autoconf/NEWS
Alexandre Duret-Lutz bb714a2c0b * NEWS: The autoconf manual now is distributed under the terms
of the GNU Free Documentation License.

* doc/autoconf.texi: Switch from old style copyright notice to FDL.
Add an appendix "Copying This Manual" for the FDL.

* doc/fdl.texi: New file, from
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.texi>.

* doc/Makefile.am (autoconf_TEXINFOS): Add fdl.texi.
2001-08-12 13:13:10 +00:00

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* Major changes in Autoconf 2.52c -*- outline -*-
** Licensing
The autoconf manual is now distributed under the terms of the GNU FDL.
** Requirements
Perl 5.005 is now required to run Autoconf.
** autom4te
New executable, used by the Autoconf suite to cache and speed up
some processing.
** autoconf
- --force, -f
** autoheader
- --force, -f
** Bug fixes
- The top level $prefix is propagated to the AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS configures.
** C Macros
- AC_C_BIGENDIAN supports the cross-compiling case.
- AC_C_BIGENDIAN accepts ACTION-IF-TRUE, ACTION-IF-FALSE, and
ACTION-IF-UNKNOWN arguments. All are facultative, and the default
for ACTION-IF-TRUE is to define WORDS_BIGENDIAN like AC_C_BIGENDIAN
always did.
* Major changes in Autoconf 2.52
** Documentation
- AC_ARG_VAR
- Quadrigraphs
This feature was present in autoconf 2.50 but was not documented.
For example, `@<:@' is translated to `[' just before output. This
is useful when writing strings that contain unbalanced quotes, or
other hard-to-quote constructs.
- m4_pattern_forbid, m4_pattern_allow
- Tips for upgrading from 2.13.
- Using autoscan to maintain a configure.ac.
** Default includes
- Now include stdint.h.
- sys/types.h and sys/stat.h are guarded.
- strings.h is included if available, and not conflicting with string.h.
** Bug fixes
- The test suite is more robust and presents less false failures.
- Invocation of GNU M4 now robust to POSIXLY_CORRECT.
- configure accepts --prefix='' again.
- AC_CHECK_LIB works properly when its first argument is not a
literal.
- HAVE_INTTYPES_H is defined only if not conflicting with sys/types.h.
- build_, host_, and target_alias are AC_SUBST as in 2.13.
- AC_ARG_VAR properly propagates precious variables inherited from the
environment to ./config.status.
- Using --program-suffix/--program-prefix is portable.
- Failures to detect the default compiler's output extension are less
likely.
- `config.status foo' works properly when `foo' depends on variables
set in an AC_CONFIG_THING INIT-CMD.
- autoheader is more robust to broken input.
- Fixed Fortran name-mangling and link tests on a number of systems,
e.g. NetBSD; see AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, below.
** Generic macros
- AC_CHECK_HEADER and AC_CHECK_HEADERS support a fourth argument to
specify pre-includes. In this case, the headers are compiled with
cc, not merely preprocessed by cpp. Therefore it is the _usability_
of a header which is checked for, not just its availability.
- AC_ARG_VAR refuses to run configure when precious variables have
changed.
- Versions of compilers are dumped in the logs.
- AC_CHECK_TYPE recognizes use of `foo_t' as a replacement type.
** Specific Macros
- AC_PATH_XTRA only adds -ldnet to $LIBS if it's needed to link.
- AC_FUNC_WAIT3 and AC_SYS_RESTARTABLE_SYSCALLS are obsoleted.
- AM_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AM_FUNC_FNMATCH, AM_FUNC_MKTIME,
AM_FUNC_OBSTACK, and AM_FUNC_STRTOD are now activated.
Be sure to read `Upgrading from Version 2.13' to understand why
running `autoupdate' is needed.
- AC_F77_DUMMY_MAIN, AC_F77_MAIN: new macros to detect whether
a main-like routine is required/possible when linking C/C++ with
Fortran. Users of e.g. AC_F77_WRAPPERS should be aware of these.
- AC_FUNC_GETPGRG behaves better when cross-compiling.
* Major changes in Autoconf 2.50
** Lots of bug fixes
There have been far too many to enumerate them here. Check out
ChangeLog if you really want to know more.
** Improved documentation
In particular, portability issues are better covered.
** Use of Automake
All the standard GNU Makefile targets are supported. The layout has
changed: m4/ holds the m4 extensions Autoconf needs for its
configuration, doc/ contains the documentation, and tests/ contains
the test suite.
** Man pages are provided
For autoconf, autoreconf, autoupdate, autoheader, autoscan, ifnames,
config.guess, config.sub.
** autoconf
- --trace
Provides a safe and powerful means to trace the macro uses. This
provide the parsing layer for tools which need to `study'
configure.in.
- --warnings
Specify what category of warnings should be enabled.
- When recursing into subdirectories, try for configure.gnu before
configure to adapt for packages not using autoconf on case-insensitive
filesystems.
- Diagnostics
More errors are now caught (circular AC_REQUIRE dependencies,
AC_DEFINE in the action part of an AC_CACHE_CHECK, too many pops
etc.). In addition, their location and call stack are given.
** autoupdate
autoupdate is much more powerful, and is able to provide the glue code
which might be needed to move from an old macro to its newer
equivalent.
You are strongly encouraged to use it to modernize both your
`configure.in' and your .m4 extension files.
** autoheader
The internal machinery of autoheader has completely changed. As a
result, using `acconfig.h' should be considered to be obsoleted, and
you are encouraged to get rid of it using the AH macros.
** autoreconf
Extensive overhaul.
** Fortran 77 compilers
Globally, the support for Fortran 77 is considerably improved.
Support for automatically determining a Fortran 77 compiler's
name-mangling scheme. New CPP macros F77_FUNC and F77_FUNC_ are
provided to wrap C/C++ identifiers, thus making it easier and more
transparent for C/C++ to call Fortran 77 routines, and Fortran 77 to
call C/C++ routines. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
** Test suite
The test suite no longer uses DejaGNU. It should be easy to submit
test cases in this new framework.
** configure
- --help, --help=long, -hl
no longer dumps useless items.
- --help=short, -hs
lists only specific options.
- --help=recursive, -hr
displays the help of all the embedded packages.
- Remembers environment variables when reconfiguring.
The previous scheme to set envvar before running configure was
ENV=VAL ./configure
what prevented configure from remembering the environment in which
it was run, therefore --recheck was run in an inconsistent
environment. Now, one should run
./configure ENV=VAR
and then --recheck will work properly. Variables declared with
AC_ARG_VAR are also preserved.
- cross-compilation
$build defaults to `config.guess`, $host to $build, and then $target
to $host.
Cross-compilation is a global status of the package, it no longer
depends upon the current language.
Cross compilation is enabled iff the user specified `--host'.
`configure' now fails if it can't run the executables it compiles,
unless cross-compilation is enabled.
- Cache file
The cache file is disabled by default. The new options
`--config-cache', `-C' set the cache to `config.cache'.
** config.status
- faster
Much faster on most architectures.
- concurrent executions
It is safe to use `make -j' with config.status.
- human interface improved
It is possible to invoke
./config.status foobar
instead of the former form (still valid)
CONFIG_COMMANDS= CONFIG_HEADERS= CONFIG_LINKS= \
CONFIG_FILES=foobar:foo.in:bar.in \
./config.status
The same holds for configuration headers and links.
You can instantiate unknown files and headers:
./config.status --header foo.h:foo.h.in --file bar:baz
- has a useful --help
- accepts special file name "-" for stdin/stdout
** Identity Macros
- AC_COPYRIGHT
Specify additional copyright information.
- AC_INIT
Now expects the identity of the package as argument.
** General changes.
- Uniform quotation
Most macros, if not all, now strictly follow the `one quotation
level' rule. This results in a more predictable expansion.
- AC_REQUIRE
A sly bug in the AC_REQUIRE machinery, which could produce incorrect
configure scripts, was fixed by Axel Thimm.
** Setup Macros
- AC_ARG_VAR
Document and ask for the registration of an envvar.
- AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR
Specifies the file which `configure' should look for when trying to
find the source tree (used to be handled by AC_INIT).
- AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS
To add new actions to config.status. Should be used instead of
AC_OUTPUT_COMMANDS.
- AC_CONFIG_LINKS
Replaces AC_LINK_FILES.
- AC_CONFIG_HEADERS, AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS, AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS,
AC_CONFIG_LINKS, and AC_CONFIG_FILES
They now obey sh: you should no longer use shell variables as
argument. Instead of
test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes && $my_subdirs="$my_subdirs foo"
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS($my_subdirs)
write
if test "$package_foo_enabled" = yes; then
AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS(foo)
fi
- AC_HELP_STRING
To format an Autoconf macro's help string so that it looks pretty
when the user executes `configure --help'.
** Generic Test Macros
- AC_CHECK families
The interface of the AC_CHECK families of macros (decl, header,
type, member, func) is now uniform. They support the same set of
default includes.
- AC_CHECK_DECL, AC_CHECK_DECLS
To check whether a symbol is declared.
- AC_CHECK_SIZEOF, AC_C_CHAR_UNSIGNED.
No longer need a cross-compilation default.
- AC_CHECK_TYPE
The test it performs is much more robust than previously, and makes
it possible to test builtin types in addition to typedefs.
It is now schizophrenic:
- AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, REPLACEMENT)
remains for backward compatibility, but its use is discouraged.
- AC_CHECK_TYPE(TYPE, IF-FOUND, IF-NOT-FOUND, INCLUDES)
behaves exactly like the other AC_CHECK macros.
- AC_CHECK_TYPES
Checks whether given types are supported by the system.
- AC_CHECK_MEMBER, AC_CHECK_MEMBERS
Check for given members in aggregates (e.g., pw_gecos in struct
passwd).
- AC_PROG_CC_STDC
Checks if the compiler supports ISO C, included when needs special
options.
- AC_PROG_CPP
Checking whether the preprocessor indicates missing includes by the
error code. stderr is checked by AC_TRY_CPP only as a fallback.
- AC_LANG
Takes a language as argument and replaces AC_LANG_C,
AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS and AC_LANG_FORTRAN77.
- AC_LANG_PUSH, AC_LANG_POP
Are preferred to AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE.
** Specific Macros
- AC_FUNC_CHOWN, AC_FUNC_MALLOC, AC_FUNC_STRERROR_R,
AC_FUNC_LSTAT_FOLLOWS_SLASHED_SYMLINK, AC_FUNC_STAT, AC_FUNC_LSTAT,
AC_FUNC_ERROR_AT_LINE, AC_FUNC_OBSTACK, AC_FUNC_STRTOD, AC_FUNC_FSEEKO.
New.
- AC_FUNC_GETGROUPS
Sets GETGROUPS_LIBS.
- AC_FUNC_GETLOADAVG
Defines `HAVE_STRUCT_NLIST_N_UN_N_NAME' instead of `NLIST_NAME_UNION'.
- AC_PROG_LEX
Now integrates `AC_DECL_YYTEXT' which is obsoleted.
- AC_SYS_LARGEFILE
Arrange for large-file support.
- AC_EXEEXT, AC_OBJEXT
You are no longer expected to use them: their computation is
performed by default.
** C++ compatibility
Every macro has been revisited in order to support at best CC=c++.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.14:
There was no release of GNU Autoconf 2.14.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.13:
* Support for building on Win32 systems where the only available C or
C++ compiler is the Microsoft Visual C++ command line compiler
(`cl'). Additional support for building on Win32 systems which are
using the Cygwin or Mingw32 environments.
* Support for alternative object file and executable file extensions.
On Win32, for example, these are .obj and .exe. These are discovered
using AC_OBJEXT and AC_EXEEXT, which substitute @OBJEXT@ and
@EXEEXT@ in the output, respectively.
* New macros: AC_CACHE_LOAD, AC_CACHE_SAVE, AC_FUNC_SELECT_ARGTYPES,
AC_VALIDATE_CACHED_SYSTEM_TUPLE, AC_SEARCH_LIBS, AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC,
AC_C_STRINGIZE, AC_CHECK_FILE(S), AC_PROG_F77 (and friends).
* AC_DEFINE now has an optional third argument for a description to be
placed in the config header input file (e.g. config.h.in).
* The C++ code fragment compiled for the C++ compiler test had to be
improved to include an explicit return type for main(). This was
causing failures on systems using recent versions of the EGCS C++
compiler.
* Fixed an important bug in AC_CHECK_TYPE that would cause a configure
script to report that `sometype_t' was present when only `type_t'
was defined.
* Merge of the FSF version of config.guess and config.sub to modernise
these scripts. Add support for a few new hosts in config.guess.
Incorporate latest versions of install-sh, mkinstalldirs and
texinfo.tex from the FSF.
* autoreconf is capable of running automake if necessary (and
applicable).
* Support for Fortran 77. See the Texinfo documentation for details.
* Bug fixes and workarounds for quirky bugs in vendor utilities.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.12:
* AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER can create output files by
concatenating multiple input files separated by colons, like so:
AC_CONFIG_HEADER(config.h:conf.pre:config.h.in:conf.post)
AC_OUTPUT(Makefile:Makefile.in:Makefile.rules)
The arguments may be shell variables, to compute the lists on the fly.
* AC_LINK_FILES and AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS may be called multiple times.
* New macro AC_OUTPUT_COMMANDS adds more commands to run in config.status.
* Bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.11:
* AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX check whether the compiler works.
They also default CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to "-g -O2" for gcc, instead of "-g -O".
* AC_REPLACE_FUNCS defines HAVE_foo if the system has the function `foo'.
* AC_CONFIG_HEADER expands shell variables in its argument.
* New macros: AC_FUNC_FNMATCH, AC_FUNC_SETPGRP.
* The "checking..." messages and the source code for test programs that
fail are saved in config.log.
* Another workaround has been added for seds with small command length limits.
* config.sub and config.guess recognize more system types.
* Bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.10:
* Bug fixes.
* The cache variable names used by `AC_CHECK_LIB(LIB, FUNC, ...)' has
changed: now $ac_cv_lib_LIB_FUNC, previously $ac_cv_lib_LIB.
Major changes in Autoconfs 2.6 through 2.9:
* Bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.5:
* New configure options --bindir, --libdir, --datadir, etc., with
corresponding output variables.
* New macro: AC_CACHE_CHECK, to make using the cache easier.
* config.log contains the command being run as well as any output from it.
* AC_CHECK_LIB can check for libraries with "." or "/" or "+" in their name.
* AC_PROG_INSTALL doesn't cache a path to install-sh, for sharing caches.
* AC_CHECK_PROG, AC_PATH_PROG, AC_CHECK_PROGS, AC_PATH_PROGS, and
AC_CHECK_TOOL can search a path other than $PATH.
* AC_CHECK_SIZEOF takes an optional size to use when cross-compiling.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.4:
* Fix a few bugs found by Emacs testers.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.3:
* Fix the cleanup trap in several ways.
* Handle C compilers that are picky about option placement.
* ifnames gets the version number from the right directory.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.2:
* The ifnames utility is much faster but requires a "new awk" interpreter.
* AC_CHECK_LIB and AC_HAVE_LIBRARY check and add the new
library before existing libs, not after, in case it uses them.
* New macros: AC_FUNC_GETPGRP, AC_CHECK_TOOL.
* Lots of bug fixes.
* Many additions to the TODO file :-)
Major changes in Autoconf 2.1:
* Fix C++ problems.
* More explanations in the manual.
* Fix a spurious failure in the testsuite.
* Clarify some warning messages.
* autoreconf by default only rebuilds configure and config.h.in files
that are older than any of their particular input files; there is a
--force option to use after installing a new version of Autoconf.
Thanks to everybody who's submitted changes and additions to Autoconf!
I've incorporated many of them, and am still considering others for
future releases -- but I didn't want to postpone this release indefinitely.
Caution: don't indiscriminately rebuild configure scripts with
Autoconf version 2. Some configure.in files need minor adjustments to
work with it; the documentation has a chapter on upgrading. A few
configure.in files, including those for GNU Emacs and the GNU C
Library, need major changes because they relied on undocumented
internals of version 1. Future releases of those packages will have
updated configure.in files.
It's best to use GNU m4 1.3 (or later) with Autoconf version 2.
Autoconf now makes heavy use of m4 diversions, which were implemented
inefficiently in GNU m4 releases before 1.3.
Major changes in Autoconf 2.0:
** New copyright terms:
* There are no restrictions on distribution or use of configure scripts.
** Documentation:
* Autoconf manual is reorganized to make information easier to find
and has several new indexes.
* INSTALL is reorganized and clearer and is now made from Texinfo source.
** New utilities:
* autoscan to generate a preliminary configure.in for a package by
scanning its source code for commonly used nonportable functions,
programs, and header files.
* ifnames to list the symbols used in #if and #ifdef directives in a
source tree.
* autoupdate to update a configure.in to use the version 2 macro names.
* autoreconf to recursively remake configure and configuration header
files in a source tree.
** Changed utilities:
* autoheader can take pieces of acconfig.h to replace config.h.{top,bot}.
* autoconf and autoheader can look for package-local definition files
in an alternate directory.
** New macros:
* AC_CACHE_VAL to share results of tests between configure runs.
* AC_DEFUN to define macros, automatically AC_PROVIDE them, and ensure
that macros invoked with AC_REQUIRE don't interrupt other macros.
* AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, AC_CANONICAL_SYSTEM, AC_CANONICAL_HOST, AC_LINK_FILES to
support deciding unguessable features based on the host and target types.
* AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS to recursively configure a source tree.
* AC_ARG_PROGRAM to use the options --program-prefix,
--program-suffix, and --program-transform-name to change the names
of programs being installed.
* AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT to change the default installation prefix.
* AC_TRY_COMPILE to compile a test program without linking it.
* AC_CHECK_TYPE to check whether sys/types.h or stdlib.h defines a given type.
* AC_CHECK_LIB to check for a particular function and library.
* AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT to print test results, on a single line,
whether or not the test succeeds. They obsolete AC_CHECKING and AC_VERBOSE.
* AC_SUBST_FILE to insert one file into another.
* AC_FUNC_MEMCMP to check whether memcmp is 8-bit clean.
* AC_FUNC_STRFTIME to find strftime even if it's in -lintl.
* AC_FUNC_GETMNTENT to find getmntent even if it's in -lsun or -lseq.
* AC_HEADER_SYS_WAIT to check whether sys/wait.h is POSIX.1 compatible.
** Changed macros:
* Many macros renamed systematically, but old names are accepted for
backward compatibility.
* AC_OUTPUT adds the "automatically generated" comment to
non-Makefiles where it finds @configure_input@ in an input file, to
support files with various comment syntaxes.
* AC_OUTPUT does not replace "prefix" and "exec_prefix" in generated
files when they are not enclosed in @ signs.
* AC_OUTPUT allows the optional environment variable CONFIG_STATUS to
override the file name "config.status".
* AC_OUTPUT takes an optional argument for passing variables from
configure to config.status.
* AC_OUTPUT and AC_CONFIG_HEADER allow you to override the input-file names.
* AC_OUTPUT automatically substitutes the values of CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS,
CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS from the environment.
* AC_PROG_CC and AC_PROG_CXX now set CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS, respectively.
* AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install-sh or install.sh in the directory
specified by AC_CONFIG_AUXDIR, or srcdir or srcdir/.. or
srcdir/../.. by default.
* AC_DEFINE, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED, and AC_SUBST are more robust and smaller.
* AC_DEFINE no longer prints anything, because of the new result reporting
mechanism (AC_MSG_CHECKING and AC_MSG_RESULT).
* AC_VERBOSE pays attention to --quiet/--silent, not --verbose.
* AC_ARG_ENABLE and AC_ARG_WITH support whitespace in the arguments to
--enable- and --with- options.
* AC_CHECK_FUNCS and AC_CHECK_HEADERS take optional shell commands to
execute on success or failure.
* Checking for C functions in C++ works.
** Removed macros:
* AC_REMOTE_TAPE and AC_RSH removed; too specific to tar and cpio, and
better maintained with them.
* AC_ARG_ARRAY removed because no one was likely using it.
* AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG replaced with AC_SYS_INTERPRETER, which doesn't
take arguments, for consistency with all of the other specific checks.
** New files:
* Comes with config.sub and config.guess, and uses them optionally.
* Uses config.cache to cache test results. An alternate cache file
can be selected with the --cache-file=FILE option.
* Uses optional shell scripts $prefix/share/config.site and
$prefix/etc/config.site to perform site or system specific initializations.
* configure saves compiler output to ./config.log for debugging.
* New files autoconf.m4 and autoheader.m4 load the other Autoconf macros.
* acsite.m4 is the new name for the system-wide aclocal.m4.
* Has a DejaGnu test suite.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.11:
* AC_PROG_INSTALL calls install.sh with the -c option.
* AC_SET_MAKE cleans up after itself.
* AC_OUTPUT sets prefix and exec_prefix if they weren't set already.
* AC_OUTPUT prevents shells from looking in PATH for config.status.
Plus a few other bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.10:
* autoheader uses config.h.bot if present, analogous to config.h.top.
* AC_PROG_INSTALL looks for install.sh in srcdir or srcdir/.. and
never uses cp.
* AC_PROG_CXX looks for cxx as a C++ compiler.
Plus several bugs fixed.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.9:
* AC_YYTEXT_POINTER replaces AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT.
* AC_SIZEOF_TYPE generates the cpp symbol name automatically,
and autoheader generates entries for those names automatically.
* AC_FIND_X gets the result from xmkmf correctly.
* AC_FIND_X assumes no X if --without-x was given.
* AC_FIND_XTRA adds libraries to the variable X_EXTRA_LIBS.
* AC_PROG_INSTALL finds OSF/1 installbsd.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.8:
** New macros:
* New macros AC_LANG_C, AC_LANG_CPLUSPLUS, AC_LANG_SAVE, AC_LANG_RESTORE,
AC_PROG_CXX, AC_PROG_CXXCPP, AC_REQUIRE_CPP
for checking both C++ and C features in one configure script.
* New macros AC_CHECKING, AC_VERBOSE, AC_WARN, AC_ERROR for printing messages.
* New macros AC_FIND_XTRA, AC_MMAP, AC_SIZEOF_TYPE, AC_PREREQ,
AC_SET_MAKE, AC_ENABLE.
** Changed macros:
* AC_FIND_X looks for X in more places.
* AC_PROG_INSTALL defaults to install.sh instead of cp, if it's in srcdir.
install.sh is distributed with Autoconf.
* AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT has been removed because it can't work, pending
a rewrite of quoting in AC_DEFINE.
* AC_OUTPUT adds its comments in C format when substituting in C files.
* AC_COMPILE_CHECK protects its ECHO-TEXT argument with double quotes.
** New or changed command line options:
* configure accepts --enable-FEATURE[=ARG] and --disable-FEATURE options.
* configure accepts --without-PACKAGE, which sets withval=no.
* configure accepts --x-includes=DIR and --x-libraries=DIR.
* Giving --with-PACKAGE no argument sets withval=yes instead of withval=1.
* configure accepts --help, --version, --silent/--quiet, --no-create options.
* configure accepts and ignores most other Cygnus configure options, and
warns about unknown options.
* config.status accepts --help, --version options.
** Paths and other changes:
* Relative srcdir values are not made absolute.
* The values of @prefix@ and @exec_prefix@ and @top_srcdir@ get substituted.
* Autoconf library files are installed in ${datadir}/autoconf, not ${datadir}.
* autoheader optionally copies config.h.top to the beginning of config.h.in.
* The example Makefile dependencies for configure et al. work better.
* Namespace cleanup: all shell variables used internally by Autoconf
have names beginning with `ac_'.
More big improvements are in process for future releases, but have not
yet been (variously) finished, integrated, tested, or documented enough
to release yet.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.7:
* New macro AC_OBSOLETE.
* Bugs in Makefile.in fixed.
* AC_LONG_FILE_NAMES improved.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.6:
* New macro AC_LONG_64_BITS.
* Multiple .h files can be created.
* AC_FIND_X looks for X files directly if it doesn't find xmkmf.
* AC_ALLOCA defines C_ALLOCA if using alloca.c.
* --with-NAME can take a value, e.g., --with-targets=sun4,hp300bsd.
* Unused --no-create option to configure removed.
* autoheader doesn't change the timestamp of its output file if
the file didn't change.
* All macros that look for libraries now use AC_HAVE_LIBRARY.
* config.status checks three optional environment variables to
modify its behavior.
* The usual bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.5:
* New macros AC_FIND_X, AC_OFF_T, AC_STAT_MACROS_BROKEN, AC_REVISION.
* autoconf and autoheader scripts have GNU standards conforming
--version and --help options (they print their message and exit).
* Many bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.4:
* New macros AC_HAVE_POUNDBANG, AC_TIME_WITH_SYS_TIME, AC_LONG_DOUBLE,
AC_GETGROUPS_T, AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED.
* autoconf and autoheader use the M4 environment variable to determine the
path of the m4 program to use.
* The --macrodir option to autoconf and autoheader specifies the directory
in which acspecific.m4, acgeneral.m4, etc. reside if not the default.
* autoconf and autoheader can take `-' as their file names, which means to
read stdin as input.
* Resulting configure scripts can take a --verbose option which causes them
to print the results of their tests.
* AC_DEFINE quotes its second argument in such a way that spaces, magic
shell characters, etc. will be preserved during various stages of
expansion done by the shell. If you don't want this, use
AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED instead.
* Much textual processing done with external calls to tr and sed have been
internalized with builtin m4 `patsubst' and `translit' calls.
* AC_OUTPUT doesn't hardwire the filenames it outputs. Instead, you can
set the shell variables `gen_files' and `gen_config' to the list of
filenames to output.
* AC_DECLARE_YYTEXT does an AC_SUBST of `LEX_OUTPUT_ROOT', which may be
"lex.yy" or "lexyy", depending on the system.
* AC_PROGRAMS_CHECK takes an optional third arg. If given, it is used as
the default value.
* If AC_ALLOCA chooses alloca.c, it also defines STACK_DIRECTION.
* AC_CONST works much more reliably on more systems.
* Many bug fixes.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.3:
configure no longer requires awk for packages that use a config.h.
Support handling --with-PACKAGE options.
New `autoheader' script to create `config.h.in' from `configure.in'.
Ignore troublesome -lucb and -lPW when searching for alloca.
Rename --exec_prefix to --exec-prefix for GNU standards conformance.
Improve detection of STDC library.
Add AC_HAVE_LIBRARY to check for non-default libraries.
Function checking should work with future GNU libc releases.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.2:
The --srcdir option is now usually unnecessary.
Add a file containing sample comments describing CPP macros.
A comment in config.status tells which host it was configured on.
Substituted variable values can now contain commas.
Fix bugs in various feature checks.
Major changes in Autoconf 1.1:
Added AC_STRCOLL macro.
Made AC_GETLOADAVG check for more things.
AC_OUTPUT argument is now optional.
Various bug fixes.
-----
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