3 * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!
5 - Future versions of Automake will likely drop support for the
6 long-deprecated 'configure.in' name for the Autoconf input file.
7 You are advised to use the recommended name 'configure.ac' instead.
9 - The long-obsolete (since automake 1.10) AM_PROG_MKDIR m4 macro will
10 be removed in Automake 1.13. The $(mkdir_p) make variable and the
11 @mkdir_p@ substitution will still remain available (as aliases of
12 $(MKDIR_P)) for the moment, for better backward compatibility.
14 - Autoconf 2.65 or later will be required by the next major Automake
15 version (1.13). Until now, Automake has required Autoconf version
18 - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the rules
19 to build pdf, ps and dvi output from Texinfo input will use the
20 '--build-dir' option by default. Since such an option was only
21 introduced in Texinfo 4.9, this means that Makefiles generated by
22 future Automake versions will require at least that version of
25 - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the parallel
26 testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the 'parallel-tests'
27 option) will become the default one; the older serial testsuite
28 harness will still be available through the use of the 'serial-tests'
31 - The following long-obsolete m4 macros will be removed in the
32 next major Automake version (1.13):
34 AM_PROG_CC_STDC: superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
35 fp_PROG_CC_STDC: broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
36 fp_WITH_DMALLOC: old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
37 AM_CONFIG_HEADER: superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
38 ud_PATH_LISPDIR: old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
39 jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
40 ud_GNU_GETTEXT: old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
41 gm_PROG_LIBTOOL: old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
42 fp_C_PROTOTYPES: old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
43 of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
46 - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' will be removed in
47 the next major Automake version (1.13).
49 - Support for the two- and three-arguments invocation forms of the
50 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro is deprecated, and will be removed in the
51 next major Automake version (1.13).
53 - The '--acdir' option of aclocal is deprecated, and will probably
54 be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13). You should
55 use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir' instead
56 (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).
58 - The exact order in which the directories in the aclocal macro
59 search path are looked up is probably going to be changed in the
60 next Automake release (1.13).
62 - The 'missing' script will not try anymore to update the timestamp
63 of out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
64 remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
65 of it). In fact, starting from Automake 1.13, all it'll do will be
66 giving more useful warnings than a bare "command not found" from a
69 * Warnings and deprecations:
71 - Automake now issues a warning (in the 'portability' category) if
72 'configure.in' is used instead of 'configure.ac' as the Autoconf
73 input file. Such a warning will also be present in the next
74 Autoconf version (2.70).
78 - Recursive cleaning rules descends into the $(SUBDIRS) in the natural
79 order (as done by the other recursive rules), rather than in the
80 inverse order. They used to do that in order to work a round a
81 limitation in an older implementation of the automatic dependency
82 tracking support, but that limitation had been lifted years ago
83 already, when the automatic dependency tracking based on side-effects
84 of compilation had been introduced.
86 - Cleaning rules for compiled objects (both "plain" and libtool) work
87 better when subdir objects are involved, not triggering a distinct
88 'rm' invocation for each such object. They do so by removing *any*
89 compiled object file that is in the same directory of a subdir
90 object. See automake bug#10697.
92 * Silent rules support:
94 - A new predefined $(AM_V_P) make variable is provided; it expands
95 to a shell conditional that can be used in recipes to know whether
96 make is being run in silent or verbose mode.
100 * SECURITY VULNERABILITIES!
102 - The 'distcheck' recipe no longer grants temporary world-write
103 permissions on the extracted distdir. Even if such rights were
104 only granted for a vanishingly small time window, the implied
105 race condition proved to be enough to allow a local attacker
106 to run arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running
107 "make distcheck". This is CVE-2012-3386.
109 * Long-standing bugs:
111 - The "recheck" targets behaves better in the face of build failures
112 related to previously failed tests. For example, if a test is a
113 compiled program that must be rerun by "make recheck", and its
114 compilation fails, it will still be rerun by further "make recheck"
115 invocations. See automake bug#11791.
117 * Bugs introduced by 1.12.1:
119 - Automake provides once again the '$(mkdir_p)' make variable and the
120 '@mkdir_p@' substitution (both as simple aliases for '$(MKDIR_P)'),
121 for better backward-compatibility.
123 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127 * New supported languages:
129 - Support for Objective C++ has been added; it should work similarly to
130 the support for Objective C.
132 * Deprecated obsolescent features:
134 - Use of the long-deprecated two- and three-arguments invocation forms
135 of the AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE macro now elicits a warning in the 'obsolete'
136 category. Starting from the next major Automake release (1.13), such
137 usages won't be allowed anymore.
139 - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (enabled by the 'cygnus' option) is
140 now deprecated (its use triggers a warning in the 'obsolete' category).
141 It will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).
143 - The long-obsolete (since 1.10) automake-provided $(mkdir_p) make
144 variable, @mkdir_p@ configure-time substitution and AM_PROG_MKDIR
145 m4 macro are deprecated, eliciting a warning in the 'obsolete'
148 * Miscellaneous changes:
150 - The Automake test cases now require a proper POSIX-conforming shell.
151 Older non-POSIX Bourne shells (like Solaris 10 /bin/sh) won't be
152 accepted anymore. In most cases, the user shouldn't have to specify
153 such POSIX shell explicitly, since it will be looked up at configure
154 time. Still, when this lookup fails, or when the user wants to
155 override its conclusion, the variable 'AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL' can be
156 used (pointing to the shell that will be used to run the Automake
159 Bugs fixed in 1.12.1:
161 * Bugs introduced by 1.12:
163 - Several weaknesses in Automake's own build system and test suite
166 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
168 - When given non-option arguments, aclocal rejects them, instead of
169 silently ignoring them.
171 * Long-standing bugs:
173 - When the 'color-tests' option is in use, forcing of colored testsuite
174 output through "AM_COLOR_TESTS=always" works even if the terminal is
175 a non-ANSI one, i.e., if the TERM environment variable has a value of
178 - Several inefficiencies and poor performances in the implementation
179 of the parallel-tests 'check' and 'recheck' targets have been fixed.
181 - The post-processing of output "#line" directives done the ylwrap
182 script is more faithful w.r.t. files in a subdirectory; for example,
183 if the processed file is "src/grammar.y", ylwrap will correctly
184 produce directives like:
185 #line 7 "src/grammar.y"
190 * Bugs with new Perl versions:
192 - Aclocal works correctly with perl 5.16.0 (automake bug#11543).
194 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
198 * Obsolete features removed:
200 - The never documented nor truly used script 'acinstall' has been
203 - Support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been removed.
205 - The support for the "obscure" multilib feature has been removed
206 from Automake core (but remains available in the 'contrib/'
207 directory of the Automake distribution).
209 - Support for ".log -> .html" conversion and the check-html and
210 recheck-html targets has been removed from Automake core (but
211 remains available in the 'contrib/' directory of the Automake
214 - The deprecated 'lzma' compression format for distribution archives
215 has been removed, in favor of 'xz' and 'lzip'.
217 - The obsolete AM_WITH_REGEX macro has been removed.
219 - The long-deprecated options '--output-dir', '--Werror' and
220 '--Wno-error' have been removed.
222 - The chapter on the history of Automake has been moved out of the
223 reference manual, into a new dedicated Texinfo file.
227 - New 'cscope' target to build a cscope database for the source tree.
229 * Changes to Automake-generated testsuite harnesses:
231 - The new automake option 'serial-tests' has been introduced. It can
232 be used to explicitly instruct automake to use the older serial
233 testsuite harness. This is still the default at the moment, but it
234 might change in future versions.
236 - The 'recheck' target (provided by the parallel testsuite harness) now
237 depends on the 'all' target. This allows for a better user-experience
238 in test-driven development. See automake bug#11252.
240 - Test scripts that exit with status 99 to signal an "hard error" (e.g.,
241 and unexpected or internal error, or a failure to set up the test case
242 scenario) have their outcome reported as an 'ERROR' now. Previous
243 versions of automake reported such an outcome as a 'FAIL' (the only
244 difference with normal failures being that hard errors were counted
245 as failures even when the test originating them was listed in
248 - The testsuite summary displayed by the parallel-test harness has a
249 completely new format, that always list the numbers of passed, failed,
250 xfailed, xpassed, skipped and errored tests, even when these numbers
251 are zero (but using smart coloring when the color-tests option is in
254 - The default testsuite driver offered by the 'parallel-tests' option is
255 now implemented (partly at least) with the help of automake-provided
256 auxiliary scripts (e.g., 'test-driver'), instead of relying entirely
257 on code in the generated Makefile.in.
258 This has two noteworthy implications. The first one is that projects
259 using the 'parallel-tests' option should now either run automake with
260 the '--add-missing' option, or manually copy the 'test-driver' script
261 into their tree. The second, and more important, implication is that
262 now, when the 'parallel-tests' option is in use, TESTS_ENVIRONMENT can
263 not be used anymore to define a test runner, and the command specified
264 in LOG_COMPILER (and <ext>_LOG_COMPILER) must be a *real* executable
265 program or script. For example, this is still a valid usage (albeit
268 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
269 if test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS)'; then \
270 maybe_errexit='-e'; \
274 LOG_COMPILER = $(SHELL) $$maybe_errexit
276 while this is not anymore:
278 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
279 $(SHELL) `test -n '$(STRICT_TESTS_CHECKING)' && echo ' -e'`
283 TESTS_ENVIRONMENT = \
284 run_with_perl_or_shell () \
286 if grep -q '^#!.*perl' $$1; then
292 LOG_COMPILER = run_with_perl_or_shell
294 - The package authors can now use customary testsuite drivers within
295 the framework provided by the 'parallel-tests' testsuite harness.
296 Consistently with the existing syntax, this can be done by defining
297 special makefile variables 'LOG_DRIVER' and '<ext>_LOG_DRIVER'.
299 - A new developer-reserved variable 'AM_TESTS_FD_REDIRECT' can be used
300 to redirect/define file descriptors used by the test scripts.
302 - The parallel-tests harness generates now, in addition the '.log' files
303 holding the output produced by the test scripts, a new set of '.trs'
304 files, holding "metadata" derived by the execution of the test scripts;
305 among such metadata are the outcomes of the test cases run by a script.
307 - Initial and still experimental support for the TAP test protocol is
310 * Changes to Yacc and Lex support:
312 - C source and header files derived from non-distributed Yacc and/or
313 Lex sources are now removed by a simple "make clean" (while they were
314 previously removed only by "make maintainer-clean").
316 - Slightly backward-incompatible change, relevant only for use of Yacc
317 with C++: the extensions of the header files produced by the Yacc
318 rules are now modelled after the extension of the corresponding
319 sources. For example, yacc files named "foo.y++" and "bar.yy" will
320 produce header files named "foo.h++" and "bar.hh" respectively, where
321 they would have previously produced header files named simply "foo.h"
322 and "bar.h". This change offers better compatibility with 'bison -o'.
324 * Miscellaneous changes:
326 - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro now causes configure to exit with status 77,
327 rather than 1, if the vala compiler found is too old.
329 - The build system of Automake itself now avoids the use of make
330 recursion as much as possible.
332 - Automake now prefers to quote 'like this' or "like this", rather
333 than `like this', in diagnostic message and generated Makefiles,
334 to accommodate the new GNU Coding Standards recommendations.
336 - Automake has a new option '--print-libdir' that prints the path of the
337 directory containing the Automake-provided scripts and data files.
339 - The 'dist' and 'dist-all' targets now can run compressors in parallel.
341 - The rules to create pdf, dvi and ps output from Texinfo files now
342 works better with modern 'texi2dvi' script, by explicitly passing
343 it the '--clean' option to ensure stray auxiliary files are not
344 left to clutter the build directory.
346 - Automake can now generate silenced rules for texinfo outputs.
348 - Some auxiliary files that are automatically distributed by Automake
349 (e.g., 'install-sh', or the 'depcomp' script for packages compiling
350 C sources) might now be listed in the DIST_COMMON variable in many
351 Makefile.in files, rather than in the top-level one.
353 - Messages of types warning or error from 'automake' and 'aclocal'
354 are now prefixed with the respective type, and presence of -Werror
357 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now tries to avoid
358 sleeping for a second, which slowed down cached configure runs
359 noticeably. In that case, it will check back at the end of the
360 configure script to ensure that at least one second has passed, to
361 avoid time stamp issues with makefile rules rerunning autotools
364 - The warnings in the category 'extra-portability' are now enabled by
365 '-Wall'. In previous versions, one has to use '-Wextra-portability'
370 - Various minor bugfixes for recent or long-standing bugs.
372 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
374 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
375 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
377 - The automake-provided parallel testsuite harness does not fail anymore
378 with BSD make used in parallel mode when there are test scripts in a
379 subdirectory, like in:
381 TESTS = sub/foo.test sub/bar.test
383 * Long-standing bugs:
385 - Automake's own build system finally have a real "installcheck" target.
387 - Vala-related cleanup rules are now more complete, and work better in
390 - Files listed with the AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE macro in configure.ac are
391 now automatically distributed also if the directory of the auxiliary
392 files coincides with the top-level directory.
394 - Automake now detects the presence of the '-d' flag in the various
395 '*YFLAGS' variables even when their definitions involve indirections
396 through other variables, such as in:
398 AM_YFLAGS = $(foo_opts)
400 - Automake now complains if a '*YFLAGS' variable has any conditional
401 content, not only a conditional definition.
403 - Explicit enabling and/or disabling of Automake warning categories
404 through the '-W...' options now always takes precedence over the
405 implicit warning level implied by Automake strictness (foreign, gnu
406 or gnits), regardless of the order in which such strictness and
407 warning flags appear. For example, a setting like:
408 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = -Wall --foreign
409 will cause the warnings in category 'portability' to be enabled, even
410 if those warnings are by default disabled in 'foreign' strictness.
412 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
414 Bugs fixed in 1.11.5:
416 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.3:
418 - Vala files with '.vapi' extension are now recognized and handled
419 correctly again. See automake bug#11222.
421 - Vala support work again for projects that contain some program
422 built from '.vala' (and possibly '.c') sources and some other
423 program built from '.c' sources *only*. See automake bug#11229.
425 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
429 * Miscellaneous changes:
431 - The 'ar-lib' script now ignores the "s" (symbol index) and "S" (no
432 symbol index) modifiers as well as the "s" action, as the symbol index
433 is created unconditionally by Microsoft lib. Also, the "q" (quick)
434 action is now a synonym for "r" (replace). Also, the script has been
435 ignoring the "v" (verbose) modifier already since Automake 1.11.3.
437 - When the 'compile' script is used to wrap MSVC, it now accepts an
438 optional space between the -I, -L and -l options and their respective
439 arguments, for better POSIX compliance.
441 - There is an initial, experimental support for automatic dependency
442 tracking with tcc (the Tiny C Compiler). Its associated depmode is
443 currently recognized as "icc" (but this and other details are likely
444 to change in future versions).
446 - Automatic dependency tracking now works also with the IBM XL C/C++
447 compilers, thanks to the new new depmode 'xlc'.
449 Bugs fixed in 1.11.4:
451 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
453 - A definition of 'noinst_PYTHON' before 'python_PYTHON' (or similar)
454 don't cause spurious failures upon "make install" anymore.
456 - The user can now instruct the 'uninstall-info' rule not to update
457 the '${infodir}/dir' file by exporting the environment variable
458 'AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no". This is done for consistency
459 with how the 'install-info' rule operates since automake 1.11.2.
461 * Long-standing bugs:
463 - It is now possible for a foo_SOURCES variable to hold Vala sources
464 together with C header files, as well as with sources and headers for
465 other supported languages (e.g., C++). Previously, only mixing C and
466 Vala sources was supported.
468 - If "aclocal --install" is used, and the first directory specified with
469 '-I' is non-existent, aclocal will now create it before trying to copy
472 - An empty declaration of a "foo_PRIMARY" don't cause anymore the
473 generated install rules to create an empty $(foodir) directory;
474 for example, if Makefile.am contains something like:
478 pkglibexec_SCRIPTS += bar.sh
481 the $(pkglibexec) directory will not be created upon "make install".
483 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
487 * Miscellaneous changes:
489 - Automake's own build system is more silent by default, making use of
490 the 'silent-rules' option.
492 - The master copy of the `gnupload' script is now maintained in gnulib,
495 - The `missing' script doesn't try to wrap calls to `tar' anymore.
497 - "make dist" doesn't wrap `tar' invocations with the `missing' script
498 anymore. Similarly, the obsolescent variable `$(AMTAR)' (which you
499 shouldn't be using BTW ;-) does not invoke the missing script anymore
500 to wrap tar, but simply invokes the `tar' program itself.
502 - "make dist" can now create lzip-compressed tarballs.
504 - In the Automake info documentation, the Top node and the nodes about
505 the invocation of the automake and aclocal programs have been renamed;
506 now, calling "info automake" will open the Top node, while calling
507 "info automake-invocation" and "info aclocal-invocation" will access
508 the nodes about the invocation of respectively automake and aclocal.
510 - Automake is now distributed as a gzip-compressed and an xz-compressed
511 tarball. Previously, bzip2 was used instead of xz.
513 - The last relics of Python 1.5 support have been removed from the
514 AM_PATH_PYTHON macro.
516 - For programs and libraries, automake now detects EXTRA_foo_DEPENDENCIES
517 and adds them to the normal list of dependencies, but without
518 overwriting the foo_DEPENDENCIES variable, which is normally computed
521 Bugs fixed in 1.11.3:
523 * Bugs introduced by 1.11.2:
525 - Automake now correctly recognizes the prefix/primary combination
526 `pkglibexec_SCRIPTS' as valid.
528 - The parallel-tests harness doesn't trip anymore on sed implementations
529 with stricter limits on the length of input lines (problem seen at
532 * Long-standing bugs:
534 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.am files is avoided by stub
535 rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `automake' also if
536 some previously needed `.am' file has been removed.
538 - The `silent-rules' option now generates working makefiles even
539 for the uncommon `make' implementations that do not support the
540 nested-variables extension to POSIX 2008. For such `make'
541 implementations, whether a build is silent is determined at
542 configure time, and cannot be overridden at make time with
543 `make V=0' or `make V=1'.
545 - Vala support now works better in VPATH setups.
547 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
551 * Changes to aclocal:
553 - The `--acdir' option is deprecated. Now you should use the new options
554 `--automake-acdir' and `--system-acdir' instead.
556 - The `ACLOCAL_PATH' environment variable is now interpreted as a
557 colon-separated list of additional directories to search after the
558 automake internal acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal-APIVERSION)
559 and before the system acdir (by default ${prefix}/share/aclocal).
561 * Miscellaneous changes:
563 - The Automake support for automatic de-ANSI-fication has been
564 deprecated. It will probably be removed in the next major Automake
567 - The `lzma' compression scheme and associated automake option `dist-lzma'
568 is obsoleted by `xz' and `dist-xz' due to upstream changes.
570 - You may adjust the compression options used in dist-xz and dist-bzip2.
571 The default is now merely -e for xz, but still -9 for bzip; you may
572 specify a different level via the XZ_OPT and BZIP2 envvars respectively.
573 E.g., "make dist-xz XZ_OPT=-7" or "make dist-bzip2 BZIP2=-5"
575 - The `compile' script now converts some options for MSVC for a better
576 user experience. Similarly, the new `ar-lib' script wraps Microsoft lib.
578 - The py-compile script now accepts empty arguments passed to the options
579 `--destdir' and `--basedir', and complains about unrecognized options.
580 Moreover, a non-option argument or a special `--' argument terminates
583 - A developer that needs to pass specific flags to configure at "make
584 distcheck" time can now, and indeed is advised to, do so by defining
585 the developer-reserved makefile variable AM_DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS,
586 instead of the old DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS.
587 The DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS variable should now be reserved for the
588 user; still, the old Makefile.am files that used to define it will
589 still continue to work as before.
591 - New macro AM_PROG_AR that looks for an archiver and wraps it in the new
592 'ar-lib' auxiliary script if the selected archiver is Microsoft lib.
593 This new macro is required for LIBRARIES and LTLIBRARIES when automake
594 is run with -Wextra-portability and -Werror.
596 - When using DejaGnu-based testsuites, the user can extend the `site.exp'
597 file generated by automake-provided rules by defining the special make
598 variable `$(EXTRA_DEJAGNU_SITE_CONFIG)'.
600 - The `install-info' rule can now be instructed not to create/update
601 the `${infodir}/dir' file, by exporting the new environment variable
602 `AM_UPDATE_INFO_DIR' to the value "no".
604 Bugs fixed in 1.11.2:
606 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
608 - The parallel-tests driver no longer produces erroneous results with
609 Tru64/OSF 5.1 sh upon unreadable log files.
611 - The `parallel-tests' test driver does not report spurious successes
612 when used with concurrent FreeBSD make (e.g., "make check -j3").
614 - When the parallel-tests driver is in use, automake now explicitly
615 rejects invalid entries and conditional contents in TEST_EXTENSIONS,
616 instead of issuing confusing and apparently unrelated error messages
617 (e.g., "non-POSIX variable name", "bad characters in variable name",
618 or "redefinition of TEST_EXTENSIONS), or even, in some situations,
619 silently producing broken `Makefile.in' files.
621 - The `silent-rules' option now truly silences all compile rules, even
622 when dependency tracking is disabled. Also, when `silent-rules' is
623 not used, `make' output no longer contains spurious backslash-only
624 lines, thus once again matching what Automake did before 1.11.
626 - The AM_COND_IF macro also works if the shell expression for the
627 conditional is no longer valid for the condition.
629 * Long-standing bugs:
631 - The order of Yacc and Lex flags is fixed to be consistent with other
632 languages: $(AM_YFLAGS) comes before $(YFLAGS), and $(AM_LFLAGS) before
633 $(LFLAGS), so that the user variables override the developer variables.
635 - "make distcheck" now correctly complains also when "make uninstall"
636 leaves one and only one file installed in $(prefix).
638 - A "make uninstall" issued before a "make install", or after a mere
639 "make install-data" or a mere "make install-exec" does not spuriously
642 - Automake now warns about more primary/directory invalid combinations,
643 such as "doc_LIBRARIES" or "pkglib_PROGRAMS".
645 - Rules generated by Automake now try harder to not change any files when
646 `make -n' is invoked. Fixes include compilation of Emacs Lisp, Vala, or
647 Yacc source files and the rule to update config.h.
649 - Several scripts and the parallel-tests testsuite driver now exit with
650 the right exit status upon receiving a signal.
652 - A per-Makefile.am setting of -Werror does not erroneously carry over
653 to the handling of other Makefile.am files.
655 - The code for automatic dependency tracking works around a Solaris
656 make bug triggered by sources containing repeated slashes when the
657 `subdir-objects' option was used.
659 - The makedepend and hp depmodes now work better with VPATH builds.
661 - Java sources specified with check_JAVA are no longer compiled for
662 "make all", but only for "make check".
664 - An usage like "java_JAVA = foo.java" will now cause Automake to warn
665 and error out if `javadir' is undefined, instead of silently producing
666 a broken Makefile.in.
668 - aclocal and automake now honour the configure-time definitions of
669 AUTOCONF and AUTOM4TE when they spawn autoconf or autom4te processes.
671 - The `install-info' recipe no longer tries to guess whether the
672 `install-info' program is from Debian or from GNU, and adaptively
673 change its behaviour; this has proven to be frail and easy to
676 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
678 Bugs fixed in 1.11.1:
680 - Lots of minor bugfixes.
682 * Bugs introduced by 1.11:
684 - The `parallel-tests' test driver works around a GNU make 3.80 bug with
685 trailing white space in the test list (`TESTS = foo $(EMPTY)').
687 * Long standing bugs:
689 - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
690 even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
691 AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
692 `get_python_lib' function if it points outside the configured prefix,
693 unless the `--prefix' argument was either `/usr' or below `/System'.
695 - The testsuite does not try to change the mode of `ltmain.sh' files from
696 a Libtool installation (symlinked to test directories) any more.
698 - AM_PROG_GCJ uses AC_CHECK_TOOLS to look for `gcj' now, so that prefixed
699 tools are preferred in a cross-compile setup.
701 - The distribution is tarred up with mode 755 now by the `dist*' targets.
702 This fixes a race condition where untrusted users could modify files
703 in the $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION) distdir before packing if the toplevel
704 build directory was world-searchable. This is CVE-2009-4029.
706 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
710 * Version requirements:
712 - Autoconf 2.62 or greater is required.
714 * Changes to aclocal:
716 - The autoconf version check implemented by aclocal in aclocal.m4
717 (and new in Automake 1.10) is degraded to a warning. This helps
718 in the common case where the Autoconf versions used are compatible.
720 * Changes to automake:
722 - The automake program can run multiple threads for creating most
723 Makefile.in files concurrently, if at least Perl 5.7.2 is available
724 with interpreter-based threads enabled. Set the environment variable
725 AUTOMAKE_JOBS to the maximum number of threads to use, in order to
726 enable this experimental feature.
728 * Changes to Libtool support:
730 - Libtool generic flags are now passed to the install and uninstall
733 - distcheck works with Libtool 2.x even when LT_OUTPUT is used, as
734 config.lt is removed correctly now.
738 - subdir-object mode works now with Fortran (F77, FC, preprocessed
739 Fortran, and Ratfor).
741 - For files with extension .f90, .f95, .f03, or .f08, the flag
742 $(FCFLAGS_f[09]x) computed by AC_FC_SRCEXT is now used in compile rules.
744 - Files with extension .sx are also treated as preprocessed assembler.
746 - The default source file extension (.c) can be overridden with
747 AM_DEFAULT_SOURCE_EXT now.
749 - Python 3.0 is supported now, Python releases prior to 2.0 are no
752 - AM_PATH_PYTHON honors python's idea about the site directory.
754 - There is initial support for the Vala programming language, when using
757 * Miscellaneous changes:
759 - Automake development is done in a git repository on Savannah now, see
761 http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=automake.git
763 A read-only CVS mirror is provided at
765 cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@pserver.git.sv.gnu.org:/automake.git \
766 checkout -d automake HEAD
768 - "make dist" can now create xz-compressed tarballs,
769 as well as (deprecated?) lzma-compressed tarballs.
771 - `automake --add-missing' will by default install the GPLv3 file as
772 COPYING if it is missing. It will also warn that the license file
773 should be added to source control. Note that Automake will never
774 overwrite an existing COPYING file, even when the `--force-missing'
777 - The manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL 1.3.
779 - Automake ships and installs man pages for automake and aclocal now.
781 - New shorthand `$(pkglibexecdir)' for `$(libexecdir)/@PACKAGE@'.
783 - install-sh supports -C, which does not update the installed file
784 (and its time stamps) if the contents did not change.
786 - The `gnupload' script has been revamped.
788 - The `depcomp' and `compile' scripts now work with MSVC under MSYS.
790 - The targets `install' and `uninstall' are more efficient now, in that
791 for example multiple files from one Automake variable such as
792 `bin_SCRIPTS' are copied in one `install' (or `libtool --mode=install')
793 invocation if they do not have to be renamed.
795 Both install and uninstall may sometimes enter (`cd' into) the target
796 installation directory now, when no build-local scripts are used.
798 Both install and uninstall do not fail anymore but do nothing if an
799 installation directory variable like `bindir' is set to the empty string.
801 For built-in rules, `make install' now fails reliably if installation
802 of a file failed. Conversely, `make uninstall' even succeeds when
803 issued multiple times.
805 These changes may need some adjustments from users: For example,
806 some `install' programs refuse to install multiple copies of the
807 same file in one invocation, so you may need to remove duplicate
808 entries from file lists.
810 Also, within one set of files, say, nobase_data_DATA, the order of
811 installation may be changed, or even unstable among different hosts,
812 due to the use of associative arrays in awk. The increased use of
813 awk matches a similar move in Autoconf to provide for better scaling.
815 Further, most undocumented per-rule install command variables such as
816 binSCRIPT_INSTALL have been removed because they are not needed any
817 more. Packages which use them should be using the appropriate one of
818 INSTALL_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT} or their install_sh_{DATA,PROGRAM,SCRIPT}
819 counterpart, depending on the type of files and the need for automatic
820 target directory creation.
822 - The "deleted header file problem" for *.m4 files is avoided by
823 stub rules. This allows `make' to trigger a rerun of `aclocal'
824 also if some previously needed macro file has been removed.
826 - Rebuild rules now also work for a removed `subdir/Makefile.in' in
827 an otherwise up to date tree.
829 - The `color-tests' option causes colored test result output on terminals.
831 - The `parallel-tests' option enables a new test driver that allows for
832 parallel test execution, inter-test dependencies, lazy test execution
833 for unit-testing, re-testing only failed tests, and formatted result output
834 as RST (reStructuredText) and HTML. Enabling this option may require some
835 changes to your test suite setup; see the manual for details.
837 - The `silent-rules' option enables Linux kernel-style silent build output.
838 This option requires the widely supported but non-POSIX `make' feature
839 of recursive variable expansion, so do not use it if your package needs
840 to build with `make' implementations that do not support it.
842 To enable less verbose build output, the developer has to use the Automake
843 option `silent-rules' in `AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE', or call the `AM_SILENT_RULES'
844 macro. The user may then set the default verbosity by passing the
845 `--enable-silent-rules' option to `configure'. At `make' run time, this
846 default may be overridden using `make V=0' for less verbose, and `make V=1'
847 for backward-compatible verbose output.
849 - New prefix `notrans_' for manpages which should not be transformed
850 by --program-transform.
852 - New macro AM_COND_IF for conditional evaluation and conditional
855 - For AC_CONFIG_LINKS, if source and destination are equal, do not
856 remove the file in a non-VPATH build. Such setups work with Autoconf
859 - AM_MAINTAINER_MODE now allows for an optional argument specifying
862 - AM_SUBST_NOTMAKE may prevent substitution of AC_SUBSTed variables,
863 useful especially for multi-line values.
865 - Automake's early configure-time sanity check now diagnoses an
866 unsafe absolute source directory name and makes configure fail.
868 - The Automake macros and rules cope better with whitespace in the
869 current directory name, as long as the relative path to `configure'
870 does not contain whitespace. To this end, the values of `$(MISSING)'
871 and `$(install_sh)' may contain suitable quoting, and their expansion
872 might need `eval'uation if used outside of a makefile. These
873 undocumented variables may be used in several documented macros such
874 as $(AUTOCONF) or $(MAKEINFO).
878 * Long-standing bugs:
880 - Fix aix dependency tracking for libtool objects.
882 - Work around AIX sh quoting issue in AC_PROG_CC_C_O, leading to
883 unnecessary use of the `compile' script.
885 - For nobase_*_LTLIBRARIES with nonempty directory components, the
886 correct `-rpath' argument is used now.
888 - `config.status --file=Makefile depfiles' now also works with the
889 extra quoting used internally by Autoconf 2.62 and newer
890 (it used to work only without the `--file=' bit).
892 - The `missing' script works better with versioned tool names.
894 - Semantics for `missing help2man' have been revamped:
896 Previously, if `help2man' was not present, `missing help2man' would have
897 the following semantics: if some man page was out of date but present, then
898 a warning would be printed, but the exit status was 0. If the man page was
899 not present at all, then `missing' would create a replacement man page
900 containing an error message, and exit with a status of 2. This does not play
901 well with `make': the next run will see this particular man page as being up
902 to date, and will only error out on the next generated man page, if any;
903 repeat until all pages are done. This was not desirable.
905 These are the new semantics: if some man page is not present, and help2man
906 is not either, then `missing' will warn and generate the replacement page
907 containing the error message, but exit successfully. However, `make dist'
908 will ensure that no such bogus man pages are packaged into a tarball.
910 - Targets provided by automake behave better with `make -n', in that they
911 take care not to create files.
913 - `config.status Makefile... depfiles' works fine again in the presence of
914 disabled dependency tracking.
916 - The default no-op recursive rules for these targets also work with BSD make
917 now: html, install-html, install-dvi, install-pdf, install-pdf, install-info.
919 - `make distcheck' works also when both a directory and some file below it
920 have been added to a distribution variable, such as EXTRA_DIST or *_SOURCES.
922 - Texinfo dvi, ps, pdf, and html output files are not removed upon
923 `make mostlyclean' any more; only the LaTeX by-products are.
925 - Renamed objects also work with the `subdir-objects' option and
926 source file languages which Automake does not know itself.
928 - `automake' now correctly complains about variable assignments which are
929 preceded by a comment, extend over multiple lines with backslash-escaped
930 newlines, and end in a comment sign. Previous versions would silently
931 and wrongly ignore such assignments completely.
933 * Bugs introduced by 1.10:
935 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
936 Makefile.in's again, but also cope with long lines.
938 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of XFAIL_TESTS
939 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
940 This is for consistency with the analogous change to TESTS in 1.10.
942 - Fix order of standard includes to again be `-I. -I$(srcdir)',
943 followed by directories containing config headers.
945 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
949 * Version requirements:
951 - Autoconf 2.60 or greater is required.
953 - Perl 5.6 or greater is required.
955 * Changes to aclocal:
957 - aclocal now also supports -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble options.
959 - `dirlist' entries (for the aclocal search path) may use shell
960 wildcards such as `*', `?', or `[...]'.
962 - aclocal supports an --install option that will cause system-wide
963 third-party macros to be installed in the local directory
964 specified with the first -I flag. This option also uses #serial
965 lines in M4 files to upgrade local macros.
967 The new aclocal options --dry-run and --diff help to review changes
968 before they are installed.
970 - aclocal now outputs an autoconf version check in aclocal.m4 in
971 projects using automake.
973 For a few years, automake and aclocal have been calling autoconf
974 (or its underlying engine autom4te) to accurately retrieve the
975 data they need from configure.ac and its siblings. Doing so can
976 only work if all autotools use the same version of autoconf. For
977 instance a Makefile.in generated by automake for one version of
978 autoconf may stop working if configure is regenerated with another
979 version of autoconf, and vice versa.
981 This new version check ensures that the whole build system has
982 been generated using the same autoconf version.
984 * Support for new Autoconf macros:
986 - The new AC_REQUIRE_AUX_FILE Autoconf macro is supported.
988 - If `subdir-objects' is set, and AC_CONFIG_LIBOBJ_DIR is specified,
989 $(LIBOBJS), $(LTLIBOBJS), $(ALLOCA), and $(LTALLOCA) can be used
990 in different directories. However, only one instance of such a
991 library objects directory is supported.
993 * Change to Libtool support:
995 - Libtool generic flags (those that go before the --mode=MODE option)
996 can be specified using AM_LIBTOOLFLAGS and target_LIBTOOLFLAGS.
998 * Yacc and Lex changes:
1000 - The rebuild rules for distributed Yacc and Lex output will avoid
1001 overwriting existing files if AM_MAINTAINER_MODE and maintainer-mode
1004 - ylwrap is now always used for lex and yacc source files,
1005 regardless of whether there is more than one source per directory.
1007 * Languages changes:
1009 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now honors CPPFLAGS,
1010 AM_CPPFLAGS and per-target _CPPFLAGS, and supports dependency
1011 tracking, unlike non-preprocessed assembler (*.s).
1013 - subdir-object mode works now with Assembler. Automake assumes
1014 that the compiler understands `-c -o'.
1016 - Preprocessed assembler (*.S) compilation now also honors
1017 $(DEFS) $(DEFAULT_INCLUDES) $(INCLUDES).
1019 - Improved support for Objective C:
1020 - Autoconf's new AC_PROG_OBJC will enable automatic dependency tracking.
1021 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1023 - New support for Unified Parallel C:
1024 - AM_PROG_UPC looks for a UPC compiler.
1025 - A new section of the manual documents the support.
1027 - Per-target flags are now correctly handled in link rules.
1029 For instance maude_CFLAGS correctly overrides AM_CFLAGS; likewise
1030 for maude_LDFLAGS and AM_LDFLAGS. Previous versions bogusly
1031 preferred AM_CFLAGS over maude_CFLAGS while linking, and they
1032 used both AM_LDFLAGS and maude_LDFLAGS on the same link command.
1034 The fix for compiler flags (i.e., using maude_CFLAGS instead of
1035 AM_CFLAGS) should not hurt any package since that is how _CFLAGS
1036 is expected to work (and actually works during compilation).
1038 However using maude_LDFLAGS "instead of" AM_LDFLAGS rather than
1039 "in addition to" breaks backward compatibility with older versions.
1040 If your package used both variables, as in
1042 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1043 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1044 a_LDFLAGS = more flags
1047 and assumed *_LDFLAGS would sum up, you should rewrite it as
1049 AM_LDFLAGS = common flags
1050 bin_PROGRAMS = a b c
1051 a_LDFLAGS = $(AM_LDFLAGS) more flags
1054 This new behavior of *_LDFLAGS is more coherent with other
1055 per-target variables, and the way *_LDFLAGS variables were
1056 considered internally.
1058 * New installation targets:
1060 - New targets mandated by GNU Coding Standards:
1065 By default they will only install Texinfo manuals.
1066 You can customize them with *-local variants:
1072 - The undocumented recursive target `uninstall-info' no longer exists.
1073 (`uninstall' is in charge of removing all possible documentation
1074 flavors, including optional formats such as dvi, ps, or info even
1075 when `no-installinfo' is used.)
1077 * Miscellaneous changes:
1079 - Automake no longer complains if input files for AC_CONFIG_FILES
1080 are specified using shell variables.
1082 - clean, distribution, or rebuild rules are normally disabled for
1083 inputs and outputs of AC_CONFIG_FILES, AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, and
1084 AC_CONFIG_LINK specified using shell variables. However, if these
1085 variables are used as ${VAR}, and AC_SUBSTed, then Automake will
1086 be able to output rules anyway.
1087 (See the Automake documentation for AC_CONFIG_FILES.)
1089 - $(EXEEXT) is automatically appended to filenames of TESTS
1090 that have been declared as programs in the same Makefile.
1091 This is mostly useful when some check_PROGRAMS are listed in TESTS.
1093 - `-Wportability' has finally been turned on by default for `gnu' and
1094 `gnits' strictness. This means, automake will complain about %-rules
1095 or $(GNU Make functions) unless you switch to `foreign' strictness or
1096 use `-Wno-portability'.
1098 - Automake now uses AC_PROG_MKDIR_P (new in Autoconf 2.60), and uses
1099 $(MKDIR_P) instead of $(mkdir_p) to create directories. The
1100 $(mkdir_p) variable is still defined (to the same value as
1101 $(MKDIR_P)) but should be considered obsolete. If you are using
1102 $(mkdir_p) in some of your rules, please plan to update them to
1103 $(MKDIR_P) at some point.
1105 - AM_C_PROTOTYPES and ansi2knr are now documented as being obsolete.
1106 They still work in this release, but may be withdrawn in a future one.
1108 - Inline compilation rules for gcc3-style dependency tracking are
1111 - Automake installs a "Hello World!" example package in $(docdir).
1112 This example is used throughout the new "Autotools Introduction"
1113 chapter of the manual.
1115 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1119 * Makefile.in bloat reduction:
1121 - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
1122 the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
1123 used. This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
1124 Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
1127 - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
1128 object that must be built with explicit rules. It just outputs
1129 the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
1130 the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
1133 * Change to Libtool support:
1135 - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
1136 (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)
1138 - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
1139 conditionally installed in different directories, as in
1142 lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1144 pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
1146 liba_la_SOURCES = ...
1148 * Changes to aclocal:
1150 - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
1151 really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
1152 This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
1153 Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
1154 *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
1155 (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
1156 most famous instance of this bug.)
1158 - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
1159 that are not actually used. In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
1160 determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
1161 only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
1162 all of them to be present in order to run. This created
1163 situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
1164 all the macros it uses. For instance running aclocal on a project
1165 containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
1166 project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
1169 * Portability improvements:
1171 - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
1172 tar-pax. The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
1173 filenames that are too long for tar-v7. (PR/414)
1175 - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
1176 trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
1177 (adding trailing backslashes). In previous versions, a long series
1183 would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
1184 exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.
1186 Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
1191 - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
1192 Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
1193 F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
1194 Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).
1196 - Support for conditional _LISP.
1198 - Support for conditional -hook and -local rules (PR/428).
1200 - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)
1202 - Automake will not write any Makefile.ins after the first error it
1203 encounters. The previous Makefile.ins (if any) will be left in
1204 place. (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
1205 be turned into errors with -Werror.)
1207 - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
1210 - The manual tells more about SUBDIRS vs. DIST_SUBDIRS.
1211 It also gives an example of nested packages using AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS.
1213 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1215 Bugs fixed in 1.8.5:
1217 * Long-standing bugs:
1219 - Define DIST_SUBDIRS even when the `no-dist' or `cygnus' options are used
1220 so that `make distclean' and `make maintainer-clean' can work.
1222 - Define AR and ARFLAGS even when only EXTRA_LIBRARIES are defined.
1224 - Fix many rules to please FreeBSD make, which runs commands with `sh -e'.
1226 - Polish diagnostic when no input file is found.
1228 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1230 Bugs fixed in 1.8.4:
1232 * Long-standing bugs:
1234 - Fix AM_PATH_PYTHON to correctly display $PYTHON when it has been
1235 overridden by the user.
1237 - Honor PATH_SEPARATOR in various places of the Automake package, for
1240 - Adjust dependency tracking mode detection to ICC 8.0's new output.
1243 - Fix install-sh so it can install the `mv' binary... using `mv'.
1245 - Fix tru64 dependency tracking for libtool objects.
1247 - Work around Exuberant Ctags when creating a TAGS files in a directory
1248 without files to scan but with subdirectories to include.
1250 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1252 - Fix an "internal error" when @LIBOBJS@ is used in a variable that is
1253 not defined in the same conditions as the _LDADD that uses it.
1255 - Do not warn when JAVAROOT is overridden, this is legitimate.
1257 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1259 Bugs fixed in 1.8.3:
1261 * Long-standing bugs:
1263 - Quote filenames in installation rules, in case $DESTDIR, $prefix,
1264 or any of the other *dir variables contain a space.
1266 Please note that Automake does not and cannot support spaces in
1267 filenames that are involved during the build. This change affects
1268 only installation paths, so that `make install' does not bomb out
1269 in packages configured with
1270 ./configure --prefix '/c/Program Files'
1272 - Fix the depfiles output so it works with GNU sed (<4.1) even when
1273 POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
1275 - Do not AC_SUBST(LIBOBJS) in AM_WITH_REGEX. This macro was unusable
1276 since Autoconf 2.54, which defines LIBOBJS itself.
1278 - Fix a potential (but unlikely) race condition in parallel elisp
1279 builds. (Introduced in 1.7.3.)
1281 - Do not assume that users override _DEPENDENCIES in all conditions
1282 where Automake will try to define them.
1284 - Do not use `mkdir -p' in mkinstalldirs, unless this is GNU mkdir.
1285 Solaris 8's `mkdir -p' is not thread-safe and can break parallel
1288 This fix also affects the $(mkdir_p) variable defined since
1289 Automake 1.8. It will be set to `mkdir -p' only if mkdir is GNU
1290 mkdir, and to `mkinstalldirs' or `install-sh -d' otherwise.
1292 - Secure temporary directory creation in `make distcheck'. (PR/413)
1294 - Do not generate two build rules for `parser.h' when the
1295 parser appears in two different conditionals.
1297 - Work around a Solaris 8 /bin/sh bug in the test for dependency
1298 checking. Usually ./configure will not pick this shell; so this
1299 fix only helps cases where the shell is forced to /bin/sh.
1301 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1303 - In some situations (hand-written `m4_include's), aclocal would
1304 call the `File::Spec->rel2abs' method, which was only introduced
1305 in Perl 5.6. This new version reestablish support Perl 5.005.
1307 It is likely that the next major Automake releases will require at
1308 least Perl 5.6. Consider upgrading your development environment
1309 if you are still using the five-year-old Perl 5.005.
1311 - Automake would sometimes fail to define rules for targets listed
1312 in variables defined in multiple conditions. For instance on
1318 it would define only the `a.$(OBJEXT): a.c' rule and omit the
1319 `b.$(OBJEXT): b.c' rule.
1321 * New sections in manual:
1323 - Third-Party Makefiles: how to interface third party Makefiles.
1324 - Upgrading: upgrading packages to newer Automake versions.
1325 - Multiple Outputs: handling tools that produce many outputs.
1327 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1331 * A (well known) portability bug slipped in the changes made to
1332 install-sh in Automake 1.8.1. The broken install-sh would refuse to
1333 install anything on Tru64.
1335 * Fix install rules for conditionally built python files. (This never
1338 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1342 * Bugs introduced by 1.8:
1344 - Fix Config.pm import error with old Perl versions (at least
1345 5.005_03). One symptom is that aclocal could not find its macro
1348 - Automake 1.8 used `mkdir -m 0755 -p --' to ensure that directories
1349 created by `make install' are always world readable, even if the
1350 installer happens to have an overly restrictive umask (e.g. 077).
1351 This was a mistake and has been reverted. There are at least two
1352 reasons why we must not use `-m 0755':
1353 - it causes special bits like SGID to be ignored,
1354 - it may be too restrictive (some setups expect 775 directories).
1356 - Fix aclocal to honor definitions located in files which have been
1357 m4_included manually. aclocal 1.8 had been updated to check
1358 m4_included files for new requirements, but forgot that these
1359 m4_included files can also provide new definitions.
1361 Note that if you have such a setup, we recommend you get rid of
1362 it. In the past, there was a reason to m4_include files manually:
1363 aclocal used to duplicate entire M4 files into aclocal.m4, even
1364 files that were distributed. Some packages were therefore
1365 m4_including the distributed file directly, and playing some
1366 tricks to ensure aclocal would not copy that file to aclocal.m4,
1367 in order to limit the amount of duplication. Since aclocal 1.8.x
1368 will precisely output m4_includes for local M4 files, we recommend
1369 that you clean up your setup, removing all manual m4_includes and
1370 letting aclocal output them.
1372 - Output detailed menus in the Info version if the Automake manual,
1373 so that Emacs can locate the indexes.
1375 - configure.ac and configure were listed twice in DIST_COMMON (an
1376 internal variable where Automake lists configury files to
1377 distribute). This was harmless, but unaesthetic.
1379 - Use `chmod a-w' instead of `chmod -w' as the latter honors umask.
1380 This was an issue only in the Automake package itself, not in
1383 - Automake assumed that all AC_CONFIG_LINKS arguments had the form
1384 DEST:SRC. This was wrong, as some packages do
1385 AC_CONFIG_LINKS($computedlinks). This version no longer abort in
1388 - Contrary to mkinstalldirs, $(mkdir_p) was expecting exactly one
1389 argument. This caused two kinds of failures:
1390 - Rules installing data in a conditionally defined directory
1391 failed when that directory was undefined. In this case no
1392 argument was supplied.
1393 - `make installdirs' failed, because several directories were
1394 passed to $(mkdir_p). This was an issue only on platform
1395 were $(mkdir_p) is implemented with `install-sh -d'.
1396 $(mkdir_p) as been changed to accept 0 or more arguments, as
1399 * Long-standing bugs:
1401 - Fix an unexpected diagnostic occurring when users attempt
1402 to override some internal variables that Automake appends to.
1404 - aclocal now scans configure.ac for macro definitions (PR/319).
1406 - Fix a portability issue with OSF1/Tru64 Make. If a directory
1407 distributes files which are outside itself (this usually occurs
1408 when using AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR([../dir]) to use auxiliary files
1409 from a parent package), then `make distcheck' fails due to an
1410 optimization performed by OSF1/Tru64 Make in its VPATH handling.
1411 (tests/subpkg2.test failure)
1413 - Fix another portability issue with Sun and OSF1/Tru64 Make.
1414 In a VPATH-build configuration, `make install' would install
1415 nobase_ files to wrong locations.
1417 - Fix a Perl `uninitialized value' diagnostic occurring when
1418 automake complains that a Texinfo file does not have a
1419 @setfilename statement.
1421 - Erase config.status.lineno during `make distclean'. This file
1422 can be created by config.status. Automake already knew about
1423 configure.lineno, but forgot config.status.lineno.
1425 - Distribute all files, even those which are built and installed
1426 conditionally. This change affects files listed in conditionally
1427 defined *_HEADERS and *_PYTHON variable (unless they are nodist_*)
1428 as well as those listed in conditionally defined dist_*_DATA,
1429 dist_*_JAVA, dist_*_LISP, and dist_*_SCRIPTS variables.
1431 - Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to avoid \? in sed regular expressions; it
1432 doesn't conform to POSIX.
1434 - Normalize help strings for configure variables and options added
1439 - Check for python2.4 in AM_PATH_PYTHON.
1441 * Spurious failures in test suite:
1443 - tests/libtool5.test, tests/ltcond.test, tests/ltcond2.test,
1444 tests/ltconv.test: fix failures with CVS Libtool.
1445 - tests/aclocal6.test: fix failure if autom4te.cache is disabled.
1446 - tests/txinfo24.test, tests/txinfo25.test, tests/txinfo28.test:
1447 fix failures with old Texinfo versions.
1449 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1455 - The NEWS file is more verbose.
1459 - Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
1463 - Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES declaration
1464 are made by removing any target extension before appending `.c', so
1465 to make the libtool module `foo.la' from `foo.c', you only need to
1468 lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
1469 foo_la_LDFLAGS = -module
1471 For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
1472 foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
1473 However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.
1475 - AR's `cru' flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable instead
1476 of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can be
1477 substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
1478 dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
1480 - New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
1481 target or variable definitions which override Automake
1484 - Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo fails.
1486 - Texinfo rules now support the `html' target.
1487 Running this requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.
1489 `html' is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
1490 hand-crafted `Makefile.in's with Automake-generated
1491 `Makefile.in's, you should adjust the former to support (or
1492 ignore) this target so that `make html' recurses successfully. If
1493 you had a custom `html' rule in your `Makefile.am', it's better to
1494 rename it as `html-local', otherwise your rule will override
1495 Automake's new rule (you can check that by running `automake
1496 -Woverride') and that will stop the recursion to subdirectories.
1498 Last but not least, this `html' rule is declared PHONY, even when
1499 overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
1500 non-PHONY `html' rule.
1502 - Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as a
1503 configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
1506 - The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
1507 rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
1508 configure's dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
1509 than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
1510 were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
1511 change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
1512 friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
1513 rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
1514 tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
1516 - For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
1517 config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
1518 Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
1519 CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
1520 should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
1521 using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
1522 $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different
1523 levels of the build tree).
1525 - aclocal will now use `m4_include' instead of copying local m4
1526 files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with
1527 your project, other files will be copied as usual.)
1529 Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it means
1530 for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list of
1531 m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
1532 m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)
1534 - aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
1535 Autom4te's cache isn't needlessly invalidated. This behavior can
1536 be switched off with the new `--force' option.
1538 - aclocal now uses Autoconf's --trace to detect macros which are
1539 actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
1540 because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
1541 called conditionally.
1543 - New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
1545 - compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh, mkinstalldirs,
1546 py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand --version and --help.
1548 - Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing created
1549 links as part of the distclean target and including source files in
1552 - AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND
1553 argument. The latter can be used to override the default behavior
1554 (which is to abort).
1556 - Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
1557 Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will
1558 emulate the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions
1559 of Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change
1560 will only be useful in projects generated with future versions of
1563 - When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
1564 generates the first ".in" input file for which a ".am" exists.
1565 (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
1567 - lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
1568 idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
1569 recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that
1570 this is not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp
1571 files even if emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not
1572 install anything unless emacs is found.
1574 - Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p' over mkinstalldirs if it is
1575 available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile
1576 variable $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either
1577 `mkdir -m 0755 -p --', `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755', or
1578 `$(install_sh) -m 0755 -d'.
1582 - Because `mkdir -p' is available on most platforms, and we can use
1583 `install-sh -d' when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
1584 script is being phased out. `automake --add-missing' no longer
1585 installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
1586 automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).
1588 Gettext 0.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
1589 gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake
1590 will continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
1591 mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.
1593 - AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
1594 merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cv_prog_cc_stdc, you
1595 should adjust it to use $ac_cv_prog_cc_stdc instead. (This
1596 renaming should be safe, even if you have to support several,
1597 versions of Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable
1598 since Autoconf 2.54.)
1600 - Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
1601 variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
1602 (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake
1603 now tracks configure's m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
1604 above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered
1605 obsolete and will be flagged as such when running `automake
1610 - Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
1611 longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following
1612 construct used to be troublesome when used with dozens of
1627 Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.
1629 - Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of Automake
1630 proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some variables
1640 All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected.
1641 This restriction has been lifted, and these variables now
1642 support multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.
1644 - Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
1645 $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution
1646 directory created during `make dist', as it did in Automake 1.4,
1647 not to the root of the build tree as it did in intervening
1648 versions. Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in
1649 the top level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running
1652 - The --no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in's
1653 dependencies before deciding not to update it.
1655 - Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning rules.
1657 - Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree. This
1658 is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
1659 used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
1660 it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
1661 from mere annoyance to portability issues.
1663 - COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer overwritten
1664 when --add-missing and --force-missing are used. For backward
1665 compatibility --add-missing will continue to install COPYING (in
1666 `gnu' strictness) when none of these three files exist, but this
1667 use is deprecated: you should better choose a license yourself and
1668 install it once for all in your source tree (and in your code
1671 - Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that haven't
1672 changed, as the inline rule already does.
1674 - User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
1675 targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new
1676 (and was documented), however some of the automake-generated
1677 rules have escaped this principle in former Automake versions.
1678 Rules for the following targets are affected by this fix:
1680 clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
1681 info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
1682 install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
1683 maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am,
1684 ps, ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man
1686 Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the dependencies
1687 of some target, as in
1689 clean: my-clean-rule
1691 will now *silently override* the automake definition of the
1692 rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride' will diagnose
1693 all such overriding definitions.
1695 It should be noted that almost all of these targets support a *-local
1696 variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined rule
1697 (See node `Extending' in the manual). The above rule should
1700 clean-local: my-clean-rule
1702 These *-local targets have been documented since at least
1703 Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have
1704 to support multiple automake versions.
1708 - The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
1710 - Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always defined.
1712 - core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There are
1713 at least three reasons for this:
1714 1. These files should not be created by any build step,
1715 so their removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules.
1716 Actually, they may be precious to the developer.
1717 2. If such file is created during a build, then it's clearly a
1718 bug Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will
1719 cause `make distcheck' to complain about its presence.
1720 3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for
1721 core dump files. A core file on one system might be a
1722 completely legitimate data file on another system.
1724 - RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
1725 defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
1726 environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
1727 on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
1728 defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
1729 AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
1731 - CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
1732 documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have
1733 been there since at least Automake 1.4.)
1735 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1737 Bugs fixed in 1.7.9:
1738 * Fix install-strip to work with nobase_ binaries.
1739 * Fix renaming of #line directives in ylwrap.
1740 * Rebuild with Autoconf 2.59. (1.7.8 was not installable with pdksh.)
1742 Bugs fixed in 1.7.8:
1743 * Remove spurious blank lines in cleaning rules introduced in 1.7.7.
1744 * Fix detection of Debian's install-info, broken since version 1.5.
1745 (Debian bug #213524).
1746 * Honor -module if it appears in AM_LDFLAGS (i.e., relax name checking)
1747 This was only done for libfoo_LDFLAGS and LDFLAGS in previous versions.
1749 Bugs fixed in 1.7.7:
1750 * The implementation of automake's --no-force option is unreliable,
1751 so this option is ignored in this version. A real fix will appear in
1752 Automake 1.8. (Debian Bug #206299)
1753 * AM_PATH_PYTHON: really check the whole list of interpreters if no
1754 argument is given. (PR/399)
1755 * Do not warn about leading `_' in variable names, even with -Wportability.
1756 * Support user redefinitions of TEXINFO_TEX.
1757 * depcomp: support AIX Compiler version 6.
1758 * Fix missing rebuilds during `make dist' with BSD make.
1759 (Could produce tarballs containing out-of-date files.)
1760 * Resurrect multilib support.
1761 * Noteworthy manual updates:
1762 - Extending aclocal: how to write m4 macros that won't trigger warnings
1764 - A Shared Library: Rewrite and split into subsections.
1766 Bugs fixed in 1.7.6:
1767 * Fix depcomp's icc mode for ICC 7.1.
1768 * Diagnose calls to AC_CONFIG_FILES and friends with not enough arguments.
1769 * Fix maintainer-clean's removal of autom4te.cache in VPATH builds.
1770 * Fix AM_PATH_LISPDIR to work with POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
1771 * Fix the location reported in some diagnostics related to AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS.
1772 * Remove Latin-1 characters from elisp-comp.
1773 * Update the manual's @dircategory to match the Free Software Directory.
1775 Bugs fixed in 1.7.5:
1776 * Update install-sh's license to remove an advertising clause.
1777 (Debian bug #191717)
1778 * Fix a bug introduced in 1.7.4, related to BUILT_SOURCE handling,
1779 that caused invalid Makefile.ins to be generated.
1780 * Make sure AM_MAKE_INCLUDE doesn't fail when a `doit' file exists.
1781 * New FAQ entry: renamed objects.
1783 Bugs fixed in 1.7.4:
1784 * Tweak the TAGS rule to support Exuberant Ctags (in addition to
1785 the Emacs implementation)
1786 * Fix output of aclocal.m4 dependencies in subdirectories.
1787 * Use `mv -f' instead of `mv' in fastdep rules.
1788 * Upgrade mdate-sh to work on OS/2.
1789 * Don't byte-compile elisp files when ELCFILES is set empty.
1790 (this documented feature was broken by 1.7.3)
1791 * Diagnose trailing backslashes on last line of Makefile.am.
1792 * Diagnose whitespace following trailing backslashes.
1793 * Multiple tests are now correctly supported in DEJATOOL. (PR/388)
1794 * Fix rebuilt rules for AC_CONFIG_FILES([Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.bot])
1796 * `make install' will build `BUILT_SOURCES' first.
1797 * Minor documentation fixes.
1799 Bugs fixed in 1.7.3:
1800 * Fix stamp files numbering (when using multiple AC_CONFIG_HEADERS).
1801 * Query distutils for `pythondir' and `pythonexecdir', instead of
1802 using an hardcoded path. This should allow builds on 64-bit
1803 distributions that usually use lib64/ instead of lib/.
1804 * AM_PATH_PYTHON will also search for python2.3.
1805 * elisp files are now built all at once instead of one by one. Besides
1806 incurring a speed-up, this is required to support interdependent elisp files.
1807 * Support for DJGPP:
1808 - `make distcheck' will now work in `_inst/' and `_build' instead
1809 of `=inst/' and `=build/'
1810 - use `_dirstamp' when the file-system doesn't support `.dirstamp'
1811 - install/uninstall `*.i[0-9][0-9]'-style info files
1812 - more changes that affect only the Automake package (not its output)
1813 * Fix some incompatibilities with upcoming perl-5.10.
1814 * Properly quote AC_PACKAGE_TARNAME and AC_PACKAGE_VERSION when defining
1815 PACKAGE and VERSION.
1817 - dashmstdout and dashXmstdout modes: don't use `-o /dev/null', this
1818 is troublesome with gcc and Solaris compilers. (PR/385)
1819 - makedepend mode: work with Libtool. (PR/385 too)
1821 * better support for unusual gettext setups, such as multiple po/ directories
1823 - Flag missing po/ and intl/ directories as warnings, not errors.
1824 - Disable these warnings if po/ does not exist.
1825 * Noteworthy manual updates:
1827 - Document how AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR interacts with missing files.
1829 - Document `AM_YFLAGS = -d'. (PR/382)
1831 Bugs fixed in 1.7.2:
1832 * Fix installation and uninstallation of Info files built in subdirectories.
1833 * Do not run `./configure --with-included-gettext' during `make distcheck'
1834 if AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external]) is used.
1835 * Correctly uninstall renamed man pages.
1836 * Do not strip escaped newline in variables defined in one condition
1837 and augmented in another condition.
1838 * Fix ansi2knr rules for LIBOBJS sources.
1839 * Clean all known Texinfo index files, not only those which appear to
1840 be used, because we cannot know which indexes are used in included files.
1841 (PR/375, Debian Bug #168671)
1842 * Honor only the first @setfilename seen in a Texinfo file.
1843 * Treat "required file X not found" diagnostics as errors (exit status 1).
1844 * Don't complain that a required file is not found when it is a Makefile
1846 * Don't use single suffix inference rules when building `.info'-less
1847 Info files, for the sake of Solaris make.
1848 * The `check' target now depends on `$(BUILT_SOURCES)'. (PR/359)
1849 * Recognize multiple inference rules such as `.a.b .c.d:'. (PR/371)
1850 * Warn about multiple inference rules when -Wportability is used. (PR/372)
1851 * Fix building of deansified files from subdirectories. (PR/370)
1852 * Add missing `fi' in the .c->.obj rules.
1853 * Improve install-sh to work even when names contain spaces or certain
1854 (but not all) shell metachars.
1855 * Fix the following spurious failures in the test suite:
1856 depcomp2.test, gnits2.test, gnits3.test, python3.test, texinfo13.test
1857 * Noteworthy manual updates:
1858 - Augment the section about BUILT_SOURCES.
1859 - Mention that AM_PROG_CC_STDC is a relic that is better avoided today.
1861 Bugs fixed in 1.7.1:
1862 * Honor `ansi2knr' for files built in subdirectories, or using per-targets
1864 * Aclocal should now recognize macro names containing parentheses, e.g.
1865 AC_DEFUN([AC_LANG_PREPROC(Fortran 90)], [...]).
1866 * Erase *.sum and *.log files created by DejaGnu, during `make distclean'.
1868 * Install Python files even if they were built. (PR/369)
1869 * Have stamp-vti dependent upon configure instead of configure.ac, as the
1870 version might not be defined in the latter. (PR/358)
1871 * Reorder arguments passed to a couple of commands, so things works
1872 when POSIXLY_CORRECT=1.
1873 * Fix a regex that can cause Perl to segfault on large input.
1875 * Fix distribution of packages that have some sources defined conditionally,
1876 as in the `Conditional compilation using Automake conditionals' example
1878 * Fix spurious test suite failures on IRIX.
1879 * Don't report a required variable as undefined if it has been
1880 defined conditionally for the "right" conditions.
1881 * Fix cleaning of the /tmp subdirectory used by `make distcheck', in case
1882 `make distcheck' fails.
1883 * Fix distribution of included Makefile fragment, so we don't create
1884 spurious directories in the distribution. (PR/366)
1885 * Don't complain that a target lacks `.$(EXEEXT)' when it has it.
1888 * Autoconf 2.54 is required.
1889 * `aclocal' and `automake' will no longer warn about obsolete
1890 configure macros. This is done by `autoconf -Wobsolete'.
1891 * AM_CONFIG_HEADER, AM_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS and
1892 AM_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ_NEEDS_SYS_IOCTL are obsolete (although still
1893 supported). You should use AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_SYS_POSIX_TERMIOS,
1894 and AC_HEADER_TIOCGWINSZ instead. `autoupdate' can upgrade
1895 `configure.ac' for you.
1896 * Support for per-program and per-library `_CPPFLAGS'.
1897 * New `ctags' target (builds CTAGS files).
1898 * Support for -Wmumble and -Wno-mumble, where mumble is a warning category
1899 (see `automake --help' or the manual for a list of them).
1900 * Honor the WARNINGS environment variable.
1901 * Omit the call to depcomp when using gcc3: call the compiler directly.
1902 * A new option, std-options, tests that programs support --help and --version
1903 when `make installcheck' is run. This is enabled by --gnits.
1904 * Texinfo rules now support the `ps' and `pdf' targets.
1905 * Info files are now created in the build directory, not the source directory.
1906 * info_TEXINFOS supports files in subdirectories (this requires Texinfo 4.1
1908 * `make distcheck' will enforce DESTDIR support by attempting
1910 * `+=' can be used in conditionals, even if the augmented variable
1911 was defined for another condition.
1912 * Makefile fragments (inserted with `include') are always distributed.
1913 * Use Autoconf's --trace interface to inspect configure.ac and get
1914 a more accurate view of it.
1915 * Add support for extending aclocal's default macro search path
1916 using a `dirlist' file within the aclocal directory.
1917 * automake --output-dir is deprecated.
1918 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether uninstall actually
1919 removes all installed files has been moved in a separate target,
1920 distuninstallcheck, so it can be overridden easily.
1924 * Support for AM_INIT_GETTEXT([external])
1925 * Bug fixes, including:
1926 - Fix Automake's own `make install' so it works even if `ln' doesn't.
1927 - nobase_ programs and scripts honor --program-transform correctly.
1928 - Erase configure.lineno during `make distclean'.
1929 - Erase YACC and LEX outputs during `make maintainer-clean'.
1932 * Many bug fixes, including:
1933 - Requiring the current version works.
1934 - Fix "$@" portability issues (for Zsh).
1935 - Fix output of dummy dependency files in presence of post-processed
1937 - Don't compute dependencies in background to avoid races with libtool.
1938 - Fix handling of _OBJECTS variables for targets sharing source variables.
1939 - Check dependency mode for Java when AM_PROG_GCJ is used.
1942 * automake --output-dir is deprecated
1943 * Many bug fixes, including:
1944 - Don't choke on AM_LDFLAGS definitions.
1945 - Clean libtool objects from subdirectories.
1946 - Allow configure variables with reserved suffix and unknown prefix
1947 (e.g. AC_SUBST(mumble_LDFLAGS) when 'mumble' is not a target).
1948 - Fix the definition of AUTOMAKE and ACLOCAL in configure.
1951 * Autoconf 2.52 is required.
1952 * automake no longer run libtoolize.
1953 This is the job of autoreconf (from GNU Autoconf).
1954 * `dist' generates all the archive flavors, as did `dist-all'.
1955 * `dist-gzip' generates the Gzip tar file only.
1956 * Combining Automake Makefile conditionals no longer lead to a combinatorial
1957 explosion. Makefile.in's keep a reasonable size.
1958 * AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_STRTOD, AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, AM_PTRDIFF_T
1959 are no longer shipped, since Autoconf 2.52 provides them (both as AM_
1961 * `#line' of Lex and Yacc files are properly set.
1962 * EXTRA_DIST can contain generated directories.
1963 * Support for dot-less extensions in suffix rules.
1964 * The part of the distcheck target that checks whether distclean actually
1965 cleans all built files has been moved in a separate target, distcleancheck,
1966 so it can be overridden easily.
1967 * `make distcheck' will pass additional options defined in
1968 $(DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS) to configure.
1969 * Fixed CDPATH portability problems, in particular for MacOS X.
1970 * Fixed handling of nobase_ targets.
1971 * Fixed support of implicit rules leading to .lo objects.
1972 * Fixed late inclusion of --add-missing files (e.g. depcomp) in DIST_COMMON
1973 * Added uninstall-hook target
1974 * `AC_INIT AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(tarname,version)' is an obsolete construct.
1975 You can now use `AC_INIT(pkgname,version) AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE' instead.
1976 (Note that "pkgname" is not "tarname", see the manual for details.)
1977 It is also possible to pass a list of global Automake options as
1978 first argument to this new form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.
1979 * Compiler-based assembler is now called `CCAS'; people expected `AS'
1980 to be a real assembler.
1981 * AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will set STRIP itself when it needs it. Adding
1982 AC_CHECK_TOOL([STRIP], [strip]) manually is no longer required.
1983 * aclocal and automake are also installed with the version number
1984 appended, and some of the install directory names have changed.
1985 This lets you have multiple versions installed simultaneously.
1986 * Support for parsers and lexers in subdirectories.
1989 * Support for `configure.ac'.
1990 * Support for `else COND', `endif COND' and negated conditions `!COND'.
1991 * `make dist-all' is much faster.
1992 * Allows '@' AC_SUBSTs in macro names.
1993 * Faster AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE (requires update of `missing' script)
1994 * User-side dependency tracking. Developers no longer need GNU make
1996 * Uses DIST_SUBDIRS in some situations when SUBDIRS is conditional
1997 * Most files are correctly handled if they appear in subdirs
1998 For instance, a _DATA file can appear in a subdir
1999 * GNU tar is no longer required for `make dist'
2000 * Added support for `dist_' and `nodist_' prefixes
2001 * Added support for `nobase_' prefix
2002 * Compiled Java support
2003 * Support for per-executable and per-library compilation flags
2007 * Added support for the Fortran 77 programming language.
2008 * Re-indexed the Automake Texinfo manual.
2009 * Added `AM_FOOFLAGS' variable for each compiler invocation;
2010 e.g. AM_CFLAGS can be used in Makefile.am to set C compiler flags
2011 * Support for latest autoconf, including support for objext
2012 * Can now put `.' in SUBDIRS to control build order
2013 * `include' command and `+=' support for macro assignment
2014 * Dependency tracking no long susceptible to deleted header file problem
2015 * Maintainer mode now a conditional. @MAINT@ is now an anachronism.
2020 * Better Cygwin32 support
2021 * Support for suffix rules with _SOURCES variables
2022 * New options `readme-alpha' and `check-news'; Gnits mode sets these
2023 * @LEXLIB@ no longer required when lex source seen
2024 Lex support in `missing', and new lex macro. Update your missing script.
2025 * Built-in support for assembly
2026 * aclocal gives error if `AM_' macro not found
2027 * Passed YFLAGS, not YACCFLAGS, to yacc
2028 * AM_PROG_CC_STDC does not have to come before AC_PROG_CPP
2029 * Dependencies computed as a side effect of compilation
2030 * Preliminary support for Java
2031 * DESTDIR support at "make install" time
2032 * Improved ansi2knr support; you must use the latest ansi2knr.c (included)
2036 * Better DejaGnu support
2037 * Added no-installinfo option
2038 * Added Emacs Lisp support
2039 * Added --no-force option
2040 * Included `aclocal' program
2041 * Automake will now generate rules to regenerate aclocal.m4, if appropriate
2042 * Now uses `AM_' macro names everywhere
2043 * ansi2knr option can have directory prefix (eg `../lib/ansi2knr')
2044 ansi2knr now works correctly on K&R sources
2045 * Better C++, yacc, lex support
2046 * Will compute _DEPENDENCIES variables automatically if not supplied
2047 * Will interpolate $(...) and ${...} when examining contents of a variable
2048 * .deps files now in build directory, not source directory; dependency
2049 handling generally rewritten
2050 * DATA, MANS and BUILT_SOURCES no longer included in distribution
2051 * can now put config.h into a subdir
2052 * Added dist-all target
2053 * Support for install-info program (see texinfo 3.9)
2054 * Support for "yacc -d"
2055 * configure substitutions are automatically discovered and included
2056 in generated Makefile.in
2057 * Special --cygnus mode
2058 * OMIT_DEPENDENCIES can now hold list of dependencies to be omitted
2059 when making distribution. Some dependencies are auto-ignored.
2060 * Changed how libraries are specified in _LIBRARIES variable
2061 * Full libtool support, from Gord Matzigkeit
2062 * No longer have to explicitly touch stamp-h when using AC_CONFIG_HEADER;
2063 AM_CONFIG_HEADER handles it automatically
2064 * Texinfo output files no longer need .info extension
2065 * Added `missing' support
2067 * Conditionals in Makefile.am, from Ian Taylor
2071 * distcheck target runs install and installcheck targets
2072 * Added preliminary support for DejaGnu.
2077 * More libtool fixes from Gord Matzigkeit; libtool support is still
2079 * Added support for jm_MAINTAINER_MODE
2081 * New "distcheck" target
2085 * mkinstalldirs and mdate-sh now appear in directory specified by
2087 * Removed DIST_SUBDIRS, DIST_OTHER
2088 * AC_ARG_PROGRAM only required when an actual program exists
2089 * dist-hook target now run before distribution packaged up; idea from
2090 Dieter Baron. Other hooks exist, too.
2091 * Preliminary (unfinished) support for libtool
2092 * Added short option names.
2093 * Better "dist" support when gluing together multiple packages
2097 * Documentation updates (many from François Pinard)
2098 * strictness `normal' now renamed to `foreign'
2099 * Renamed --install-missing to --add-missing
2100 * Now handles AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR
2101 * Now handles TESTS macro
2102 * DIST_OTHER renamed to EXTRA_DIST
2103 * DIST_SUBDIRS is deprecated
2104 * @ALLOCA@ and @LIBOBJS@ now work in _LDADD variables
2105 * Better error messages in many cases
2106 * Program names are canonicalized
2107 * Added "check" prefix; from Gord Matzigkeit
2111 * configure.in scanner knows about AC_PATH_XTRA, AC_OUTPUT ":" syntax
2112 * Beginnings of a test suite
2113 * Automatically adds -I options for $(srcdir), ".", and path to config.h
2114 * Doesn't print anything when running
2115 * Beginnings of MAINT_CHARSET support
2116 * Can specify version in AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS
2117 * Most errors recognizable by Emacs' M-x next-error
2118 * Added --verbose option
2119 * All "primary" variables now obsolete; use EXTRA_PRIMARY to supply
2120 configure-generated names
2121 * Required macros now distributed in aclocal.m4
2123 * --strictness=gnu is default
2127 * More sophisticated configure.in scanning; now understands ALLOCA and
2128 LIBOBJS directly, handles AC_CONFIG_HEADER more precisely, etc.
2129 * TEXINFOS and MANS now obsolete; use info_TEXINFOS and man_MANS instead.
2130 * CONFIG_HEADER variable now obsolete
2131 * Can handle multiple Texinfo sources
2132 * Allow hierarchies deeper than 2. From Gord Matzigkeit.
2133 * HEADERS variable no longer needed; now can put .h files directly into
2134 foo_SOURCES variable.
2135 * Automake automatically rebuilds files listed in AC_OUTPUT. The
2136 corresponding ".in" files are included in the distribution.
2139 * Added --gnu and --gnits options
2140 * More standards checking
2142 * Cleaned up 'dist' targets
2143 * Added AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable and several options
2144 * Now scans configure.in to get some information (preliminary)
2147 * Works with Perl 4 again
2150 * Added --install-missing option.
2151 * Pretty-prints generated macros and rules
2152 * Comments in Makefile.am are placed more intelligently in Makefile.in
2153 * Generates .PHONY target
2154 * Rule or macro in Makefile.am now overrides contents of Automake file
2155 * Substantial cleanups from François Pinard
2159 * Works with Perl 4 again.
2162 * New uniform naming scheme.
2163 * --strictness option
2165 * '.c' files corresponding to '.y' or '.l' files are automatically
2167 * Many bug fixes and cleanups
2170 * Allow objects to be conditionally included in libraries via lib_LIBADD.
2173 * Bug fixes in 'clean' code.
2174 * Now generates 'installdirs' target.
2175 * man page installation reworked.
2176 * 'make dist' no longer re-creates all Makefile.in's.
2179 * Reimplemented in Perl
2180 * Added --amdir option (for debugging)
2181 * Texinfo support cleaned up.
2182 * Automatic de-ANSI-fication cleaned up.
2183 * Cleaned up 'clean' targets.
2186 * Automatic dependency tracking
2187 * More documentation
2188 * New variables DATA and PACKAGEDATA
2189 * SCRIPTS installed using $(INSTALL_SCRIPT)
2190 * No longer uses double-colon rules
2192 * Changes in advance of internationalization
2196 Copyright (C) 1995-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2198 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
2199 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2200 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
2203 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2204 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2205 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2206 GNU General Public License for more details.
2208 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2209 along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.