We are pleased to announce the GNU Automake 1.13.1d test release. This is the second beta of the bug-fixing release 1.13.2; the first beta was released in January, and announced here:
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2013-01/msg00075.html> (Sorry for the delay between these two betas, but real life intruded). The 1.13.2 release is planned for next Saturday (May 11). Automake 1.13.2 will be a bug-fixing release. Its main purpose is to re-introduce some obsolete m4 macros that had been removed too hastily, bringing woes and problems for distro packagers; see: <http://www.mail-archive.com/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/msg52840.html> <http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2013/01/autotools-mythbuster-automake-pains> The 1.13.2 release will also offer fixes for several bugs (both old and new), and introduce new runtime (non-fatal!) warnings for a couple of discouraged features in Texinfo support: use of suffix-less info files, and use of Texinfo input files with '.txi' or '.texinfo' extensions. See below for the detailed list of changes since the previous version, as summarized by the NEWS file. Download here: ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.13.1d.tar.gz ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.13.1d.tar.xz Please report bugs and problems to <bug-autom...@gnu.org>, and send general comments and feedback to <automake@gnu.org>. Testing from distro packagers would be particularly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who has reported problems, contributed patches, and helped testing Automake! -*-*-*- New in 1.13.2: * Obsolescent features: - Use of suffix-less info files (that can be specified through the '@setfilename' macro in Texinfo input files) is discouraged, and its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete' category. - Use of Texinfo input files with '.txi' or '.texinfo' extensions is discouraged, and its use will raise warnings in the 'obsolete' category. You are advised to simply use the '.texi' extension instead. * Documentation fixes: - The long-deprecated but still supported two-arguments invocation form of AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is documented once again. This seems the sanest thing to do, given that support for such an usage might need to remain in place for a unspecified amount of time in order to cater for people who want to define the version number for their package dynamically at configure runtime (unfortunately, Autoconf does not yet support this scenario, so we cannot delegate the work to it). - The serial testsuite harness is no longer reported as "deprecated", but as "discouraged". We have no plan to remove it, not to make its use cause runtime warnings. - The parallel testsuite is no longer reported as "experimental"; it is well tested, and should be stable now. - The 'shar' and 'tarZ' distribution formats and the 'dist-shar' and 'dist-tarZ' options are obsolescent, and their use is deprecated in the documentation. - Other minor miscellaneous fixes and improvements; in particular, some improvements in cross-references. * Bugs fixed: - When the 'ustar' option is used, the generated configure script no longer risks hanging during the tests for the availability of the 'pax' utility, even if the user running configure has a UID or GID that requires more than 21 bits to be represented. See automake bug#8343 and bug#13588. - The obsolete macros AM_CONFIG_HEADER or AM_PROG_CC_STDC work once again, as they did in Automake 1.12.x (albeit printing runtime warnings in the 'obsolete' category). Removing them has turned out to be a very bad idea, because it complicated distro packing enormously. Making them issue fatal warnings, as we did in Automake 1.13, has turned out to be a similarly very bad idea, for exactly the same reason. - aclocal will no longer error out if the first local m4 directory (as specified by the '-I' option or the 'AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS' or 'AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR' macros) doesn't exist; it will merely report a warning in the 'unsupported' category. This is done to support some pre-existing real-world usages. See automake bug#13514. - aclocal will no longer consider directories for extra m4 files more than once, even if they are specified multiple times. This ensures packages that specify both AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIR([m4]) in configure.ac ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I m4 in Makefile.am will work correctly, even when the 'm4' directory contains no package-specific files, but is used only to install third-party m4 files (as can happen with e.g., "libtoolize --install"). See automake bug#13514. - Analysis of make flags in Automake-generated rules has been made more robust, and more future-proof. For example, in presence of make that (like '-I') take an argument, the characters in said argument will no longer be spuriously considered as a set of additional make options. In particular, automake-generated rules will no longer spuriously believe to be running in dry mode ("make -n") if run with an invocation like "make -I noob"; nor will they believe to be running in keep-going mode ("make -k") if run with an invocation like "make -I kool" (automake bug#12554). * 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". 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 and deprecation, but no 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! - 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> - Future versions of Automake might 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').
