GNU make NEWS -*-indented-text-*- History of user-visible changes. 20 January 2020 See the end of this file for copyrights and conditions. All user-visible changes are more fully described in the GNU make manual, which is contained in this distribution as the file doc/make.texi. See the README file and the GNU make manual for instructions for reporting bugs. Version 4.3.90 (20 Jan 2020) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=109&set=custom * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously if --no-print-directory was seen anywhere in the environment or command line it would take precedence over any --print-directory. Now, the last setting of directory printing options seen will be used, so a command line such as "--no-print-directory -w" _will_ show directory entry/exits. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously the order in which makefiles were remade was not explicitly stated, but it was (roughly) the inverse of the order in which they were processed by make. In this release, the order in which makefiles are rebuilt is the same order in which make processed them, and this is defined to be true in the GNU make manual. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously only simple (one-letter) options were added to the MAKEFLAGS variable that was visible while parsing makefiles. Now, all options are available in MAKEFLAGS. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously makefile variables marked as export were not exported to commands started by the $(shell ...) function. Now, all exported variables are exported to $(shell ...). To detect this change search for 'shell-export' in the .FEATURES variable. * WARNING: New build requirement GNU make utilizes facilities from GNU Gnulib: Gnulib requires certain C99 features in the C compiler and so these features are required by GNU make: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/C99-features-assumed.html The configure script should verify the compiler has these features. * New feature: The .NOTINTERMEDIATE special target .NOTINTERMEDIATE Disables intermediate behavior for specific files, for all files built using a pattern, or for the entire makefile. Implementation provided by Dmitry Goncharov * New feature: The $(let ...) function This function allows user-defined functions to define a set of local variables: values can be assigned to these variables from within the user-defined function and they will not impact global variable assignments. Implementation provided by Jouke Witteveen * New feature: The $(intcmp ...) function This function allows conditional evaluation controlled by a numerical comparison. Implementation provided by Jouke Witteveen * New feature: Improved support for -l / --load-average On systems that provide /proc/loadavg (Linux), GNU make will use it to determine the number of runnable jobs and use this as the current load, avoiding the need for heuristics. Implementation provided by Sven C. Dack * New feature: The --shuffle command line option This option reorders goals and prerequisites to simulate non-determinism that may be seen using parallel build. Shuffle mode allows a form of "fuzz testing" of parallel builds to verify that all prerequisites are correctly described in the makefile. Implementation provided by Sergei Trofimovich * GNU make has sometimes chosen unexpected, and sub-optimal, chains of implicit rules due to the definition of "ought to exist" in the implicit rule search algorithm, which considered any prerequisite mentioned in the makefile as "ought to exist". This algorithm has been modified to prefer prerequisites mentioned explicitly in the target being built and only if that results in no matching rule, will GNU make consider prerequisites mentioned in other targets as "ought to exist". Implementation provided by Dmitry Goncharov * GNU make was performing secondary expansion of all targets, even targets which didn't need to be considered during the build. In this release only targets which are considered will be secondarily expanded. Implementation provided by Dmitry Goncharov * If the MAKEFLAGS variable is modified in a makefile, it will be re-parsed immediately rather than after all makefiles have been read. Note that although all options are parsed immediately, some special effects won't appear until after all makefiles are read. * The -I option accepts an argument "-" (e.g., "-I-") which means "reset the list of search directories to empty". Among other things this can be used to prevent GNU make from searching in its default list of directories. * New debug option "print" will show the recipe to be run, even when silent mode is set, and new debug option "why" will show why a target is rebuilt (which prerequisites caused the target to be considered out of date). Implementation provided by David Boyce * The existing --trace option is made equivalent to --debug=print,why * Target-specific variables can now be marked "unexport". * Exporting / unexporting target-specific variables is handled correctly, so that the attribute of the most specific variable setting is used. * Special targets like .POSIX are detected upon definition, ensuring that any change in behavior takes effect immediately, before the next line is parsed. * When the jobserver is enabled and GNU make decides it is invoking a non-make sub-process and closes the jobserver pipes, it will now add a new option to the MAKEFLAGS environment variable that disables the jobserver. This prevents sub-processes that invoke make from accidentally using other open file descriptors as jobserver pipes. For more information see https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?57242 and https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62397 * A long-standing issue with the directory cache has been resolved: changes made as a side-effect of some other target's recipe are now noticed as expected. * GNU Make can now be built for MS-Windows using the Tiny C tcc compiler. Port provided by Christian Jullien Version 4.3 (19 Jan 2020) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=108&set=custom * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Number signs (#) appearing inside a macro reference or function invocation no longer introduce comments and should not be escaped with backslashes: thus a call such as: foo := $(shell echo '#') is legal. Previously the number sign needed to be escaped, for example: foo := $(shell echo '\#') Now this latter will resolve to "\#". If you want to write makefiles portable to both versions, assign the number sign to a variable: H := \# foo := $(shell echo '$H') This was claimed to be fixed in 3.81, but wasn't, for some reason. To detect this change search for 'nocomment' in the .FEATURES variable. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously appending using '+=' to an empty variable would result in a value starting with a space. Now the initial space is only added if the variable already contains some value. Similarly, appending an empty string does not add a trailing space. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Previously using the .SILENT pseudo-target in a makefile would force all sub-makes to be invoked with the '-s' option, effectively making all sub-makes silent as well. In this release .SILENT only affects the current invocation of make. A side-effect of this is that .SILENT will no longer enable the --no-print-directory option, which using -s will do. * NOTE: Deprecated behavior. Contrary to the documentation, suffix rules with prerequisites are being treated BOTH as simple targets AND as pattern rules. Further, the prerequisites are ignored by the pattern rules. POSIX specifies that in order to be a suffix rule there can be no prerequisites defined. In this release if POSIX mode is enabled then rules with prerequisites cannot be suffix rules. If POSIX mode is not enabled then the previous behavior is preserved (a pattern rule with no extra prerequisites is created) AND a warning about this behavior is generated: warning: ignoring prerequisites on suffix rule definition The POSIX behavior will be adopted as the only behavior in a future release of GNU make so please resolve any warnings. * New feature: Grouped explicit targets Pattern rules have always had the ability to generate multiple targets with a single invocation of the recipe. It's now possible to declare that an explicit rule generates multiple targets with a single invocation. To use this, replace the ":" token with "&:" in the rule. To detect this feature search for 'grouped-target' in the .FEATURES special variable. Implementation contributed by Kaz Kylheku * New feature: .EXTRA_PREREQS variable Words in this variable are considered prerequisites of targets but they are not added to any of the automatic variable values when expanding the recipe. This variable can either be global (applies to all targets) or a target-specific variable. To detect this feature search for 'extra-prereqs' in the .FEATURES special variable. Implementation contributed by Christof Warlich * Makefiles can now specify the '-j' option in their MAKEFLAGS variable and this will cause make to enable that parallelism mode. * GNU make will now use posix_spawn() on systems where it is available. If you prefer to use fork/exec even on systems where posix_spawn() is present, you can use the --disable-posix-spawn option to configure. Implementation contributed by Aron Barath * Error messages printed when invoking non-existent commands have been cleaned up and made consistent. * The previous limit of 63 jobs under -jN on MS-Windows is now increased to 4095. That limit includes the subprocess started by the $(shell) function. * A new option --no-silent has been added, that cancels the effect of the -s/--silent/--quiet flag. * A new option -E has been added as a short alias for --eval. * All wildcard expansion within GNU make, including $(wildcard ...), will sort the results. See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?52076 * Interoperate with newer GNU libc and musl C runtime libraries. * Performance improvements provided by Paolo Bonzini GNU make Developer News * Import the GNU standard bootstrap script to replace the hand-rolled "make update" method for building code from a GNU make Git repository. * Rework the source distribution to move source files into the src/* subdirectory. This aligns with modern best practices in GNU. * Replace local portability code with Gnulib content. Unfortunately due to a problem with Gnulib support for getloadavg, this forces a requirement on Automake 1.16 or above in order to build from Git. See README.git. Version 4.2.1 (10 Jun 2016) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=107&set=custom This release is a bug-fix release. Version 4.2 (22 May 2016) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=106&set=custom * New variable: $(.SHELLSTATUS) is set to the exit status of the last != or $(shell ...) function invoked in this instance of make. This will be "0" if successful or not "0" if not successful. The variable value is unset if no != or $(shell ...) function has been invoked. * The $(file ...) function can now read from a file with $(file * The interface to GNU make's "jobserver" is stable as documented in the manual, for tools which may want to access it. WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! The internal-only command line option --jobserver-fds has been renamed for publishing, to --jobserver-auth. * The amount of parallelism can be determined by querying MAKEFLAGS, even when the job server is enabled (previously MAKEFLAGS would always contain only "-j", with no number, when job server was enabled). * VMS-specific changes: * Perl test harness now works. * Full support for converting Unix exit status codes to VMS exit status codes. BACKWARD INCOMPATIBILITY Notice: On a child failure the VMS exit code is now the encoded Unix exit status that Make usually generates, not the VMS exit status of the child. Version 4.1 (05 Oct 2014) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=105&set=custom * New variables: $(MAKE_TERMOUT) and $(MAKE_TERMERR) are set to non-empty values if stdout or stderr, respectively, are believed to be writing to a terminal. These variables are exported by default. * Allow a no-text-argument form of the $(file ...) function. Without a text argument nothing is written to the file: it is simply opened in the requested mode, then closed again. * Change the fatal error for mixed explicit and implicit rules, that was introduced in GNU make 3.82, to a non-fatal error. However, this syntax is still deprecated and may return to being illegal in a future version of GNU make. Makefiles that rely on this syntax should be fixed. See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?33034 * VMS-specific changes: * Support for library files added, including support for using the GNV ar utility. * Partial support for properly encoding Unix exit status codes into VMS exit status codes. WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! These are different exit status codes than Make exited with in the past. * Macros to hold the current make command are set up to translate the argv[0] string to a VMS format path name and prefix it with "MCR " so that the macro has a space in it. WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! This may break complex makefiles that do processing on those macros. This is unlikely because so much in that area was not and is still not currently working on VMS, it is unlikely to find such a complex makefile, so this is more likely to impact construction of a future makefile. * A command file is always used to run the commands for a recipe. WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Running the make self tests has exposed that there are significant differences in behavior when running with the command file mode. It is unknown if this will be noticed by most existing VMS makefiles. Version 4.0 (09 Oct 2013) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=101&set=custom * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! If .POSIX is specified, then make adheres to the POSIX backslash/newline handling requirements, which introduces the following changes to the standard backslash/newline handling in non-recipe lines: * Any trailing space before the backslash is preserved * Each backslash/newline (plus subsequent whitespace) is converted to a single space * New feature: GNU Guile integration This version of GNU make can be compiled with GNU Guile integration. GNU Guile serves as an embedded extension language for make. See the "Guile Function" section in the GNU Make manual for details. Currently GNU Guile 1.8 and 2.0+ are supported. In Guile 1.8 there is no support for internationalized character sets. In Guile 2.0+, scripts can be encoded in UTF-8. * New command line option: --output-sync (-O) enables grouping of output by target or by recursive make. This is useful during parallel builds to avoid mixing output from different jobs together giving hard-to-understand results. Original implementation by David Boyce . Reworked and enhanced by Frank Heckenbach . Windows support by Eli Zaretskii . * New command line option: --trace enables tracing of targets. When enabled the recipe to be invoked is printed even if it would otherwise be suppressed by .SILENT or a "@" prefix character. Also before each recipe is run the makefile name and linenumber where it was defined are shown as well as the prerequisites that caused the target to be considered out of date. * New command line option argument: --debug now accepts a "n" (none) flag which disables all debugging settings that are currently enabled. * New feature: The "job server" capability is now supported on Windows. Implementation contributed by Troy Runkel * New feature: The .ONESHELL capability is now supported on Windows. Support added by Eli Zaretskii . * New feature: "!=" shell assignment operator as an alternative to the $(shell ...) function. Implemented for compatibility with BSD makefiles. Note there are subtle differences between "!=" and $(shell ...). See the description in the GNU make manual. WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Variables ending in "!" previously defined as "variable!= value" will now be interpreted as shell assignment. Change your assignment to add whitespace between the "!" and "=": "variable! = value" * New feature: "::=" simple assignment operator as defined by POSIX in 2012. This operator has identical functionality to ":=" in GNU make, but will be portable to any implementation of make conforming to a sufficiently new version of POSIX (see http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=330). It is not necessary to define the .POSIX target to access this operator. * New feature: Loadable objects This version of GNU make contains a "technology preview": the ability to load dynamic objects into the make runtime. These objects can be created by the user and can add extended functionality, usable by makefiles. * New function: $(file ...) writes to a file. * New variable: $(GNUMAKEFLAGS) will be parsed for make flags, just like MAKEFLAGS is. It can be set in the environment or the makefile, containing GNU make-specific flags to allow your makefile to be portable to other versions of make. Once this variable is parsed, GNU make will set it to the empty string so that flags will not be duplicated on recursion. * New variable: `MAKE_HOST' gives the name of the host architecture make was compiled for. This is the same value you see after 'Built for' when running 'make --version'. * Behavior of MAKEFLAGS and MFLAGS is more rigorously defined. All simple flags are grouped together in the first word of MAKEFLAGS. No options that accept arguments appear in the first word. If no simple flags are present MAKEFLAGS begins with a space. Flags with both short and long versions always use the short versions in MAKEFLAGS. Flags are listed in alphabetical order using ASCII ordering. MFLAGS never begins with "- ". * Setting the -r and -R options in MAKEFLAGS inside a makefile now works as expected, removing all built-in rules and variables, respectively. * If a recipe fails, the makefile name and linenumber of the recipe are shown. * A .RECIPEPREFIX setting is remembered per-recipe and variables expanded in that recipe also use that recipe prefix setting. * In -p output, .RECIPEPREFIX settings are shown and all target-specific variables are output as if in a makefile, instead of as comments. * On MS-Windows, recipes that use ".." quoting will no longer force invocation of commands via temporary batch files and stock Windows shells, they will be short-circuited and invoked directly. (In other words, " is no longer a special character for stock Windows shells.) This avoids hitting shell limits for command length when quotes are used, but nothing else in the command requires the shell. This change could potentially mean some minor incompatibilities in behavior when the recipe uses quoted string on shell command lines. Version 3.82 (28 Jul 2010) A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://sv.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=104&set=custom * Compiling GNU make now requires a conforming ISO C 1989 compiler and standard runtime library. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! The POSIX standard for make was changed in the 2008 version in a fundamentally incompatible way: make is required to invoke the shell as if the '-e' flag were provided. Because this would break many makefiles that have been written to conform to the original text of the standard, the default behavior of GNU make remains to invoke the shell with simply '-c'. However, any makefile specifying the .POSIX special target will follow the new POSIX standard and pass '-e' to the shell. See also .SHELLFLAGS below. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! The '$?' variable now contains all prerequisites that caused the target to be considered out of date, even if they do not exist (previously only existing targets were provided in $?). * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Wildcards were not documented as returning sorted values, but the results have been sorted up until this release.. If your makefiles require sorted results from wildcard expansions, use the $(sort ...) function to request it explicitly. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! As a result of parser enhancements, three backward-compatibility issues exist: first, a prerequisite containing an "=" cannot be escaped with a backslash any longer. You must create a variable containing an "=" and use that variable in the prerequisite. Second, variable names can no longer contain whitespace, unless you put the whitespace in a variable and use the variable. Third, in previous versions of make it was sometimes not flagged as an error for explicit and pattern targets to appear in the same rule. Now this is always reported as an error. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! The pattern-specific variables and pattern rules are now applied in the shortest stem first order instead of the definition order (variables and rules with the same stem length are still applied in the definition order). This produces the usually-desired behavior where more specific patterns are preferred. To detect this feature search for 'shortest-stem' in the .FEATURES special variable. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! The library search behavior has changed to be compatible with the standard linker behavior. Prior to this version for prerequisites specified using the -lfoo syntax make first searched for libfoo.so in the current directory, vpath directories, and system directories. If that didn't yield a match, make then searched for libfoo.a in these directories. Starting with this version make searches first for libfoo.so and then for libfoo.a in each of these directories in order. * New command line option: --eval=STRING causes STRING to be evaluated as makefile syntax (akin to using the $(eval ...) function). The evaluation is performed after all default rules and variables are defined, but before any makefiles are read. * New special variable: .RECIPEPREFIX allows you to reset the recipe introduction character from the default (TAB) to something else. The first character of this variable value is the new recipe introduction character. If the variable is set to the empty string, TAB is used again. It can be set and reset at will; recipes will use the value active when they were first parsed. To detect this feature check the value of $(.RECIPEPREFIX). * New special variable: .SHELLFLAGS allows you to change the options passed to the shell when it invokes recipes. By default the value will be "-c" (or "-ec" if .POSIX is set). * New special target: .ONESHELL instructs make to invoke a single instance of the shell and provide it with the entire recipe, regardless of how many lines it contains. As a special feature to allow more straightforward conversion of makefiles to use .ONESHELL, any recipe line control characters ('@', '+', or '-') will be removed from the second and subsequent recipe lines. This happens _only_ if the SHELL value is deemed to be a standard POSIX-style shell. If not, then no interior line control characters are removed (as they may be part of the scripting language used with the alternate SHELL). * New variable modifier 'private': prefixing a variable assignment with the modifier 'private' suppresses inheritance of that variable by prerequisites. This is most useful for target- and pattern-specific variables. * New make directive: 'undefine' allows you to undefine a variable so that it appears as if it was never set. Both $(flavor) and $(origin) functions will return 'undefined' for such a variable. To detect this feature search for 'undefine' in the .FEATURES special variable. * The parser for variable assignments has been enhanced to allow multiple modifiers ('export', 'override', 'private') on the same line as variables, including define/endef variables, and in any order. Also, it is possible to create variables and targets named as these modifiers. * The 'define' make directive now allows a variable assignment operator after the variable name, to allow for simple, conditional, or appending multi-line variable assignment. * VMS-specific changes: * Michael Gehre (at VISTEC-SEMI dot COM) supplied a fix for a problem with timestamps of object modules in OLBs. The timestamps were not correctly adjusted to GMT based time, if the local VMS time was using a daylight saving algorithm and if daylight saving was switched off. * John Eisenbraun (at HP dot COM) supplied fixes and and an enhancement to append output redirection in action lines. * Rework of ctrl+c and ctrl+y handling. * Fix a problem with cached strings, which showed on case-insensitive file systems. * Build fixes for const-ified code in VMS specific sources. * A note on appending the redirected output. With this change, a simple mechanism is implemented to make ">>" work in action lines. In VMS there is no simple feature like ">>" to have DCL command or program output redirected and appended to a file. GNU make for VMS already implements the redirection of output. If such a redirection is detected, an ">" on the action line, GNU make creates a DCL command procedure to execute the action and to redirect its output. Based on that, now ">>" is also recognized and a similar but different command procedure is created to implement the append. The main idea here is to create a temporary file which collects the output and which is appended to the wanted output file. Then the temporary file is deleted. This is all done in the command procedure to keep changes in make small and simple. This obviously has some limitations but it seems good enough compared with the current ">" implementation. (And in my opinion, redirection is not really what GNU make has to do.) With this approach, it may happen that the temporary file is not yet appended and is left in SYS$SCRATCH. The temporary file names look like "CMDxxxxx.". Any time the created command procedure can not complete, this happens. Pressing Ctrl+Y to abort make is one case. In case of Ctrl+Y the associated command procedure is left in SYS$SCRATCH as well. Its name is CMDxxxxx.COM. * Change in the Ctrl+Y handling. The CtrlY handler now uses $delprc to delete all children. This way also actions with DCL commands will be stopped. As before the CtrlY handler then sends SIGQUIT to itself, which is handled in common code. * Change in deleteing temporary command files. Temporary command files are now deleted in the vms child termination handler. That deletes them even if a Ctrl+C was pressed. * The behavior of pressing Ctrl+C is not changed. It still has only an effect, after the current action is terminated. If that doesn't happen or takes too long, Ctrl+Y should be used instead. Version 3.81 (01 Apr 2006) * GNU make is ported to OS/2. * GNU make is ported to MinGW. The MinGW build is only supported by the build_w32.bat batch file; see the file README.W32 for more details. * WARNING: Future backward-incompatibility! Up to and including this release, the '$?' variable does not contain any prerequisite that does not exist, even though that prerequisite might have caused the target to rebuild. Starting with the _next_ release of GNU make, '$?' will contain all prerequisites that caused the target to be considered out of date. See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?16051 * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! GNU make now implements a generic "second expansion" feature on the prerequisites of both explicit and implicit (pattern) rules. In order to enable this feature, the special target '.SECONDEXPANSION' must be defined before the first target which takes advantage of it. If this feature is enabled then after all rules have been parsed the prerequisites are expanded again, this time with all the automatic variables in scope. This means that in addition to using standard SysV $$@ in prerequisites lists, you can also use complex functions such as $$(notdir $$@) etc. This behavior applies to implicit rules, as well, where the second expansion occurs when the rule is matched. However, this means that when '.SECONDEXPANSION' is enabled you must double-quote any "$" in your filenames; instead of "foo: boo$$bar" you now must write "foo: foo$$$$bar". Note that the SysV $$@ etc. feature, which used to be available by default, is now ONLY available when the .SECONDEXPANSION target is defined. If your makefiles take advantage of this SysV feature you will need to update them. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! In order to comply with POSIX, the way in which GNU make processes backslash-newline sequences in recipes has changed. If your makefiles use backslash-newline sequences inside of single-quoted strings in recipes you will be impacted by this change. See the GNU make manual subsection "Splitting Recipe Lines" (node "Splitting Lines"), in section "Recipe Syntax", chapter "Writing Recipe in Rules", for details. * WARNING: Backward-incompatibility! Some previous versions of GNU make had a bug where "#" in a function invocation such as $(shell ...) was treated as a make comment. A workaround was to escape these with backslashes. This bug has been fixed: if your makefile uses "\#" in a function invocation the backslash is now preserved, so you'll need to remove it. * New command line option: -L (--check-symlink-times). On systems that support symbolic links, if this option is given then GNU make will use the most recent modification time of any symbolic links that are used to resolve target files. The default behavior remains as it always has: use the modification time of the actual target file only. * The "else" conditional line can now be followed by any other valid conditional on the same line: this does not increase the depth of the conditional nesting, so only one "endif" is required to close the conditional. * All pattern-specific variables that match a given target are now used (previously only the first match was used). * Target-specific variables can be marked as exportable using the "export" keyword. * In a recursive $(call ...) context, any extra arguments from the outer call are now masked in the context of the inner call. * Implemented a solution for the "thundering herd" problem with "-j -l". This version of GNU make uses an algorithm suggested by Thomas Riedl to track the number of jobs started in the last second and artificially adjust GNU make's view of the system's load average accordingly. * New special variables available in this release: - .INCLUDE_DIRS: Expands to a list of directories that make searches for included makefiles. - .FEATURES: Contains a list of special features available in this version of GNU make. - .DEFAULT_GOAL: Set the name of the default goal make will use if no goals are provided on the command line. - MAKE_RESTARTS: If set, then this is the number of times this instance of make has been restarted (see "How Makefiles Are Remade" in the manual). - New automatic variable: $| (added in 3.80, actually): contains all the order-only prerequisites defined for the target. * New functions available in this release: - $(lastword ...) returns the last word in the list. This gives identical results as $(word $(words ...) ...), but is much faster. - $(abspath ...) returns the absolute path (all "." and ".." directories resolved, and any duplicate "/" characters removed) for each path provided. - $(realpath ...) returns the canonical pathname for each path provided. The canonical pathname is the absolute pathname, with all symbolic links resolved as well. - $(info ...) prints its arguments to stdout. No makefile name or line number info, etc. is printed. - $(flavor ...) returns the flavor of a variable. - $(or ...) provides a short-circuiting OR conditional: each argument is expanded. The first true (non-empty) argument is returned; no further arguments are expanded. Expands to empty if there are no true arguments. - $(and ...) provides a short-circuiting AND conditional: each argument is expanded. The first false (empty) argument is returned; no further arguments are expanded. Expands to the last argument if all arguments are true. * Changes made for POSIX compatibility: - Only touch targets (under -t) if they have a recipe. - Setting the SHELL make variable does NOT change the value of the SHELL environment variable given to programs invoked by make. As an enhancement to POSIX, if you export the make variable SHELL then it will be set in the environment, just as before. * On MS Windows systems, explicitly setting SHELL to a pathname ending in "cmd" or "cmd.exe" (case-insensitive) will force GNU make to use the DOS command interpreter in batch mode even if a UNIX-like shell could be found on the system. * On VMS there is now support for case-sensitive filesystems such as ODS5. See the README.VMS file for information. * Parallel builds (-jN) no longer require a working Bourne shell on Windows platforms. They work even with the stock Windows shells, such as cmd.exe and command.com. * Updated to autoconf 2.59, automake 1.9.5, and gettext 0.14.1. Users should not be impacted. * New translations for Swedish, Chinese (simplified), Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Kinyarwandan, and Irish. Many updated translations. A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=103 Version 3.80 (03 Oct 2002) * A new feature exists: order-only prerequisites. These prerequisites affect the order in which targets are built, but they do not impact the rebuild/no-rebuild decision of their dependents. That is to say, they allow you to require target B be built before target A, without requiring that target A will always be rebuilt if target B is updated. Patch for this feature provided by Greg McGary . * For compatibility with SysV make, GNU make now supports the peculiar syntax $$@, $$(@D), and $$(@F) in the prerequisites list of a rule. This syntax is only valid within explicit and static pattern rules: it cannot be used in implicit (suffix or pattern) rules. Edouard G. Parmelan provided a patch implementing this feature; however, I decided to implement it in a different way. * The argument to the "ifdef" conditional is now expanded before it's tested, so it can be a constructed variable name. Similarly, the arguments to "export" (when not used in a variable definition context) and "unexport" are also now expanded. * A new function is defined: $(value ...). The argument to this function is the _name_ of a variable. The result of the function is the value of the variable, without having been expanded. * A new function is defined: $(eval ...). The arguments to this function should expand to makefile commands, which will then be evaluated as if they had appeared in the makefile. In combination with define/endef multiline variable definitions this is an extremely powerful capability. The $(value ...) function is also sometimes useful here. * A new built-in variable is defined, $(MAKEFILE_LIST). It contains a list of each makefile GNU make has read, or started to read, in the order in which they were encountered. So, the last filename in the list when a makefile is just being read (before any includes) is the name of the current makefile. * A new built-in variable is defined: $(.VARIABLES). When it is expanded it returns a complete list of variable names defined by all makefiles at that moment. * A new command line option is defined, -B or --always-make. If specified GNU make will consider all targets out-of-date even if they would otherwise not be. * The arguments to $(call ...) functions were being stored in $1, $2, etc. as recursive variables, even though they are fully expanded before assignment. This means that escaped dollar signs ($$ etc.) were not behaving properly. Now the arguments are stored as simple variables. This may mean that if you added extra escaping to your $(call ...) function arguments you will need to undo it now. * The variable invoked by $(call ...) can now be recursive: unlike other variables it can reference itself and this will not produce an error when it is used as the first argument to $(call ...) (but only then). * New pseudo-target .LOW_RESOLUTION_TIME, superseding the configure option --disable-nsec-timestamps. You might need this if your build process depends on tools like "cp -p" preserving time stamps, since "cp -p" (right now) doesn't preserve the subsecond portion of a time stamp. * Updated translations for French, Galician, German, Japanese, Korean, and Russian. New translations for Croatian, Danish, Hebrew, and Turkish. * Updated internationalization support to Gettext 0.11.5. GNU make now uses Gettext's "external" feature, and does not include any internationalization code itself. Configure will search your system for an existing implementation of GNU Gettext (only GNU Gettext is acceptable) and use it if it exists. If not, NLS will be disabled. See ABOUT-NLS for more information. * Updated to autoconf 2.54 and automake 1.7. Users should not be impacted. * VMS-specific changes: * In default.c define variable ARCH as IA64 for VMS on Itanium systems. * In makefile.vms avoid name collision for glob and globfree. * This is the VMS port of GNU Make done by Hartmut.Becker@compaq.com. It is based on the specific version 3.77k and on 3.78.1. 3.77k was done by Klaus Kämpf , the code was based on the VMS port of GNU Make 3.60 by Mike Moretti. It was ported on OpenVMS/Alpha V7.1, DECC V5.7-006. It was re-build and tested on OpenVMS/Alpha V7.2, OpenVMS/VAX 7.1 and 5.5-2. Different versions of DECC were used. VAXC was tried: it fails; but it doesn't seem worth to get it working. There are still some PTRMISMATCH warnings during the compile. Although perl is working on VMS the test scripts don't work. The function $shell is still missing. There is a known bug in some of the VMS CRTLs. It is in the shipped versions of VMS V7.2 and V7.2-1 and in the currently (October 1999) available ECOs for VMS V7.1 and newer versions. It is fixed in versions shipped with newer VMS versions and all ECO kits after October 1999. It only shows up during the daylight saving time period (DST): stat() returns a modification time 1 hour ahead. This results in GNU make warning messages. For a just created source you will see: $ gmake x.exe gmake.exe;1: *** Warning: File 'x.c' has modification time in the future (940582863 > 940579269) cc /obj=x.obj x.c link x.obj /exe=x.exe gmake.exe;1: *** Warning: Clock skew detected. Your build may be incomplete. A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=102 Version 3.79.1 (23 Jun 2000) * .SECONDARY with no prerequisites now prevents any target from being removed because make thinks it's an intermediate file, not just those listed in the makefile. * New configure option --disable-nsec-timestamps, but this was superseded in later versions by the .LOW_RESOLUTION_TIME pseudo-target. Version 3.79 (04 Apr 2000) * GNU make optionally supports internationalization and locales via the GNU gettext (or local gettext if suitable) package. See the ABOUT-NLS file for more information on configuring GNU make for NLS. * Previously, GNU make quoted variables such as MAKEFLAGS and MAKEOVERRIDES for proper parsing by the shell. This allowed them to be used within make build scripts. However, using them there is not proper behavior: they are meant to be passed to subshells via the environment. Unfortunately the values were not quoted properly to be passed through the environment. This meant that make didn't properly pass some types of command line values to submakes. With this version we change that behavior: now these variables are quoted properly for passing through the environment, which is the correct way to do it. If you previously used these variables explicitly within a make rule you may need to re-examine your use for correctness given this change. * A new pseudo-target .NOTPARALLEL is available. If defined, the current makefile is run serially regardless of the value of -j. However, submakes are still eligible for parallel execution. * The --debug option has changed: it now allows optional flags controlling the amount and type of debugging output. By default only a minimal amount information is generated, displaying the names of "normal" targets (not makefiles) that were deemed out of date and in need of being rebuilt. Note that the -d option behaves as before: it takes no arguments and all debugging information is generated. * The `-p' (print database) output now includes filename and linenumber information for variable definitions, to aid debugging. * The wordlist function no longer reverses its arguments if the "start" value is greater than the "end" value. If that's true, nothing is returned. * Hartmut Becker provided many updates for the VMS port of GNU make. See the README.VMS file for more details. * VMS-specific changes: * Fix a problem with automatically remaking makefiles. GNU make uses an execve to restart itself after a successful remake of the makefile. On UNIX systems execve replaces the running program with a new one and resets all signal handling to the default. On VMS execve creates a child process, signal and exit handlers of the parent are still active, and, unfortunately, corrupt the exit code from the child. Fix in job.c: ignore SIGCHLD. * Added some switches to reflect latest features of DECC. Modifications in makefile.vms. * Set some definitions to reflect latest features of DECC. Modifications in config.h-vms (which is copied to config.h). * Added extern strcmpi declaration to avoid 'implicitly declared' messages. Modification in make.h. * Default rule for C++, conditionals for gcc (GCC_IS_NATIVE) or DEC/Digital/ Compaq c/c++ compilers. Modifications in default.c. * Usage of opendir() and friends, suppress file version. Modifications in dir.c. * Added VMS specific code to handle ctrl+c and ctrl+y to abort make. Modifications in job.c. * Added support to have case sensitive targets and dependencies but to still use case blind file names. This is especially useful for Java makefiles on VMS: .SUFFIXES : .SUFFIXES : .class .java .java.class : javac "$< HelloWorld.class : HelloWorld.java * A new macro WANT_CASE_SENSITIVE_TARGETS in config.h-vms was introduced. It needs to be enabled to get this feature; default is disabled. The macro HAVE_CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS must not be touched: it is still enabled. Modifications in file.c and config.h-vms. * Bootstrap make to start building make is still makefile.com, but make needs to be re-made with a make to make a correct version: ignore all possible warnings, delete all objects, rename make.exe to a different name and run it. * Made some minor modifications to the bootstrap build makefile.com. Version 3.78 (22 Sep 1999) * Two new functions, $(error ...) and $(warning ...) are available. The former will cause make to fail and exit immediately upon expansion of the function, with the text provided as the error message. The latter causes the text provided to be printed as a warning message, but make proceeds normally. * A new function $(call ...) is available. This allows users to create their own parameterized macros and invoke them later. Original implementation of this function was provided by Han-Wen Nienhuys . * A new function $(if ...) is available. It provides if-then-else capabilities in a builtin function. Original implementation of this function was provided by Han-Wen Nienhuys . * Make defines a new variable, .LIBPATTERNS. This variable controls how library dependency expansion (dependencies like ``-lfoo'') is performed. * Make accepts CRLF sequences as well as traditional LF, for compatibility with makefiles created on other operating systems. * Make accepts a new option: -R, or --no-builtin-variables. This option disables the definition of the rule-specific builtin variables (CC, LD, AR, etc.). Specifying this option forces -r (--no-builtin-rules) as well. * A "job server" feature, suggested by Howard Chu . On systems that support POSIX pipe(2) semantics, GNU make can now pass -jN options to submakes rather than forcing them all to use -j1. The top make and all its sub-make processes use a pipe to communicate with each other to ensure that no more than N jobs are started across all makes. To get the old behavior of -j back, you can configure make with the --disable-job-server option. * The confusing term "dependency" has been replaced by the more accurate and standard term "prerequisite", both in the manual and in all GNU make output. * GNU make supports the "big archive" library format introduced in AIX 4.3. * GNU make supports large files on AIX, HP-UX, and IRIX. These changes were provided by Paul Eggert . (Large file support for Solaris and Linux was introduced in 3.77, but the configuration had issues: these have also been resolved). * The Windows 95/98/NT (W32) version of GNU make now has native support for the Cygnus Cygwin release B20.1 shell (bash). * The GNU make regression test suite, long available separately "under the table", has been integrated into the release. You can invoke it by running "make check" in the distribution. Note that it requires Perl (either Perl 4 or Perl 5) to run. Version 3.77 (28 Jul 1998) * Implement BSD make's "?=" variable assignment operator. The variable is assigned the specified value only if that variable is not already defined. * Make defines a new variable, "CURDIR", to contain the current working directory (after the -C option, if any, has been processed). Modifying this variable has no effect on the operation of make. * Make defines a new default RCS rule, for new-style master file storage: ``% :: RCS/%'' (note no ``,v'' suffix). Make defines new default rules for DOS-style C++ file naming conventions, with ``.cpp'' suffixes. All the same rules as for ``.cc'' and ``.C'' suffixes are provided, along with LINK.cpp and COMPILE.cpp macros (which default to the same value as LINK.cc and COMPILE.cc). Note CPPFLAGS is still C preprocessor flags! You should use CXXFLAGS to change C++ compiler flags. * A new feature, "target-specific variable values", has been added. This is a large change so please see the appropriate sections of the manual for full details. Briefly, syntax like this: TARGET: VARIABLE = VALUE defines VARIABLE as VALUE within the context of TARGET. This is similar to SunOS make's "TARGET := VARIABLE = VALUE" feature. Note that the assignment may be of any type, not just recursive, and that the override keyword is available. COMPATIBILITY: This new syntax means that if you have any rules where the first or second dependency has an equal sign (=) in its name, you'll have to escape them with a backslash: "foo : bar\=baz". Further, if you have any dependencies which already contain "\=", you'll have to escape both of them: "foo : bar\\\=baz". * A new appendix listing the most common error and warning messages generated by GNU make, with some explanation, has been added to the GNU make User's Manual. * Updates to the GNU make Customs library support (see README.customs). * Updates to the Windows 95/NT port from Rob Tulloh (see README.W32), and to the DOS port from Eli Zaretski (see README.DOS). * VMS-specific changes: * This is the VMS port of GNU Make. It is based on the VMS port of GNU Make 3.60 by Mike Moretti. This port was done by Klaus Kämpf * There is first-level support available from proGIS Software, Germany. Visit their web-site at http://www.progis.de to get information about other vms software and forthcoming updates to gnu make. * /bin/sh style I/O redirection is supported. You can now write lines like mcr sys$disk:[]program.exe < input.txt > output.txt &> error.txt * Makefile variables are looked up in the current environment. You can set symbols or logicals in DCL and evaluate them in the Makefile via $(). Variables defined in the Makefile override VMS symbols/logicals ! * Functions for file names are working now. See the GNU Make manual for $(dir ...) and $(wildcard ...). Unix-style and VMS-style names are supported as arguments. * The default rules are set up for GNU C. Building an executable from a single source file is as easy as 'make file.exe'. * The variable $(ARCH) is predefined as ALPHA or VAX resp. Makefiles for different VMS systems can now be written by checking $(ARCH) as in ifeq ($(ARCH),ALPHA) $(ECHO) "On the Alpha" else $(ECHO) "On the VAX" endif * Command lines of excessive length are correctly broken and written to a batch file in sys$scratch for later execution. There's no limit to the lengths of commands (and no need for .opt files :-) any more. * Empty commands are handled correctly and don't end in a new DCL process. Version 3.76.1 (19 Sep 1997) * Small (but serious) bug fix. Quick rollout to get into the GNU source CD. Version 3.76 (16 Sep 1997) * GNU make now uses automake to control Makefile.in generation. This should make it more consistent with the GNU standards. * VPATH functionality has been changed to incorporate the VPATH+ patch, previously maintained by Paul Smith . See the manual. * Make defines a new variable, `MAKECMDGOALS', to contain the goals that were specified on the command line, if any. Modifying this variable has no effect on the operation of make. * A new function, `$(wordlist S,E,TEXT)', is available: it returns a list of words from number S to number E (inclusive) of TEXT. * Instead of an error, detection of future modification times gives a warning and continues. The warning is repeated just before GNU make exits, so it is less likely to be lost. * Fix the $(basename) and $(suffix) functions so they only operate on the last filename, not the entire string: Command Old Result New Result ------- ---------- ---------- $(basename a.b) a a $(basename a.b/c) a a.b/c $(suffix a.b) b b $(suffix a.b/c) b/c * The $(strip) function now removes newlines as well as TABs and spaces. * The $(shell) function now changes CRLF (\r\n) pairs to a space as well as newlines (\n). * Updates to the Windows 95/NT port from Rob Tulloh (see README.W32). * Eli Zaretskii has updated the port to 32-bit protected mode on MSDOS and MS-Windows, building with the DJGPP v2 port of GNU C/C++ compiler and utilities. See README.DOS for details, and direct all questions concerning this port to Eli Zaretskii or DJ Delorie . * VMS-specific changes: * John W. Eaton has updated the VMS port to support libraries and VPATH. * The cd command is supported if it's called as $(CD). This invokes the 'builtin_cd' command which changes the directory. Calling 'set def' doesn't do the trick, since a sub-shell is spawned for this command, the directory is changed *in this sub-shell* and the sub-shell ends. * Libraries are not supported. They were in GNU Make 3.60 but somehow I didn't care porting the code. If there is enough interest, I'll do it at some later time. * The variable $^ separates files with commas instead of spaces (It's the natural thing to do for VMS). * See defaults.c for VMS default suffixes and my definitions for default rules and variables. * The shell function is not implemented yet. * Load average routines haven't been implemented for VMS yet. * The default include directory for including other makefiles is SYS$SYSROOT:[SYSLIB] (I don't remember why I didn't just use SYS$LIBRARY: instead; maybe it wouldn't work that way). * The default makefiles make looks for are: makefile.vms, gnumakefile, makefile., and gnumakefile. . * The stat() function and handling of time stamps in VMS is broken, so I replaced it with a hack in vmsfunctions.c. I will provide a full rewrite somewhere in the future. Be warned, the time resolution inside make is less than what vms provides. This might be a problem on the faster Alphas. * You can use a : in a filename only if you precede it with a backslash ('\'). E.g.- hobbes\:[bogas.files] * Make ignores success, informational, or warning errors (-S-, -I-, or -W-). But it will stop on -E- and -F- errors. (unless you do something to override this in your makefile, or whatever). * Remote stuff isn't implemented yet. * Multiple line DCL commands, such as "if" statements, must be put inside command files. You can run a command file by using \@. Version 3.75 (27 Aug 1996) * The directory messages printed by `-w' and implicitly in sub-makes, are now omitted if Make runs no commands and has no other messages to print. * Make now detects files that for whatever reason have modification times in the future and gives an error. Files with such impossible timestamps can result from unsynchronized clocks, or archived distributions containing bogus timestamps; they confuse Make's dependency engine thoroughly. * The new directive `sinclude' is now recognized as another name for `-include', for compatibility with some other Makes. * Aaron Digulla has contributed a port to AmigaDOS. See README.Amiga for details, and direct all Amiga-related questions to . * Rob Tulloh of Tivoli Systems has contributed a port to Windows NT or 95. See README.W32 for details, and direct all Windows-related questions to . * VMS-specific changes: * Lots of default settings are adapted for VMS. See default.c. * Long command lines are now converted to command files. * Comma (',') as a separator is now allowed. See makefile.vms for an example. Version 3.73 (05 Apr 1995) * Converted to use Autoconf version 2, so `configure' has some new options. See INSTALL for details. * You can now send a SIGUSR1 signal to Make to toggle printing of debugging output enabled by -d, at any time during the run. Version 3.72 (04 Nov 1994) * DJ Delorie has ported Make to MS-DOS using the GO32 extender. He is maintaining the DOS port, not the GNU Make maintainer; please direct bugs and questions for DOS to . MS-DOS binaries are available for FTP from ftp.simtel.net in /pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/. * The `MAKEFLAGS' variable (in the environment or in a makefile) can now contain variable definitions itself; these are treated just like command line variable definitions. Make will automatically insert any variable definitions from the environment value of `MAKEFLAGS' or from the command line, into the `MAKEFLAGS' value exported to children. The `MAKEOVERRIDES' variable previously included in the value of `$(MAKE)' for sub-makes is now included in `MAKEFLAGS' instead. As before, you can reset `MAKEOVERRIDES' in your makefile to avoid putting all the variables in the environment when its size is limited. * If `.DELETE_ON_ERROR' appears as a target, Make will delete the target of a rule if it has changed when its recipe exits with a nonzero status, just as when the recipe gets a signal. * The automatic variable `$+' is new. It lists all the dependencies like `$^', but preserves duplicates listed in the makefile. This is useful for linking rules, where library files sometimes need to be listed twice in the link order. * You can now specify the `.IGNORE' and `.SILENT' special targets with dependencies to limit their effects to those files. If a file appears as a dependency of `.IGNORE', then errors will be ignored while running the recipe to update that file. Likewise if a file appears as a dependency of `.SILENT', then the recipe to update that file will not be printed before it is run. (This change was made to conform to POSIX.2.) Version 3.71 (21 May 1994) * The automatic variables `$(@D)', `$(%D)', `$(*D)', `$(.