1 GNU M4 NEWS - User visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Free Software
5 Version 1.4.11 - ?? ??? 2007, by ???? (CVS version 1.4.10a)
7 * Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9b in the `divert' builtin when more
8 than 512 kibibytes are saved in diversions on platforms like NetBSD
9 where fopen(name,"a+") seeks to the end of the file.
10 * Enhance the `defn' builtin to support concatenation of multiple text
11 arguments, as required by POSIX. However, at this time, it is not
12 possible to concatenate a builtin macro with anything else.
13 * A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
15 Version 1.4.10 - 09 Jul 2007, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.9c)
17 * Upgrade from GPL version 2 to GPL version 3 or later.
18 * A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib.
19 * Avoid undefined behavior introduced in 1.4.9b in the `format' builtin
20 when handling %c. However, this area of code has never been documented,
21 and currently does not match the POSIX behavior of printf(1), so it may
22 have further changes in the next version.
24 Version 1.4.9b - 29 May 2007, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.9a)
26 * Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9 in the `eval' builtin when performing
28 * Fix regression introduced in 1.4.8 in the `-F' option that made it
29 impossible to freeze more than 512 kibibytes of diverted text.
30 * The synclines option `-s' no longer generates sync lines in the middle of
31 multiline comments or quoted strings.
32 * Work around a number of corner-case POSIX compliance bugs in various
33 broken stdio libraries. In particular, the `syscmd' builtin behaves
34 more predictably when stdin is seekable.
35 * The `format' builtin now understands formats such as %a, %A, and %'hhd,
36 and works around a number of platform printf bugs. Furthermore, the
37 sequence format(%*.*d,-1,-1,1) no longer outputs random data. However,
38 some non-compliant platforms such as mingw still have known bugs in
39 strtod that may cause testsuite failures.
40 * The testsuite is improved to also run gnulib portability tests for the
41 features that M4 imports from gnulib.
43 Version 1.4.9 - 23 Mar 2007, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.8c)
45 * Minor documentation and portability cleanups.
47 Version 1.4.8b - 24 Feb 2007, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.8a)
49 * Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 unable to process
50 files larger than 2GiB on some platforms.
51 * Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 dump core when
52 invoked as 'm4 -- file'.
53 * The `eval' builtin now follows C precedence rules. Additionally, the
54 short-circuit operators correctly short-circuit division by zero. The
55 previously undocumented alias of '=' meaning '==' in eval now triggers a
56 deprecation warning, so that a future version of M4 can implement a form
57 of variable assignment as an extension.
58 * The `include' builtin now affects exit status on failure, as required by
59 POSIX. Use `sinclude' if you need a successful exit status.
60 * The `-E'/`--fatal-warnings' command-line option now has two levels. When
61 specified only once, warnings affect exit status, but execution
62 continues, so that you can see all warnings instead of fixing them one
63 at a time. To acheive 1.4.8 behavior, where the first warning
64 immediately exits, specify -E twice on the command line.
65 * A new `--warn-macro-sequence' command-line option allows detection of
66 sequences in `define' and `pushdef' definitions that match an optional
67 regular expression. The default regular expression is
68 `\$\({[^}]*}\|[0-9][0-9]+\)', corresponding to the sequences that might
69 not behave correctly when upgrading to the eventual M4 2.0. By default,
70 M4 2.0 will follow the POSIX requirement that a macro definition
71 containing `$11' must expand to the first argument concatenated with 1,
72 rather than the eleventh argument; and will take advantage of the POSIX
73 wording that allows implementations to treat `${11}' as the eleventh
74 argument instead of literal text. Be aware that Autoconf 2.61 will not
75 work with this option enabled with the default regular expression; but
76 Autoconf 2.62 will be compatible with this option.
77 * Improved portability to platforms such as BSD/OS and AIX.
79 Version 1.4.8 - 20 November 2006, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.7a)
81 * The `divert' macro and `-H'/`--hashsize' command line option no longer
82 cause a core dump when handed extra large values. Also, `divert' now
83 uses memory proportional to the number of diversions in use, rather than
84 to the maximum diversion number encountered, so that large diversion
85 numbers are less likely to exhaust system memory; and is no longer
86 limited by the maximum number of file descriptors.
87 * The `--help' and `--version' command line options now consistently
88 override all earlier options. For example, `m4 --debugfile=trace
89 --help' now no longer accidentally creates an empty file `trace'.
90 * The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command line option can now be set to 0
91 to remove the default limit of 1024. However, it is still possible that
92 heavily nested input can cause abrupt program termination due to stack
94 * Problems encountered when writing to standard error, such as with the
95 `errprint' macro, now always cause a non-zero exit status.
96 * Warnings and errors issued during macro expansion are now consistently
97 reported at the line where the macro name was detected, rather than
98 where the close parenthesis resides. Text wrapped by `m4wrap' now
99 remembers the location that was in effect when m4wrap was invoked,
100 rather than changing to line 0 and the empty string for a file. The
101 macros `__line__' and `__file__' now work correctly even as the last
102 token in an included file.
103 * The `builtin' and `indir' macros now transparently handle builtin
104 tokens generated by `defn'.
105 * When diversions created by the `divert' macro collect enough text that
106 M4 must use temporary files, the environment variable $TMPDIR is now
107 consulted, and a better effort is made to clean up those files in the
108 event of a fatal signal.
109 * The `mkstemp' builtin is added with the same GNU semantics as `maketemp',
110 based on the recommendation of POSIX to deprecate the POSIX semantics of
111 `maketemp' as inherently insecure. In GNU mode (no -G supplied on the
112 command line), `maketemp' silently retains the secure GNU semantics, but
113 a future release of M4 will change this to emit a warning. In
114 traditional mode (m4 -G), `maketemp' now uses the POSIX-mandated insecure
115 semantics, and issues a warning that you should convert your script to
116 use `mkstemp' instead. Additionally, `mkstemp' and `maketemp' are now
117 well-defined even if the template argument does not end in six `X'
119 * The manual has been improved, including a new section on a composite
121 * The `changecom' and `changequote' macros now treat an empty second
122 argument the same as if it were missing, rather than using the empty
123 string and making it impossible to end a comment or quote.
124 * The `translit' macro now operates in linear instead of quadratic time,
125 and is now eight-bit clean.
126 * The `-D', `-U', `-s', and `-t' command line options now take effect
127 after any files encountered earlier on the command line, rather than up
128 front, as is done in traditional implementations and required by POSIX.
130 Version 1.4.7 - 25 September 2006, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.6a)
132 * Fix regression from 1.4.5 in handling a file that ends in a macro
133 expansion without arguments instead of a newline.
134 * The define and pushdef macros now warn when the first argument is not
135 a string, rather than silently doing nothing.
136 * Standard input can now be read more than once, as in 'm4 - file -', and
137 is not closed until all wrapped text is handled. This makes a
138 difference when stdin is not a regular file, and also fixes bugs when
139 using the syscmd or esyscmd macros from wrapped text.
140 * When standard input is a seekable file, the m4exit, syscmd, and esyscmd
141 macros now restore the current position to the next unread byte rather
142 than discarding an arbitrary amount of buffered data.
143 * SysV command-line compatibility is no longer a goal of GNU M4; the
144 focus will be instead on POSIX compatibility. This release continues to
145 support previous usage, but adds warnings in areas which will allow a
146 future version of GNU M4 to use its own extensions without being tied to
147 the SysV command line interface.
148 * The no-op compatibility command line options -B, -N, -S, -T, and
149 --diversions may be withdrawn or assigned new meanings in future
150 releases, so they now issue a warning if used.
151 * A new command line option -i replaces the compatibility -e as the
152 short spelling of --interactive, for consistency with other GNU tools; a
153 warning is issued if the old spelling is used, and it may be assigned new
154 meaning in future releases.
155 * A new command line option --debugfile replaces the options -o and
156 --error-output as the preferred spelling. The old options were
157 misleading in their names and inconsistent with other GNU tools; they are
158 still silently accepted, but no longer documented in --help, and may be
159 assigned new meanings in future releases.
161 Version 1.4.6 - 25 August 2006, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.5a)
163 * Fix buffer overruns in regexp and patsubst macros when handed a trailing
164 backslash in the replacement text, or when handling \n substitutions
165 beyond the number of \(\) groups.
166 * Fix memory leak in regexp, patsubst, and changeword macros.
167 * The format macro now understands %F, %g, and %G.
168 * When loading frozen files, m4 now exits with status 63 if version
169 mismatch is detected.
170 * Fix bugs that occurred when invoked with stdout or stderr closed,
171 and detect write failures to stdout or to the target of the
172 debugfile macro. In particular, the syscmd and esyscmd macros can
173 no longer interfere with the debug stream or diversions.
174 * The m4exit macro now converts values outside the range 0-255 to 1.
175 * It is now an error if a command-line input file ends in the middle of a
176 comment, matching the behavior of mid-string and mid-argument
178 * The dnl macro now warns if end of file is encountered instead of a
180 * The error message when end of file is encountered now uses the file and
181 line where the dangling construct started, rather than `NONE:0:'.
182 * The debugmode and __file__ macros, and the -s/--synclines option, now
183 show what directory a file was found in when the -I/--include option or
184 M4PATH variable had an effect.
185 * The changequote and changecom macros now work with 8-bit characters, and
186 quotes and comments that begin with `(' are properly recognized
188 * The new macro __program__ is added, which allows the input file to issue
189 an error message that resembles messages from m4. Warning and error
190 messages have been reformatted to comply with GNU Coding Standards.
191 * The errprint, m4wrap, and shift macros are now recognized only with
193 * The index, substr, translit, regexp, and patsubst macros now produce
194 output when given only one argument, but still warn about a missing
196 * The patsubst macro now reliably finds zero-length matches at the end
199 Version 1.4.5 - 15 July 2006, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.4c)
201 * Fix sysval on BeOS, OS/2, and other systems that store exit status
202 in the low-order byte. Additionally, on Unix platforms, if syscmd was
203 terminated by a signal, sysval now displays the signal number shifted
204 left by eight bits, to match traditional m4 implementations.
205 * The maketemp macro is no longer subject to platform limitations (such as
206 26 or 32 max files from a given template).
207 * Frozen files now require that the first directive be V (version), to
208 better diagnose version mismatch. Additionally, if the F directive
209 (builtin function) names an unknown builtin that existed in the m4 that
210 froze the file but not in the current m4 (for example, changeword), the
211 warning is deferred until an attempt is made to actually use the
212 builtin. This allows downgrading from beta m4-1.4o to stable m4-1.4.5
213 without breaking autoconf.
214 * The format and indir macros are now recognized only with arguments.
215 * The eval macro no longer crashes on x86 architectures when dividing the
216 minimum integer by -1.
217 * On systems with ecvt and fcvt, format no longer truncates trailing
218 zeroes on integers printed with %.0f. On systems without these
219 functions, format is no longer subject to a buffer overflow that
220 permitted arbitrary code execution.
221 * On native Windows builds, the macro __windows__ is provided instead of
222 __unix__. Likewise, on OS/2 builds, the macro __os2__ is provided. This
223 allows input files to determine when syscmd might behave differently.
224 * Fix bug in 1.4.3 patch to use \n line-endings that did not work for
226 * When given the empty string or 0, undivert is now documented as a no-op
227 rather than closing stdout, warning about a non-existent file, or trying
228 to read a directory as a file.
229 * Many documentation improvements. Also, the manual is now distributed
230 under FDL 1.2, rather than a stricter verbatim-only license.
231 * Raise the -L (--nesting-limit) command line option limit from 250 to
233 * The decr, incr, divert, m4exit, and substr macros treat an empty number
234 as 0, issue a warning, and expand as normal; rather than issuing an error
235 and expanding to the empty string.
236 * The eval macro now treats an empty radix argument as 10, handles radix 1,
237 and treats the width argument as number of digits excluding the sign,
238 for compatibility with other m4 implementations.
239 * The ifdef, divert, m4exit, substr, and translit macros now correctly
240 ignore extra arguments.
241 * The popdef and undefine macros now correctly accept multiple arguments.
242 * Although changeword is on its last leg, if enabled, it now reverts to the
243 default (faster) regexp when passed the empty string.
244 * The regexp and substr macros now warn and ignore a trailing backslash in
245 the replacement, and warn on \n for n larger than the number of
246 sub-expressions in the regexp.
248 Version 1.4.4b - 17 June 2006, by Eric Blake (CVS version 1.4.4a)
250 * Fix a recursive push_string crashing bug, which affected changequote of
251 three or more characters on some compilers.
252 * Use automake to fix build portability issues.
253 * Fix a recursive m4wrap crashing bug.
254 * Fix a 1 in 2**32 hash crashing bug.
255 * Tracing a macro by name is now persistent, even if the macro is
256 subsequently undefined or redefined. The traceon and traceoff macros no
257 longer warn about undefined symbols. This solves a crash when using
258 indir on an undefined macro traced with the -t option, as well as an
259 incorrect result of ifdef. Furthermore, tracing is no longer transferred
260 with builtins, solving the bug of "m4 -tm4_eval" failing to give trace
261 output on the input "define(`m4_eval',defn(`eval'))m4_eval(1)".
262 * Fix a crash when a macro is undefined while collecting its arguments, by
263 always using the definition that was in effect before argument
264 collection. This behavior matches the C pre-processor, and means that
265 the sequence "define(`f',`1')f(define(`f',`2'))f" is now documented to
266 result in "12", rather than the previously undocumented "22".
267 * Update the regex engine to fix several bugs.
268 * Fix a potential crash on machines where char is signed.
270 Version 1.4.4 - October 2005, by Gary V. Vaughan
272 * ./configure --infodir=/usr/share/info now works correctly.
273 * When any file named on the command line is missing exit with status 1.
275 Version 1.4.3 - March 2005, by Gary V. Vaughan
277 * DESTDIR installs now work correctly.
278 * Don't segfault with uncompilable regexps to changeword().
279 * Always use \n line-endings for frozen files (fixes a Windows bug).
280 * Portability fix for systems lacking mkstemp(3).
281 * Approximately 20% speed up in the common case of usage with autoconf.
282 * Supported on QNX 6.3.
284 Version 1.4.2 - August 2004, by Paul Eggert
286 * No user visible changes; portability bug fixes only.
288 Version 1.4.1 - June 2004, by Paul Eggert
290 * maketemp now creates an empty file with the given name, instead of merely
291 returning the name of a nonexistent file. This closes a security hole.
293 Version 1.4 - October 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard
295 (No user visible changes)
297 Version 1.3 - September 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard
299 * Diversions are created as needed. Option `-N' is still accepted, but
300 otherwise ignored. Users should use only negative diversion numbers,
301 instead of high positive numbers, for diverting to nowhere.
303 * Diversions should also work faster. No temporary files will be needed
304 at all if all diversions taken altogether do not use more than 512K.
306 * Frozen state files may be produced with the `--freeze-state' (-F)
307 option and later brought back through the `--reload-state' (-R) option.
309 Version 1.2 - July 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard
311 * In patsubst(STRING, REGEXP, REPLACEMENT), \& in REPLACEMENT has been
312 changed to represent this part of STRING matched by the whole REGEXP,
313 instead of the whole STRING as before. \0 does the same, but emits a
314 diagnostic saying it will disappear in some subsequent release.
316 * eval(EXPR) emits a diagnostic if EXPR has suffixed crumb. The same for
317 other numeric conversions in incr(), decr(), divert(), etc.
319 * `--fatal-warnings' (-E) stops execution at first warning.
321 * `--nesting-limit=LEVEL' (-L LEVEL) sets a limit to macro nesting.
322 It is initially fixed at 250.
324 * `--word-regexp=REGEXP' (-W REGEXP) modifies macro name syntax, like
325 does the new `changeword(REGEXP)' macro. This feature is experimental,
326 tell me your opinions about it. You do need --enable-changeword at
327 configure time to get these things. Do *not* depend on them yet.
329 * Trace output format is scannable by GNU Emacs' next-error function.
331 * Stack overflow is detected and diagnosed on some capable systems.
333 * Various bugs have been corrected, m4 should be more portable. See the
334 ChangeLog for details.
336 Version 1.1 - November 1993, by Franc,ois Pinard
338 Changes which might affect existing GNU m4 scripts:
340 * Option `-V' has been removed, use `--version' instead. `--version'
341 writes on standard output instead of standard error, and inhibits any
344 * `--no-gnu-extensions' has been renamed `--traditional'.
346 * In `eval', `^' used to indicate exponentiation, use `**' instead.
348 * The automatic undiversion which takes place at end of all input is
349 forced into the main output stream.
351 Changes which are unlikely to affect existing scripts:
353 * `--help' prints an usage summary on standard output. Script execution
356 * `--prefix-builtins' (-P) prefixes all builtin macros by `m4_'.
358 * Most builtin macros for which arguments are mandatory, called without
359 any arguments, are no more recognized as builtin macros: they are
360 consequently copied verbatim to the output stream.
362 * `define' and `pushdef' are usable with only one argument, they give
363 this argument an empty definition.
365 * `eval' new operators for binary representation handling: `^' for
366 exclusive-or, `~' for the bitwise negation, `<<' and `>>' for shifts.
368 * `eval' recognizes the notation 0bDIGITS for binary numbers and the
369 notation 0rRADIX:DIGITS for numbers in any radix from 1 to 36.
371 Version 1.0.3 - December 1992, by Franc,ois Pinard
373 Changes for the user:
375 * `dnl' outputs a diagnostic if immediately followed by `('. Usually,
376 `dnl' is followed by newline or whitespace.
378 * `ifelse' accepts without complaining the common idiom of having only
379 one argument. This is useful for introducing long comments.
381 * `eval' always expresses values as signed, whatever the radix.
383 * M4OPTS environment variable is no longer obeyed.
385 * `--no-warnings' option is renamed `--silent'.
387 * Debug lines use a new format more compatible with GNU standards.
389 * Various bugs have been corrected. See the ChangeLog for details.
391 Changes for the installer:
393 * GNU m4 now uses an Autoconf-generated configure script, and should be
394 more easily portable in many ways. (Cray is not supported yet).
396 * `make check' has been made more portable, expect no errors.
398 Changes for the programmer:
400 * Sources have been fully reindented to comply with GNU standards, and
401 cleaned up in many ways.
403 * Sources have been protoized. Non-ANSI compilers are automatically
404 detected, then sources are unprotoized on the fly before compilation.
406 * GNU m4 uses newer versions of obstack, regex, getopt, etc.
408 Version 1.0 - October 1991, by Rene' Seindal
410 * Uses GNU configure, taken from the gdb distribution.
412 * Uses GNU getopt(), with long option names.
414 * The -Q/+quiet option is added, which suppresses warnings about missing
415 or superflous arguments to built-in macros.
417 * Added default options via the M4OPTS environment variable.
419 * Several minor bugs have been fixed.
421 Version 0.99 - July 1991, by Rene' Seindal
423 * The builtins `incr' and `decr' are now implemented without use of
426 * The builtin `indir' is added, to allow for indirect macro calls
427 (allows use of "illegal" macro names).
429 * The debugging and tracing facilities has been enhanced considerably.
430 See the manual for details.
432 * The -tMACRO option is added, marks MACRO for tracing as soon as it
435 * Builtins are traced after renaming iff they were before.
437 * Named files can now be undiverted.
439 * The -Nnum option can be used to increase the number of divertions
442 * Calling changecom without arguments now disables all comment handling.
444 * A bug in `dnl' is fixed.
446 * A bug in the multi-character quoting code is fixed.
448 * Several typos in the manual has been corrected. More probably persist.
450 Version 0.75 - November 1990, by Rene' Seindal
452 * Implemented search path for include files (-I option and M4PATH
453 environment variable).
455 * Implemented builtin `format' for printf-like formatting.
457 * Implemented builtin `regexp' for searching for regular expressions.
459 * Implemented builtin `patsubst' for substitution with regular
462 * Implemented builtin `esyscmd', which expands to a shell commands output.
464 * Implemented `__file__' and `__line__' for use in error messages.
466 * Implemented character ranges in `translit'.
468 * Implemented control over debugging output.
470 * Implemented multi-character quotes.
472 * Implemented multi-character comment delimiters.
474 * Changed predefined macro `gnu' to `__gnu__'.
476 * Changed predefined macro `unix' to `__unix__', when the -G option is
477 not used. With -G, `unix' is still defined.
479 * Added program name to error messages.
481 * Fixed two missing null bytes bugs.
483 Version 0.50 - January 1990, by Rene' Seindal
485 * Initial beta release.