Release Digest: GNU, December 11, 2003

GNU Automake 1.8

We’re pleased to announce the release of Automake 1.8.

Automake is a tool for automatically generating `Makefile.in’s
suitable for use with Autoconf, compliant with the GNU Makefile
standards, and portable to various make implementations.

This release contains many bug fixes and improvements. The NEWS
entry is appended. Thanks to all people who have reported bugs,
contributed code, suggested enhancements, or answered user
questions on the mailing lists.

You can find the new release here:

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8.tar.gz.sig

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8.tar.bz2

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8.tar.bz2.sig

ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8.tar.gz

ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8.tar.gz.sig

ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8.tar.bz2

ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8.tar.bz2.sig

Soon it will also appear on the sources and GNU mirrors which
are listed here:

http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

http://sources.redhat.com/mirrors.html

Finally, here are the MD5 checksums:

0a83fd4a2a32dc966b83ca3be86f884b automake-1.8.tar.bz2
d1001db5ab96be087817e7b7b4ba3621 automake-1.8.tar.gz

Please report bugs by mail to <bug-automake@gnu.org>, or
(preferred) at http://sources.redhat.com/cgi-bin/gnatsweb.pl?database=automake

New in 1.8:

• Meta-News
  • The NEWS file is more verbose.
• Requirements
  • Autoconf 2.58 or greater is required.
• New features
  • Default source file names in the absence of a _SOURCES
    declaration are made by removing any target extension before
    appending `.c’, so to make the libtool module `foo.la’ from
    `foo.c’, you only need to do this:

            lib_LTLIBRARIES = foo.la
            foo_la_LDFLAGS  = -module
    

    For backward compatibility, foo_la.c will be used instead of
    foo.c if this file exists or is the explicit target of a rule.
    However -Wobsolete will warn about this deprecated naming.

  • AR’s `cru’ flags are now set in a global ARFLAGS variable
    instead of being hard-coded in each $(AR) invocation, so they can
    be substituted from configure.ac. This has been requested by people
    dealing with non-POSIX ar implementations.
  • New warning option: -Woverride. This will warn about any user
    target or variable definitions which override Automake
    definitions.
  • Texinfo rules back up and restore info files when makeinfo
    fails.
  • Texinfo rules now support the `html’ target. Running this
    requires Texinfo 4.0 or greater.

    `html’ is a new recursive target, so if your package mixes
    hand-crafted `Makefile.in’s with Automake-generated `Makefile.in’s,
    you should adjust the former to support (or ignore) this target so
    that `make html’ recurses successfully. If you had a custom `html’
    rule in your `Makefile.am’, it’s better to rename it as
    `html-local’, otherwise your rule will override Automake’s new rule
    (you can check that by running `automake -Woverride’) and that will
    stop the recursion to subdirectories.

    Last but not least, this `html’ rule is declared PHONY, even
    when overridden. Fortunately, it appears that few packages use a
    non-PHONY `html’ rule.

  • Any file which is m4_included from configure.ac will appear as
    a configure and Makefile.in dependency, and will be automatically
    distributed.
  • The rules for rebuilding Makefiles and Makefile.ins will now
    rebuild all Makefiles and all Makefile.ins at once when one of
    configure’s dependencies has changed. This is considerably faster
    than previous implementations, where config.status and automake
    were run separately in each directory (this still happens when you
    change a Makefile.am locally, without touching configure.ac or
    friends). Doing this also solves a longstanding issue: these
    rebuild rules failed to work when adding new directories to the
    tree, forcing you to run automake manually.
  • For similar reasons, the rules to rebuild configure,
    config.status, and aclocal.m4 are now defined in all directories.
    Note that if you were using the CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES and
    CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES (formerly undocumented) variables, you
    should better define them in all directories. This is easily done
    using an AC_SUBST (make sure you prefix these dependencies with
    $(top_srcdir) since this variable will appear at different levels
    of the build tree).
  • aclocal will now use `m4_include’ instead of copying local m4
    files into aclocal.m4. (Local m4 files are those you ship with your
    project, other files will be copied as usual.)

    Because m4_included files are automatically distributed, it
    means for most projects there is no point in EXTRA_DISTing the list
    of m4 files which are used. (You can probably get rid of
    m4/Makefile.am if you had one.)

  • aclocal will avoid touching aclocal.m4 when possible, so that
    Autom4te’s cache isn’t needlessly invalidated. This behavior can be
    switched off with the new `–force’ option.
  • aclocal now uses Autoconf’s –trace to detect macros which are
    actually used and will no longer include unused macros simply
    because they where mentioned. This was often the case for macros
    called conditionally.
  • New options no-dist and no-dist-gzip.
  • compile, depcomp, elisp-comp, install-sh, mdate-sh,
    mkinstalldirs, py-compile, and ylwrap, now all understand –version
    and –help.
  • Automake will now recognize AC_CONFIG_LINKS so far as removing
    created links as part of the distclean target and including source
    files in distributions.
  • AM_PATH_PYTHON now supports ACTION-IF-FOUND and
    ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND argument. The latter can be used to override
    the default behavior (which is to abort).
  • Automake will exit with $? = 63 on version mismatch. (So does
    Autoconf 2.58) missing knows this, and in this case it will emulate
    the tools as if they were absent. Because older versions of
    Automake and Autoconf did not use this exit code, this change will
    only be useful in projects generated with future versions of these
    tools.
  • When using AC_CONFIG_FILES with multiple input files, Automake
    generates the first “.in” input file for which a “.am” exists.
    (Former versions would try to use only the first input file.)
  • lisp_DATA is now allowed. If you are using the empty ELCFILES
    idiom to disable byte-compilation of lisp_LISP files, it is
    recommended that you switch to using lisp_DATA. Note that this is
    not strictly equivalent: lisp_DATA will install elisp files even if
    emacs is not installed, while *_LISP do not install anything unless
    emacs is found.
  • Makefiles will prefer `mkdir -p’ over mkinstalldirs if it is
    available. This selection is achieved through the Makefile variable
    $(mkdir_p) that is set by AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE to either `mkdir -m 0755
    -p –‘, `$(mkinstalldirs) -m 0755′, or `$(install_sh) -m 0755
    -d’.
• Obsolete features
  • Because `mkdir -p’ is available on most platforms, and we can
    use `install-sh -d’ when it is not, the use of the mkinstalldirs
    script is being phased out. `automake –add-missing’ no longer
    installs it, and if you remove mkinstalldirs from your package,
    automake will define $(mkinstalldirs) as an alias for $(mkdir_p).

    Gettext 1.12.1 still requires mkinstalldirs. Fortunately
    gettextize and autopoint will install it when needed. Automake will
    continue to define the $(mkinstalldirs) and to distribute
    mkinstalldirs when this script is in the source tree.

  • AM_PROG_CC_STDC is now empty. The content of this macro was
    merged in AC_PROG_CC. If your code uses $am_cvprogcc_stdc, you should adjust it to use
    $ac_cvprogcc_stdc instead. (This renaming
    should be safe, even if you have to support several, versions of
    Automake, because AC_PROG_CC defines this variable since Autoconf
    2.54.)
  • Some users where using the undocumented ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES
    variable to override the aclocal.m4 dependencies computed
    (inaccurately) by older versions of Automake. Because Automake now
    tracks configure’s m4 dependencies accurately (see m4_include
    above), the use of ACLOCAL_M4_SOURCES should be considered obsolete
    and will be flagged as such when running `automake
    -Wobsolete’.
• Bug fixes
  • Defining programs conditionally using Automake conditionals no
    longer leads to a combinatorial explosion. The following construct
    used to be troublesome when used with dozens of conditions.

          bin_PROGRAMS = a
          if COND1
            bin_PROGRAMS += a1
          endif
          if COND2
            bin_PROGRAMS += a2
          endif
          if COND3
            bin_PROGRAMS += a3
          endif
          ...
    

    Likewise for _SOURCES, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables.

  • Due to implementation constraints, previous versions of
    Automake proscribed multiple conditional definitions of some
    variables like bin_PROGRAMS:

          if COND1
            bin_PROGRAMS = a1
          endif
          if COND2
            bin_PROGRAMS = a2
          endif
    

    All _PROGRAMS, _LDADD, and _LIBADD variables were affected. This
    restriction has been lifted, and these variables now support
    multiple conditional definitions as do other variables.

  • Cleanup the definitions of $(distdir) and $(top_distdir).
    $(top_distdir) now points to the root of the distribution directory
    created during `make dist’, as it did in Automake 1.4, not to the
    root of the build tree as it did in intervening versions.
    Furthermore these two variables are now only defined in the top
    level Makefile, and passed to sub-directories when running `make
    dist’.
  • The –no-force option now correctly checks the Makefile.in’s
    dependencies before deciding not to update it.
  • Do not assume that make files are called Makefile in cleaning
    rules.
  • Update .info files in the source tree, not in the build tree.
    This is what the GNU Coding Standard recommend. Only Automake 1.7.x
    used to update these files in the build tree (previous versions did
    it in the source tree too), and it caused several problems, varying
    from mere annoyance to portability issues.
  • COPYING, COPYING.LIB, and COPYING.LESSER are no longer
    overwritten when –add-missing and –force-missing are used. For
    backward compatibility –add-missing will continue to install
    COPYING (in `gnu’ strictness) when none of these three files exist,
    but this use is deprecated: you should better choose a license
    yourself and install it once for all in your source tree (and in
    your code management system).
  • Fix ylwrap so that it does not overwrite header files that
    haven’t changed, as the inline rule already does.
  • User-defined rules override automake-defined rules for the same
    targets, even when rules do not have commands. This is not new (and
    was documented), however some of the automake-generated rules have
    escaped this principle in former Automake versions. Rules for the
    following targets are affected by this fix:

    clean, clean-am, dist-all, distclean, distclean-am, dvi, dvi-am,
    info, info-am, install-data-am, install-exec-am, install-info,
    install-info-am, install-man, installcheck-am, maintainer-clean,
    maintainer-clean-am, mostlyclean, mostlyclean-am, pdf, pdf-am, ps,
    ps-am, uninstall-am, uninstall-info, uninstall-man

    Practically it means that an attempt to supplement the
    dependencies of some target, as in

    clean: my-clean-rule

    will now silently override the automake definition of
    the rule for this target. Running `automake -Woverride’ will
    diagnose all such overriding definitions.

    It should be noted that almost all these targets support a
    *-local variant that is meant to supplement the automake-defined
    rule (See node `Extending’ in the manual). The above rule should be
    rewritten as

    clean-local: my-clean-rule

    These *-local targets have been documented since at least
    Automake 1.2, so you should not fear the change if you have to
    support multiple automake versions.

• Miscellaneous
  • The Automake manual is now distributed under the terms of the
    GNU FDL.
  • Targets dist-gzip, dist-bzip2, dist-tarZ, dist-zip are always
    defined.
  • core dumps are no longer removed by the cleaning rules. There
    are at least three reasons for this:
    1. These files should not be created by any build step, so their
       removal do not fit any of the cleaning rules. Actually, they may be
       precious to the developer.
    2. If such file is created during a build, then it’s clearly a bug
       Automake should not hide. Not removing the file will cause `make
       distcheck’ to complain about its presence.
    3. Operating systems have different naming conventions for core
       dump files. A core file on one system might be a completely
       legitimate data file on another system.
  • RUNTESTFLAGS, CTAGSFLAGS, ETAGSFLAGS, JAVACFLAGS are no longer
    defined by Automake. This means that any definition in the
    environment will be used, unless overridden in the Makefile.am or
    on the command line. The old behavior, where these variables were
    defined empty in each Makefile, can be obtained by AC_SUBSTing or
    AC_ARG_VARing each variable from configure.ac.
  • CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES and CONFIG_STATUS_DEPENDENCIES are now
    documented. (The is not a new feature, these variables have been
    there since at least Automake 1.4.)