We are pleased to announce the GNU Automake 1.13.3 maintenance release. This is bug-fixing release, fixing a couple of corner-case bugs, and reworking the testsuite to avoid long-standing issues. The work on the testsuite might have introduced spurious failures on less-tested platforms, so don't be overly alarmed in case you see new failures there; just report such failures to <bug-autom...@gnu.org>.
See below for the detailed list of changes since the previous version, as summarized by the NEWS file. Download here: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.13.3.tar.gz ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.13.3.tar.xz Please report bugs and problems to <bug-autom...@gnu.org>, and send general comments and feedback to <automake@gnu.org>. Thanks to everyone who has reported problems, contributed patches, and helped testing Automake! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * WARNING: New versioning scheme for Automake. - Starting with this version onward, Automake will use an update and more rational versioning scheme, one that will allow users to know which kind of changes can be expected from a new version, based on its version number. + Micro versions (e.g., 1.13.3, 2.0.1, 3.2.8) will introduce only documentation updates and bug and regression fixes; they will not introduce new features, nor any backward-incompatibility (any such incompatibility would be considered a bug, to be fixed with a further micro release). + Minor versions (e.g., 1.14, 2.1) can introduce new backward compatible features; the only backward-incompatibilities allowed in such a release are new *non-fatal* deprecations and warnings, and possibly fixes for old or non-trivial bugs (or even inefficient behaviours) that could unfortunately have been seen, and used, by some developers as "corner case features". Possible disruptions caused by this kind of fixes should hopefully be quite rare. + Major versions (now expected to be released every 18 or 24 months, and not more often) can introduce new big features (possibly with rough edges and not-fully-stabilized APIs), removal of deprecated features, backward-incompatible changes of behaviour, and possibly major refactorings (that, while ideally transparent to the user, could introduce new bugs). Incompatibilities should however not be introduced gratuitously and abruptly; a proper deprecation path should be duly implemented in the preceding minor releases. - According to this new scheme, the next major version of Automake (the one that has until now been labelled as '1.14') will actually become "Automake 2.0". Automake 1.14 will be the next minor version, which will introduce new features, deprecations and bug fixes, but no serious backward incompatibility. - See discussion about automake bug#13578 for more details and background: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13578> * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities! - Makefile recipes generated by Automake 2.0 will expect to use an 'rm' program that doesn't complain when called without any non-option argument if the '-f' option is given (so that commands like "rm -f" and "rm -rf" will act as a no-op, instead of raising usage errors). Accordingly, AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE will expand new shell code checking that the default 'rm' program in PATH satisfies this requirement, and aborting the configure process if this is not the case. This behavior of 'rm' is very widespread in the wild, and it will be required in the next POSIX version: <http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=542> - Automake 2.0 will require Autoconf 2.70 or later (which is still unreleased at the moment of writing, but is planned to be released before Automake 2.0 is). - Automake 2.0 will drop support for the long-deprecated 'configure.in' name for the Autoconf input file. You are advised to start using the recommended name 'configure.ac' instead, ASAP. - The ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS special make variable will be fully deprecated in Automake 2.0 (where it will raise warnings in the "obsolete" category). You are advised to start relying on the new Automake support for AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS instead (which was introduced in Automake 1.13). - Automake 2.0 will remove support for automatic dependency tracking with the SGI C/C++ compilers on IRIX. The SGI depmode has been reported broken "in the wild" already, and we don't think investing time in debugging and fixing is worthwhile, especially considering that SGI has last updated those compilers in 2006, and is expected to retire support for them in December 2013: <http://www.sgi.com/services/support/irix_mips_support.html> - Automake 2.0 will remove support for MS-DOS and Windows 95/98/ME (support for them was offered by relying on the DJGPP project). Note however that both Cygwin and MSYS/MinGW on modern Windows versions will continue to be fully supported. - Automake-provided scripts and makefile recipes might (finally!) start assuming a POSIX shell in Automake 2.0. - Starting from Automake 2.0, third-party m4 files located in the system-wide aclocal directory, as well as in any directory listed in the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable, will take precedence over "built-in" Automake macros. For example (assuming Automake is installed in the /usr/local hierarchy), a definition of the AM_PROG_VALAC macro found in '/usr/local/share/aclocal/my-vala.m4' should take precedence over the same-named automake-provided macro (defined in '/usr/local/share/aclocal-2.0/vala.m4'). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New in 1.13.3: * Documentation fixes: - The documentation no longer mistakenly reports that the obsolete 'AM_MKDIR_PROG_P' macro and '$(mkdir_p)' make variable are going to be removed in Automake 2.0. * Bugs fixed: - Byte-compilation of Emacs lisp files could fail spuriously on Solaris, when /bin/ksh or /usr/xpg4/bin/sh were used as shell. - If the same user-defined suffixes were transformed into different Automake-known suffixes in different Makefile.am files in the same project, automake could get confused and generate inconsistent Makefiles (automake bug#14441). For example, if 'Makefile.am' contained a ".ext.cc:" suffix rule, and 'sub/Makefile.am' contained a ".ext.c:" suffix rule, automake would have mistakenly placed into 'Makefile.in' rules to compile "*.c" files into object files, and into 'sub/Makefile.in' rules to compile "*.cc" files into object files --- rather than the other way around. This is now fixed. * Testsuite work: - The test cases no longer have the executable bit set. This should make it clear that they are not meant to be run directly; as explained in t/README, they can only be run through the custom 'runtest' script, or by a "make check" invocation. - The testsuite has seen the introduction of a new helper function 'run_make', and several related changes. These serve a two-fold purpose: 1. Remove brittleness due to the use of "make -e" in test cases. 2. Seamlessly allow the use of parallel make ("make -j...") in the test cases, even where redirection of make output is involved (see automake bug#11413 for a description of the subtle issues in this area). - Several spurious failures have been fixed (they hit especially MinGW/MSYS builds). See automake bugs #14493, #14494, #14495, #14498, #14499, #14500, #14501, #14517 and #14528. - Some other minor miscellaneous changes and fixlets. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
