1 Priorities for release:
2 * Check all require_file errors to see if any should reference a line in
3 Makefile.am or configure.in. [handle_configure does]
6 Franc,ois> * Do you speak somewhere of the capability Automake has to let
7 Franc,ois> the user overrides definitions and goals? I think this is useful,
8 Franc,ois> at times. I think the "When Automake Isn't Enough" node needs to
9 Franc,ois> be revisited, as it says false things.
11 Franc,ois> * You might say a word about comment processing, double
12 Franc,ois> hash removing, and copying of a possible copyright block at
13 Franc,ois> beginning of Makefile.am.
15 Franc,ois> * The manual should tell about the fact the automake program, when
16 Franc,ois> used for a single subdirectory, should be run from the top level,
17 Franc,ois> with something like an explicit DIR/Makefile argument.
19 * look at ``'' issues in docs. and look for 'definition' pragma
22 * Must rewrite am_install_var. Should break into multiple functions.
23 This will allow the callers to be a little smarter.
24 * Rewrite clean targets.
27 Consider allowing mkinstalldirs, mdate-sh, and others to be put in
28 AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR. Maybe even ansi2knr?
30 Testing: allow support for Cygnus-style dejagnu-based test suites via
33 Think about ways to make automake fit better with Cygnus-style trees.
35 Use recode in dist target when MAIN_CHARSET specified. Read caveats
36 in automake.in before doing this. Note the same problem used to apply
37 to the no-dependencies option; maybe it still should? Note also that
38 each Makefile.am must be rewritten at "make dist" time if
39 MAINT_CHARSET and DIST_CHARSET are not identical. NOTE: gettext must
40 arrange for all .po files not to be recoded. In the long term this
41 might be a problem (consider when some systems use Unicode but the
44 Handle dist-zoo and dist-zip. Generally add more DOS support. Maybe
45 run "doschk" (why isn't this merged with "pathchk"?) when doing a
46 dist. Do whatever else François says here...
48 Add support for html via an option. Use texi2html. Use
49 "html_TEXINFOS", and htmldir = .../html. Include html files in
50 distribution. Also allow "html_DATA", for raw .html files.
51 [ when will texinfo support html? ]
53 if configure.in not found, move up a directory and try again? This
54 could eliminate a common source of problems.
56 uninstall and pkg-dirs should rm -rf the dir.
58 a potential bug: configure puts "blah.o" into LIBOBJS, thus implying
59 these files can't be de-ansified. Not a problem?
61 In general most .am files should be merged into automake. For
62 instance all the "clean" targets could be merged by keeping lists of
63 things to be removed. This would be a lot nicer looking. Note that
64 the install targets probably should not be merged; it is sometimes
65 useful to only install a small part.
68 * Order rules sensibly
69 * Ensure every line has a purpose. Omit unused stuff
70 * Eliminate extraneous rules when possible (eg 'install-am' stuff)
71 * Make sure vertical spacing is correct
72 * pretty-print targets
73 * regularize how backslash-newline is done. Just one space between text
74 and backslash should be the rule. Update makefile-mode to allow this.
75 (set column to 0, probably)
77 It should be possible to have ansi2knr in just one place in a package.
78 Jim Meyering says just rely on configure to make links as appropriate.
79 Maybe introduce syntax like this:
80 AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = ../ansi2knr
84 * It would be nice to automatically support using bison's better features
85 to rename the output files. This requires autoconf support
86 * Consider supporting syntax from autoconf "derived:source", eg:
88 for yacc and lex source
89 * if AC_PROG_LEX used, ensure LEXLIB is in foo_LDADD
90 * require AC_DECL_YYTEXT for lex
92 require AC_PROG_CXX if any C++ source files found?
93 Better support for C++ all around
95 Write autoconf macro to do all work necessary for automake. Eg define
96 PACKAGE, VERSION, etc.
98 'maintainer-clean' should "rm -rf .deps". Ditto distclean
99 Should look for clean-local targets in Makefile.am.
101 It might be cool to generate .texi dependencies by grepping for
102 @include. (If done, it should be done the same way C dependencies are
105 It would be good to check some parts of GNU standards. Already check
106 for install-sh and mkinstalldirs. What else is required to be in
107 package by GNU standards or by automake?
108 Some things for --strictness=gnits:
109 * "cd $(foo); something" is an error in a rule. Should be:
110 "cd $(foo) && something"
111 * Look for 'ln -s' and warn about using $(LN) and AC_PROG_LN_S
112 * Look for $(LN) and require AC_PROG_LN_S
114 automake.in: should ".cc" really -> "$o"? This doesn't really seem
115 right, but maybe it is so names can be rewritten uniformly? Must
118 Auto-distribute "ChangeLog.[0-9]+"? "ChangeLog.[a-z]+"?
120 Internationalize. [ gettext doesn't have the necessary machinery yet ]
121 am_error should use printf-style arguments (for eventual gettext scheme)
123 François says the ordering of files in a distribution should be as follows:
127 I agree, but I don't see how to implement this yet.
128 It might be easier if "derived files" is limited to those that
129 Automake itself knows about, eg output of yacc.
131 Check all source files to make sure that FSF address is up-to-date.
132 --gnits or --gnu only.
134 Merge each -vars.am file with corresponding ".am" file. Can do this
135 because of changes to &file_contents.
137 Looked at a program called 'ezmake', which seems to do something
138 similar. The only idea there that is possibly worth stealing is using
139 globs in definitions. Also has negations. Eg in a directory with
140 files a.c, b.c and c.c, the line:
141 foo_SOURCES = *.c ~c.c
142 would be equivalent to:
143 foo_SOURCES = a.c b.c
144 Is this worth implementing?
146 Should libexec programs have the name transform done on them?
148 Order the output rules sensibly, so FOO_SOURCES and FOO_OBJECTS are
149 together and rules are in the usual order.
151 Make the output minimal: only output definitions for variables that
154 Look at dist's jmake for ideas. dist is the name of the distribution
155 including Metaconfig. Perl uses it.
157 Should handle directory hierarchies deeper than 2. Right now there is
158 some support for this. Here are some of the issues:
159 * Should handle AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS, ie must handle configure.in in subdirs
160 * Must handle SUBDIRS in subdir Makefile.am's
162 ================================================================
167 Defined variables, their meanings, and their effects:
170 INCLUDES -I options to cpp
171 CPPFLAGS more cpp flags
173 COMPILE how to compile a C program
174 LINK how to link a C program
176 DIST_SUBDIRS directories which are copied verbatim into the
177 distribution. Used eg for directories holding
178 only example code (which don't have their own
179 makefile). This variable might be a bad idea.
181 Document customary ordering of Makefile.am. From François.
183 Must document BUILT_SOURCES variable. See depend.am.
185 Should include extended version of diagram from Autoconf (suggested by
188 must document check, install-info targets
190 ================================================================
194 * Should support standalone library along with subdir library in same
195 Makefile.am. Maybe: turn off "standalone" mode if library's Makefile.am
196 is not only one specd? [ add an option for this ]
197 * Need a way to handle shared libraries.
198 It would be really interesting to be able to easily (as the end-user)
199 make many different versions of the library: shared, static, profiling,
201 How does Perl handle this? How does glibc handle this?
202 This needs autoconf support
204 Some examples to keep in mind while doing this:
208 ================================================================
210 Have a program that generates a Makefile on stdout, passes it through
211 a "config.status"-style filter, and thence into make. Why bother,
212 other than the gee-whiz factor?
214 Would it be useful to integrate in some way with the Debian package
215 building utility? Must check. maybe it would be possible to deal
216 with all the different package utilities somehow.
218 ================================================================
220 A tool to guess what the local Makefile.am should look like:
222 * Probably integrate with autoscan
223 * Use various simple rules to determine what to do:
224 * get name of top directory, sans version info
225 * search for .c files with 'main' in them
226 * if in main.c, use directory name for program
227 * if in more than one, generate multiple programs
228 * if not found, generate a library named after directory
229 * order subdir searches correctly: lib first, src last
230 * assume 'testsuite' dir means we are using dejagnu
231 * maybe be smart about reading existing Makefile.am, so tool
232 can be run for incremental changes? You could imagine:
235 autoproject --incremental
237 ================================================================
239 Stuff NOT to do, and why:
241 consider auto-including any file that matches "*.in".
242 [ no: po/Makefile.in shouldn't be included ]
244 must look at mkid to see how it works (for subdir usage)
245 [ right now, it doesn't. i don't see a simple fix right now ]