1 GNU M4 NEWS - User visible changes.
3 * Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.17 (2013-09-22) [stable]
5 ** Fix compilation with newer glibc headers.
7 ** Fix a failure with diverting large amounts of text on mingw (does
8 not affect platforms that can rename an open file).
10 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
13 * Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.16 (2011-03-01) [stable]
15 ** Fix regressions in the `index' builtin. On glibc platforms, this
16 avoids false positives from a strstr bug in glibc 2.9 through 2.12;
17 on many other platforms, it fixes two separate regressions, a false
18 positive introduced in 1.4.11 and a false negative in 1.4.15.
20 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
23 * Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.15 (2010-08-31) [stable]
25 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9b where the `format' builtin could
26 crash on an invalid format string.
28 ** Fix compilation against newer glibc, and on AIX 7.1BETA.
30 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
33 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.14 (2010-02-24) [stable]
34 Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.13.*
36 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.12 where executing with stdout closed
37 could crash m4 on exit on some platforms.
39 ** Fix regressions introduced in 1.4.13 in the `esyscmd' builtin, where
40 closed file descriptors could interfere with child execution, and where
41 a child status of 127 made m4 print a spurious message to stderr.
43 ** Fix a security hole in 'make dist', present since at least M4 1.4, that
44 could affect anybody attempting to redistribute modified sources (see
45 Automake CVE-2009-4029).
47 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
49 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.13 (2009-04-01) [stable]
50 Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.12.*
52 ** The manual is now distributed under the terms of FDL 1.3.
54 ** The `divert' and `undivert' builtins have been made more efficient
55 when using temporary files for large diversions.
57 ** The `translit' builtin has been made more efficient when the second
60 ** The input engine has been optimized for faster processing.
62 ** The command line option `--debugfile', introduced in 1.4.7, now
63 treats its argument as optional, in order to allow setting the debug
64 output back to stderr when used without an argument; and order is now
65 significant with respect to command line files. You must therefore use
66 `m4 --debugfile=trace file', not `m4 file --debugfile trace'. This
67 change does not affect the deprecated `-o'/`--error-output' option.
69 ** The `syscmd' and `esyscmd' builtins can be configured to use an
70 alternate shell, via the new `configure' option `--with-syscmd-shell'.
72 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
74 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.12 (2008-10-10) [stable]
75 Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.11.*
77 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.4b where using `traceon' could delete
78 a macro. This was most noticeable with `traceon(`traceon')', but
79 would also happen in cases such as `foo(traceon(`foo'))'.
81 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.7 where `m4 -N9' died with an assertion
84 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.11 where `defn' died with an assertion
85 failure on a traced but undefined macro.
87 ** New `-g'/`--gnu' command-line option overrides `-G'/`--traditional'.
88 For now, the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT has no effect on M4
89 behavior; but a future release of M4 will behave as though --traditional
90 is implied if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set (this future change is necessary,
91 because in the current release, there is no way to disable GNU
92 extensions that conflict with POSIX without the use of a non-POSIX
93 command-line argument). Clients of M4 that want to use GNU extensions,
94 even when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, should start using the -g command-line
95 argument, even though it is currently a no-op if -G did not appear
96 earlier in the command line, so that the client will not break in the
97 face of an upgraded m4 and a POSIXLY_CORRECT execution environment.
99 ** The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command-line option now defaults to 0 for
100 unlimited on platforms that can detect and deal with stack overflow. On
101 systems that lack alternate stack support, such as Cygwin, and on
102 systems that do not obey the POSIX semantics for distinguishing stack
103 overflow from other exceptions, such as Linux, you can optionally
104 install the libsigsegv library (version 2.6 or newer recommended) to
105 enhance m4's ability to accurately report stack overflow:
106 http://www.gnu.org/software/libsigsegv/
108 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
110 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.11 (2008-04-02) [stable]
111 Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.10a
113 ** Security fixes for the -F option, for bugs present since -F was
114 introduced in 1.3: Avoid core dump with 'm4 -F file -t undefined', and
115 avoid arbitrary code execution with certain file names.
117 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9b in the `divert' builtin when more
118 than 512 kibibytes are saved in diversions on platforms like NetBSD
119 or darwin where fopen(name,"a+") seeks to the end of the file.
121 ** The output of the `maketemp' and `mkstemp' builtins is now quoted if a
122 file was created. This is a minor security fix, because it was possible
123 (although rather unlikely) that an unquoted string could match an
124 existing macro name, such that use of the `mkstemp' output would trigger
125 inadvertent macro expansion and operate on the wrong file name.
127 ** Enhance the `defn' builtin to support concatenation of multiple text
128 arguments, as required by POSIX. However, at this time, it is not
129 possible to concatenate a builtin macro with anything else; a warning is
130 now issued if this is attempted, although a future version of M4 may
131 lift this restriction to match other implementations.
133 ** Enhance the `format' builtin to parse all C99 floating point numbers,
134 even on platforms where strtod(3) is buggy, although the replacement
135 function does have the known issue of rounding errors when parsing
136 some decimal floating point values. This fixes testsuite failures
137 introduced in 1.4.9b.
139 ** Enhance the `index' builtin to guarantee linear behavior, in spite of
140 the surprisingly large number of systems with a brain-dead quadratic
143 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
145 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.10 (2007-07-09) [stable]
146 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.9c
148 ** Upgrade from GPL version 2 to GPL version 3 or later.
150 ** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
152 ** Avoid undefined behavior introduced in 1.4.9b in the `format' builtin
153 when handling %c. However, this area of code has never been documented,
154 and currently does not match the POSIX behavior of printf(1), so it may
155 have further changes in the next version.
157 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.9b (2007-05-29) [beta]
158 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.9a
160 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9 in the `eval' builtin when performing
163 ** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.8 in the `-F' option that made it
164 impossible to freeze more than 512 kibibytes of diverted text.
166 ** The synclines option `-s' no longer generates sync lines in the middle of
167 multiline comments or quoted strings.
169 ** Work around a number of corner-case POSIX compliance bugs in various
170 broken stdio libraries. In particular, the `syscmd' builtin behaves
171 more predictably when stdin is seekable.
173 ** The `format' builtin now understands formats such as %a, %A, and %'hhd,
174 and works around a number of platform printf bugs. Furthermore, the
175 sequence format(%*.*d,-1,-1,1) no longer outputs random data. However,
176 some non-compliant platforms such as mingw still have known bugs in
177 strtod that may cause testsuite failures.
179 ** The testsuite is improved to also run gnulib portability tests for the
180 features that M4 imports from gnulib.
182 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.9 (2007-03-23) [stable]
183 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.8c
185 ** Minor documentation and portability cleanups.
187 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.8b (2007-02-24) [beta]
188 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.8a
190 ** Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 unable to process
191 files larger than 2GiB on some platforms.
193 ** Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 dump core when
194 invoked as 'm4 -- file'.
196 ** The `eval' builtin now follows C precedence rules. Additionally, the
197 short-circuit operators correctly short-circuit division by zero. The
198 previously undocumented alias of '=' meaning '==' in eval now triggers a
199 deprecation warning, so that a future version of M4 can implement a form
200 of variable assignment as an extension.
202 ** The `include' builtin now affects exit status on failure, as required by
203 POSIX. Use `sinclude' if you need a successful exit status.
205 ** The `-E'/`--fatal-warnings' command-line option now has two levels. When
206 specified only once, warnings affect exit status, but execution
207 continues, so that you can see all warnings instead of fixing them one
208 at a time. To achieve 1.4.8 behavior, where the first warning
209 immediately exits, specify -E twice on the command line.
211 ** A new `--warn-macro-sequence' command-line option allows detection of
212 sequences in `define' and `pushdef' definitions that match an optional
213 regular expression. The default regular expression is
214 `\$\({[^}]*}\|[0-9][0-9]+\)', corresponding to the sequences that might
215 not behave correctly when upgrading to the eventual M4 2.0. By default,
216 M4 2.0 will follow the POSIX requirement that a macro definition
217 containing `$11' must expand to the first argument concatenated with 1,
218 rather than the eleventh argument; and will take advantage of the POSIX
219 wording that allows implementations to treat `${11}' as the eleventh
220 argument instead of literal text. Be aware that Autoconf 2.61 will not
221 work with this option enabled with the default regular expression; but
222 Autoconf 2.62 will be compatible with this option.
224 ** Improved portability to platforms such as BSD/OS and AIX.
226 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.8 (2006-11-20) [stable]
227 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.7a
229 ** The `divert' macro and `-H'/`--hashsize' command line option no longer
230 cause a core dump when handed extra large values. Also, `divert' now
231 uses memory proportional to the number of diversions in use, rather than
232 to the maximum diversion number encountered, so that large diversion
233 numbers are less likely to exhaust system memory; and is no longer
234 limited by the maximum number of file descriptors.
236 ** The `--help' and `--version' command line options now consistently
237 override all earlier options. For example, `m4 --debugfile=trace
238 --help' now no longer accidentally creates an empty file `trace'.
240 ** The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command line option can now be set to 0
241 to remove the default limit of 1024. However, it is still possible that
242 heavily nested input can cause abrupt program termination due to stack
245 ** Problems encountered when writing to standard error, such as with the
246 `errprint' macro, now always cause a non-zero exit status.
248 ** Warnings and errors issued during macro expansion are now consistently
249 reported at the line where the macro name was detected, rather than
250 where the close parenthesis resides. Text wrapped by `m4wrap' now
251 remembers the location that was in effect when m4wrap was invoked,
252 rather than changing to line 0 and the empty string for a file. The
253 macros `__line__' and `__file__' now work correctly even as the last
254 token in an included file.
256 ** The `builtin' and `indir' macros now transparently handle builtin
257 tokens generated by `defn'.
259 ** When diversions created by the `divert' macro collect enough text that
260 M4 must use temporary files, the environment variable $TMPDIR is now
261 consulted, and a better effort is made to clean up those files in the
262 event of a fatal signal.
264 ** The `mkstemp' builtin is added with the same GNU semantics as `maketemp',
265 based on the recommendation of POSIX to deprecate the POSIX semantics of
266 `maketemp' as inherently insecure. In GNU mode (no -G supplied on the
267 command line), `maketemp' silently retains the secure GNU semantics, but
268 a future release of M4 will change this to emit a warning. In
269 traditional mode (m4 -G), `maketemp' now uses the POSIX-mandated
270 insecure semantics, and issues a warning that you should convert your
271 script to use `mkstemp' instead. Additionally, `mkstemp' and `maketemp'
272 are now well-defined even if the template argument does not end in six
275 ** The manual has been improved, including a new section on a composite
278 ** The `changecom' and `changequote' macros now treat an empty second
279 argument the same as if it were missing, rather than using the empty
280 string and making it impossible to end a comment or quote.
282 ** The `translit' macro now operates in linear instead of quadratic time,
283 and is now eight-bit clean.
285 ** The `-D', `-U', `-s', and `-t' command line options now take effect
286 after any files encountered earlier on the command line, rather than up
287 front, as is done in traditional implementations and required by POSIX.
289 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.7 (2006-09-25) [stable]
290 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.6a
292 ** Fix regression from 1.4.5 in handling a file that ends in a macro
293 expansion without arguments instead of a newline.
295 ** The define and pushdef macros now warn when the first argument is not
296 a string, rather than silently doing nothing.
298 ** Standard input can now be read more than once, as in 'm4 - file -', and
299 is not closed until all wrapped text is handled. This makes a
300 difference when stdin is not a regular file, and also fixes bugs when
301 using the syscmd or esyscmd macros from wrapped text.
303 ** When standard input is a seekable file, the m4exit, syscmd, and esyscmd
304 macros now restore the current position to the next unread byte rather
305 than discarding an arbitrary amount of buffered data.
307 ** SysV command-line compatibility is no longer a goal of GNU M4; the
308 focus will be instead on POSIX compatibility. This release continues to
309 support previous usage, but adds warnings in areas which will allow a
310 future version of GNU M4 to use its own extensions without being tied to
311 the SysV command line interface.
313 ** The no-op compatibility command line options -B, -N, -S, -T, and
314 --diversions may be withdrawn or assigned new meanings in future
315 releases, so they now issue a warning if used.
317 ** A new command line option -i replaces the compatibility -e as the
318 short spelling of --interactive, for consistency with other GNU tools; a
319 warning is issued if the old spelling is used, and it may be assigned
320 new meaning in future releases.
322 ** A new command line option --debugfile replaces the options -o and
323 --error-output as the preferred spelling. The old options were
324 misleading in their names and inconsistent with other GNU tools; they
325 are still silently accepted, but no longer documented in --help, and may
326 be assigned new meanings in future releases.
328 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.6 (2006-08-25) [stable]
329 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.5a
331 ** Fix buffer overruns in regexp and patsubst macros when handed a trailing
332 backslash in the replacement text, or when handling \n substitutions
333 beyond the number of \(\) groups.
335 ** Fix memory leak in regexp, patsubst, and changeword macros.
337 ** The format macro now understands %F, %g, and %G.
339 ** When loading frozen files, m4 now exits with status 63 if version
340 mismatch is detected.
342 ** Fix bugs that occurred when invoked with stdout or stderr closed,
343 and detect write failures to stdout or to the target of the debugfile
344 macro. In particular, the syscmd and esyscmd macros can no longer
345 interfere with the debug stream or diversions.
347 ** The m4exit macro now converts values outside the range 0-255 to 1.
349 ** It is now an error if a command-line input file ends in the middle of a
350 comment, matching the behavior of mid-string and mid-argument
353 ** The dnl macro now warns if end of file is encountered instead of a
356 ** The error message when end of file is encountered now uses the file and
357 line where the dangling construct started, rather than `NONE:0:'.
359 ** The debugmode and __file__ macros, and the -s/--synclines option, now
360 show what directory a file was found in when the -I/--include option or
361 M4PATH variable had an effect.
363 ** The changequote and changecom macros now work with 8-bit characters, and
364 quotes and comments that begin with `(' are properly recognized
367 ** The new macro __program__ is added, which allows the input file to issue
368 an error message that resembles messages from m4. Warning and error
369 messages have been reformatted to comply with GNU Coding Standards.
371 ** The errprint, m4wrap, and shift macros are now recognized only with
374 ** The index, substr, translit, regexp, and patsubst macros now produce
375 output when given only one argument, but still warn about a missing
378 ** The patsubst macro now reliably finds zero-length matches at the end
381 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.5 (2006-07-15) [stable]
382 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.4c
384 ** Fix sysval on BeOS, OS/2, and other systems that store exit status
385 in the low-order byte. Additionally, on Unix platforms, if syscmd was
386 terminated by a signal, sysval now displays the signal number shifted
387 left by eight bits, to match traditional m4 implementations.
389 ** The maketemp macro is no longer subject to platform limitations (such as
390 26 or 32 max files from a given template).
392 ** Frozen files now require that the first directive be V (version), to
393 better diagnose version mismatch. Additionally, if the F directive
394 (builtin function) names an unknown builtin that existed in the m4 that
395 froze the file but not in the current m4 (for example, changeword), the
396 warning is deferred until an attempt is made to actually use the
397 builtin. This allows downgrading from beta m4-1.4o to stable m4-1.4.5
398 without breaking autoconf.
400 ** The format and indir macros are now recognized only with arguments.
402 ** The eval macro no longer crashes on x86 architectures when dividing the
403 minimum integer by -1.
405 ** On systems with ecvt and fcvt, format no longer truncates trailing
406 zeroes on integers printed with %.0f. On systems without these
407 functions, format is no longer subject to a buffer overflow that
408 permitted arbitrary code execution.
410 ** On native Windows builds, the macro __windows__ is provided instead of
411 __unix__. Likewise, on OS/2 builds, the macro __os2__ is provided.
412 This allows input files to determine when syscmd might behave
415 ** Fix bug in 1.4.3 patch to use \n line-endings that did not work for
418 ** When given the empty string or 0, undivert is now documented as a no-op
419 rather than closing stdout, warning about a non-existent file, or trying
420 to read a directory as a file.
422 ** Many documentation improvements. Also, the manual is now distributed
423 under FDL 1.2, rather than a stricter verbatim-only license.
425 ** Raise the -L (--nesting-limit) command line option limit from 250 to
428 ** The decr, incr, divert, m4exit, and substr macros treat an empty number
429 as 0, issue a warning, and expand as normal; rather than issuing an
430 error and expanding to the empty string.
432 ** The eval macro now treats an empty radix argument as 10, handles radix 1,
433 and treats the width argument as number of digits excluding the sign,
434 for compatibility with other m4 implementations.
436 ** The ifdef, divert, m4exit, substr, and translit macros now correctly
437 ignore extra arguments.
439 ** The popdef and undefine macros now correctly accept multiple arguments.
441 ** Although changeword is on its last leg, if enabled, it now reverts to the
442 default (faster) regexp when passed the empty string.
444 ** The regexp and substr macros now warn and ignore a trailing backslash in
445 the replacement, and warn on \n for n larger than the number of
446 sub-expressions in the regexp.
448 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.4b (2006-06-17) [beta]
449 Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.4a
451 ** Fix a recursive push_string crashing bug, which affected changequote of
452 three or more characters on some compilers.
454 ** Use automake to fix build portability issues.
456 ** Fix a recursive m4wrap crashing bug.
458 ** Fix a 1 in 2**32 hash crashing bug.
460 ** Tracing a macro by name is now persistent, even if the macro is
461 subsequently undefined or redefined. The traceon and traceoff macros no
462 longer warn about undefined symbols. This solves a crash when using
463 indir on an undefined macro traced with the -t option, as well as an
464 incorrect result of ifdef. Furthermore, tracing is no longer
465 transferred with builtins, solving the bug of "m4 -tm4_eval" failing to
466 give trace output on the input
467 "define(`m4_eval',defn(`eval'))m4_eval(1)".
469 ** Fix a crash when a macro is undefined while collecting its arguments, by
470 always using the definition that was in effect before argument
471 collection. This behavior matches the C pre-processor, and means that
472 the sequence "define(`f',`1')f(define(`f',`2'))f" is now documented to
473 result in "12", rather than the previously undocumented "22".
475 ** Update the regex engine to fix several bugs.
477 ** Fix a potential crash on machines where char is signed.
479 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.4 (Oct 2005) [stable]
480 Released by Gary V. Vaughan
482 ** ./configure --infodir=/usr/share/info now works correctly.
484 ** When any file named on the command line is missing exit with status 1.
486 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.3 (Mar 2005) [stable]
487 Released by Gary V. Vaughan
489 ** DESTDIR installs now work correctly.
491 ** Don't segfault with uncompilable regexps to changeword().
493 ** Always use \n line-endings for frozen files (fixes a Windows bug).
495 ** Portability fix for systems lacking mkstemp(3).
497 ** Approximately 20% speed up in the common case of usage with autoconf.
499 ** Supported on QNX 6.3.
501 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.2 (Aug 2004) [stable]
502 Released by Paul Eggert
504 ** No user visible changes; portability bug fixes only.
506 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.1 (Jun 2004) [stable]
507 Released by Paul Eggert
509 ** maketemp now creates an empty file with the given name, instead of merely
510 returning the name of a nonexistent file. This closes a security hole.
512 * Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4 (Oct 1994) [stable]
513 Released by Franc,ois Pinard
515 ** (No user visible changes)
518 Version 1.3 - September 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard
520 * Diversions are created as needed. Option `-N' is still accepted, but
521 otherwise ignored. Users should use only negative diversion numbers,
522 instead of high positive numbers, for diverting to nowhere.
524 * Diversions should also work faster. No temporary files will be needed
525 at all if all diversions taken altogether do not use more than 512K.
527 * Frozen state files may be produced with the `--freeze-state' (-F)
528 option and later brought back through the `--reload-state' (-R) option.
530 Version 1.2 - July 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard
532 * In patsubst(STRING, REGEXP, REPLACEMENT), \& in REPLACEMENT has been
533 changed to represent this part of STRING matched by the whole REGEXP,
534 instead of the whole STRING as before. \0 does the same, but emits a
535 diagnostic saying it will disappear in some subsequent release.
537 * eval(EXPR) emits a diagnostic if EXPR has suffixed crumb. The same for
538 other numeric conversions in incr(), decr(), divert(), etc.
540 * `--fatal-warnings' (-E) stops execution at first warning.
542 * `--nesting-limit=LEVEL' (-L LEVEL) sets a limit to macro nesting.
543 It is initially fixed at 250.
545 * `--word-regexp=REGEXP' (-W REGEXP) modifies macro name syntax, like
546 does the new `changeword(REGEXP)' macro. This feature is experimental,
547 tell me your opinions about it. You do need --enable-changeword at
548 configure time to get these things. Do *not* depend on them yet.
550 * Trace output format is scannable by GNU Emacs' next-error function.
552 * Stack overflow is detected and diagnosed on some capable systems.
554 * Various bugs have been corrected, m4 should be more portable. See the
555 ChangeLog for details.
557 Version 1.1 - November 1993, by Franc,ois Pinard
559 Changes which might affect existing GNU m4 scripts:
561 * Option `-V' has been removed, use `--version' instead. `--version'
562 writes on standard output instead of standard error, and inhibits any
565 * `--no-gnu-extensions' has been renamed `--traditional'.
567 * In `eval', `^' used to indicate exponentiation, use `**' instead.
569 * The automatic undiversion which takes place at end of all input is
570 forced into the main output stream.
572 Changes which are unlikely to affect existing scripts:
574 * `--help' prints an usage summary on standard output. Script execution
577 * `--prefix-builtins' (-P) prefixes all builtin macros by `m4_'.
579 * Most builtin macros for which arguments are mandatory, called without
580 any arguments, are no more recognized as builtin macros: they are
581 consequently copied verbatim to the output stream.
583 * `define' and `pushdef' are usable with only one argument, they give
584 this argument an empty definition.
586 * `eval' new operators for binary representation handling: `^' for
587 exclusive-or, `~' for the bitwise negation, `<<' and `>>' for shifts.
589 * `eval' recognizes the notation 0bDIGITS for binary numbers and the
590 notation 0rRADIX:DIGITS for numbers in any radix from 1 to 36.
592 Version 1.0.3 - December 1992, by Franc,ois Pinard
594 Changes for the user:
596 * `dnl' outputs a diagnostic if immediately followed by `('. Usually,
597 `dnl' is followed by newline or whitespace.
599 * `ifelse' accepts without complaining the common idiom of having only
600 one argument. This is useful for introducing long comments.
602 * `eval' always expresses values as signed, whatever the radix.
604 * M4OPTS environment variable is no longer obeyed.
606 * `--no-warnings' option is renamed `--silent'.
608 * Debug lines use a new format more compatible with GNU standards.
610 * Various bugs have been corrected. See the ChangeLog for details.
612 Changes for the installer:
614 * GNU m4 now uses an Autoconf-generated configure script, and should be
615 more easily portable in many ways. (Cray is not supported yet).
617 * `make check' has been made more portable, expect no errors.
619 Changes for the programmer:
621 * Sources have been fully reindented to comply with GNU standards, and
622 cleaned up in many ways.
624 * Sources have been protoized. Non-ANSI compilers are automatically
625 detected, then sources are unprotoized on the fly before compilation.
627 * GNU m4 uses newer versions of obstack, regex, getopt, etc.
629 Version 1.0 - October 1991, by Rene' Seindal
631 * Uses GNU configure, taken from the gdb distribution.
633 * Uses GNU getopt(), with long option names.
635 * The -Q/+quiet option is added, which suppresses warnings about missing
636 or superflous arguments to built-in macros.
638 * Added default options via the M4OPTS environment variable.
640 * Several minor bugs have been fixed.
642 Version 0.99 - July 1991, by Rene' Seindal
644 * The builtins `incr' and `decr' are now implemented without use of
647 * The builtin `indir' is added, to allow for indirect macro calls
648 (allows use of "illegal" macro names).
650 * The debugging and tracing facilities has been enhanced considerably.
651 See the manual for details.
653 * The -tMACRO option is added, marks MACRO for tracing as soon as it
656 * Builtins are traced after renaming iff they were before.
658 * Named files can now be undiverted.
660 * The -Nnum option can be used to increase the number of divertions
663 * Calling changecom without arguments now disables all comment handling.
665 * A bug in `dnl' is fixed.
667 * A bug in the multi-character quoting code is fixed.
669 * Several typos in the manual has been corrected. More probably persist.
671 Version 0.75 - November 1990, by Rene' Seindal
673 * Implemented search path for include files (-I option and M4PATH
674 environment variable).
676 * Implemented builtin `format' for printf-like formatting.
678 * Implemented builtin `regexp' for searching for regular expressions.
680 * Implemented builtin `patsubst' for substitution with regular
683 * Implemented builtin `esyscmd', which expands to a shell commands output.
685 * Implemented `__file__' and `__line__' for use in error messages.
687 * Implemented character ranges in `translit'.
689 * Implemented control over debugging output.
691 * Implemented multi-character quotes.
693 * Implemented multi-character comment delimiters.
695 * Changed predefined macro `gnu' to `__gnu__'.
697 * Changed predefined macro `unix' to `__unix__', when the -G option is
698 not used. With -G, `unix' is still defined.
700 * Added program name to error messages.
702 * Fixed two missing null bytes bugs.
704 Version 0.50 - January 1990, by Rene' Seindal
706 * Initial beta release.
708 ========================================================================
715 Copyright (C) 1992-1994, 2004-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
717 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
718 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
719 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
720 Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
721 Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
722 Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.