not the test succeeds. They obsolete AC_CHECKING and AC_VERBOSE.
1658 * AC_SUBST_FILE to insert one file into another.
1659 * AC_FUNC_MEMCMP to check whether memcmp is 8-bit clean.
1660 * AC_FUNC_STRFTIME to find strftime even if it's in -lintl.
1661 * AC_FUNC_GETMNTENT to find getmntent even if it's in -lsun or -lseq.
1662 * AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT to check whether sys/wait.h is POSIX.1 compatible.
1665 * Many macros renamed systematically, but old names are accepted for
1666 backward compatibility.
1667 * AC_OUTPUT adds the "automatically generated" comment to
1668 non-Makefiles where it finds @configure_input@ in an input file, to
1669 support files with various comment syntaxes.
1670 * AC_OUTPUT does not replace "prefix" and "exec_prefix" in generated
1671 files when they are not enclosed in @ signs.
1672 * AC_OUTPUT allows the optional environment variable CONFIG_STATUS to
1673 override the file name "config.status".
1674 * AC_OUTPUT takes an optional argument for passing variables from
1675 configure to config.status.
1676 * AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER allow you to override the input-file names.
1677 * AC_OUTPUT automatically substitutes the values of CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS,
1678 CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS from the environment.
1679 * AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX now set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, respectively.
1680 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install-sh or install.sh in the directory
1681 specified by AC_CONFIG_AUXDIR, or srcdir or srcdir/.. or
1682 srcdir/../.. by default.
1683 * AC_DEFINE, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED, and AC_SUBST are more robust and smaller.
1684 * AC_DEFINE no longer prints anything, because of the new result reporting
1685 mechanism (AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT).
1686 * AC_VERBOSE pays attention to --quiet/--silent, not --verbose.
1687 * AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH support whitespace in the arguments to
1688 --enable- and --with- options.
1689 * AC_CHECK_FUNCS and AC_CHECK_HEADERS take optional shell commands to
1690 execute on success or failure.
1691 * Checking for C functions in C++ works.
1694 * AC_REMOTE_TAPE and AC_RSH removed; too specific to tar and cpio, and
1695 better maintained with them.
1696 * AC_ARG_ARRAY removed because no one was likely using it.
1697 * AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG replaced with AC_SYS_INTERPRETER, which doesn't
1698 take arguments, for consistency with all of the other specific checks.
1701 * Comes with config.sub and config.guess, and uses them optionally.
1702 * Uses config.cache to cache test results. An alternate cache file
1703 can be selected with the --cache-file=FILE option.
1704 * Uses optional shell scripts $prefix/share/config.site and
1705 $prefix/etc/config.site to perform site or system specific initializations.
1706 * configure saves compiler output to ./config.log for debugging.
1707 * New files autoconf.m4 and autoheader.m4 load the other Autoconf macros.
1708 * acsite.m4 is the new name for the system-wide aclocal.m4.
1709 * Has a DejaGnu test suite.
1711 Major changes in Autoconf 1.11:
1713 * AC_PROG_INSTALL calls install.sh with the -c option.
1714 * AC_SET_MAKE cleans up after itself.
1715 * AC_OUTPUT sets prefix and exec_prefix if they weren't set already.
1716 * AC_OUTPUT prevents shells from looking in PATH for config.status.
1718 Plus a few other bug fixes.
1720 Major changes in Autoconf 1.10:
1722 * autoheader uses config.h.bot if present, analogous to config.h.top.
1723 * AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install.sh in srcdir or srcdir/.. and
1725 * AC_PROG_CXX looks for cxx as a C++ compiler.
1727 Plus several bugs fixed.
1729 Major changes in Autoconf 1.9:
1731 * AC_YYTEXT_POINTER replaces AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT.
1732 * AC_SIZEOF_TYPE generates the cpp symbol name automatically,
1733 and autoheader generates entries for those names automatically.
1734 * AC_FIND_X gets the result from xmkmf correctly.
1735 * AC_FIND_X assumes no X if --without-x was given.
1736 * AC_FIND_XTRA adds libraries to the variable X_EXTRA_LIBS.
1737 * AC_PROG_INSTALL finds OSF/1 installbsd.
1739 Major changes in Autoconf 1.8:
1742 * New macros AC_LANG_C, AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS, AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE,
1743 AC_PROG_CXX, AC_PROG_CXXCPP, AC_REQUIRE_CPP
1744 for checking both C++ and C features in one configure script.
1745 * New macros AC_CHECKING, AC_VERBOSE, AC_WARN, AC_ERROR for printing messages.
1746 * New macros AC_FIND_XTRA, AC_MMAP, AC_SIZEOF_TYPE, AC_PREREQ,
1747 AC_SET_MAKE, AC_ENABLE.
1750 * AC_FIND_X looks for X in more places.
1751 * AC_PROG_INSTALL defaults to install.sh instead of cp, if it's in srcdir.
1752 install.sh is distributed with Autoconf.
1753 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT has been removed because it can't work, pending
1754 a rewrite of quoting in AC_DEFINE.
1755 * AC_OUTPUT adds its comments in C format when substituting in C files.
1756 * AC_COMPILE_CHECK protects its ECHO-TEXT argument with double quotes.
1758 ** New or changed command line options:
1759 * configure accepts --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] and --disable-FEATURE options.
1760 * configure accepts --without-PACKAGE, which sets withval=no.
1761 * configure accepts --x-includes=DIR and --x-libraries=DIR.
1762 * Giving --with-PACKAGE no argument sets withval=yes instead of withval=1.
1763 * configure accepts --help, --version, --silent/--quiet, --no-create options.
1764 * configure accepts and ignores most other Cygnus configure options, and
1765 warns about unknown options.
1766 * config.status accepts --help, --version options.
1768 ** File names and other changes:
1769 * Relative srcdir values are not made absolute.
1770 * The values of @prefix@ and @exec_prefix@ and @top_srcdir@ get substituted.
1771 * Autoconf library files are installed in ${datadir}/autoconf, not ${datadir}.
1772 * autoheader optionally copies config.h.top to the beginning of config.h.in.
1773 * The example Makefile dependencies for configure et al. work better.
1774 * Namespace cleanup: all shell variables used internally by Autoconf
1775 have names beginning with `ac_'.
1777 More big improvements are in process for future releases, but have not
1778 yet been (variously) finished, integrated, tested, or documented enough
1781 Major changes in Autoconf 1.7:
1783 * New macro AC_OBSOLETE.
1784 * Bugs in Makefile.in fixed.
1785 * AC_LONG_FILE_NAMES improved.
1787 Major changes in Autoconf 1.6:
1789 * New macro AC_LONG_64_BITS.
1790 * Multiple .h files can be created.
1791 * AC_FIND_X looks for X files directly if it doesn't find xmkmf.
1792 * AC_ALLOCA defines C_ALLOCA if using alloca.c.
1793 * --with-NAME can take a value, e.g., --with-targets=sun4,hp300bsd.
1794 * Unused --no-create option to configure removed.
1795 * autoheader doesn't change the timestamp of its output file if
1796 the file didn't change.
1797 * All macros that look for libraries now use AC_HAVE_LIBRARY.
1798 * config.status checks three optional environment variables to
1799 modify its behavior.
1800 * The usual bug fixes.
1802 Major changes in Autoconf 1.5:
1804 * New macros AC_FIND_X, AC_OFF_T, AC_STAT_MACROS_BROKEN, AC_REVISION.
1805 * autoconf and autoheader scripts have GNU standards conforming
1806 --version and --help options (they print their message and exit).
1809 Major changes in Autoconf 1.4:
1811 * New macros AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG, AC_TIME_WITH_SYS_TIME, AC_LONG_DOUBLE,
1812 AC_GETGROUPS_T, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
1813 * autoconf and autoheader use the M4 environment variable to determine the
1814 name of the M4 program to use.
1815 * The --macrodir option to autoconf and autoheader specifies the directory
1816 in which acspecific.m4, acgeneral.m4, etc. reside if not the default.
1817 * autoconf and autoheader can take `-' as their file names, which means to
1818 read stdin as input.
1819 * Resulting configure scripts can take a --verbose option which causes them
1820 to print the results of their tests.
1821 * AC_DEFINE quotes its second argument in such a way that spaces, magic
1822 shell characters, etc. will be preserved during various stages of
1823 expansion done by the shell. If you don't want this, use
1824 AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED instead.
1825 * Much textual processing done with external calls to tr and sed have been
1826 internalized with builtin M4 `patsubst' and `translit' calls.
1827 * AC_OUTPUT doesn't hardwire the file names it outputs. Instead, you can
1828 set the shell variables `gen_files' and `gen_config' to the list of
1829 file names to output.
1830 * AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT does an AC_SUBST of `LEX_OUTPUT_ROOT', which may be
1831 "lex.yy" or "lexyy", depending on the system.
1832 * AC_PROGRAMS_CHECK takes an optional third arg. If given, it is used as
1834 * If AC_ALLOCA chooses alloca.c, it also defines STACK_DIRECTION.
1835 * AC_CONST works much more reliably on more systems.
1838 Major changes in Autoconf 1.3:
1840 configure no longer requires awk for packages that use a config.h.
1841 Support handling --with-PACKAGE options.
1842 New `autoheader' script to create `config.h.in' from `configure.in'.
1843 Ignore troublesome -lucb and -lPW when searching for alloca.
1844 Rename --exec_prefix to --exec-prefix for GNU standards conformance.
1845 Improve detection of STDC library.
1846 Add AC_HAVE_LIBRARY to check for non-default libraries.
1847 Function checking should work with future GNU libc releases.
1849 Major changes in Autoconf 1.2:
1851 The --srcdir option is now usually unnecessary.
1852 Add a file containing sample comments describing CPP macros.
1853 A comment in config.status tells which host it was configured on.
1854 Substituted variable values can now contain commas.
1855 Fix bugs in various feature checks.
1857 Major changes in Autoconf 1.1:
1859 Added AC_STRCOLL macro.
1860 Made AC_GETLOADAVG check for more things.
1861 AC_OUTPUT argument is now optional.
1866 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
1867 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
1869 This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1870 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1871 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1872 (at your option) any later version.
1874 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1875 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1876 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1877 GNU General Public License for more details.
1879 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1880 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.