Version 4.0 (09 Oct 2013)
A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here:
http://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 <dsb@boyski.com>.
Reworked and enhanced by Frank Heckenbach <f.heckenbach@fh-soft.de>.
Windows support by Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>.
* 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prerequisites that caused the target to be considered out of date.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 <Troy.Runkel@mathworks.com>
* New feature: The .ONESHELL capability is now supported on Windows. Support
added by Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>.
* 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
A complete list of bugs fixed in this version is available here:
http://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: Future backward-incompatibility!
Wildcards are not documented as returning sorted values, but up to and
including this release the results have been sorted and some makefiles are
apparently depending on that. In the next release of GNU make, for
performance reasons, we may remove that sorting. If your makefiles
require sorted results from wildcard expansions, use the $(sort ...)
function to request it explicitly.
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
The POSIX standard for make was changed in the 2008 version in a
fundamentally incompatible way: make is required to invoke the shell as if
the '-e' flag were provided. Because this would break many makefiles that
have been written to conform to the original text of the standard, the
default behavior of GNU make remains to invoke the shell with simply '-c'.
However, any makefile specifying the .POSIX special target will follow the
new POSIX standard and pass '-e' to the shell. See also .SHELLFLAGS
below.
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
The '$?' 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!
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.
PKGLOCALEDIR and which install their locale files directly under
${PREFIX}/${PKGLOCALEDIR} and sort the PLIST file entries. From now
on, pkgsrc/mk/plist/plist-locale.awk will automatically handle
transforming the PLIST to refer to the correct locale directory.
Version 3.81
* 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 this Savannah bug:
http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?func=detailitem&item_id=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 command strings has changed. If your
makefiles use backslash-newline sequences inside of single-quoted
strings in command scripts you will be impacted by this change. See
the GNU make manual subsection "Splitting Command Lines" (node
"Splitting Lines"), in section "Command Syntax", chapter "Writing the
Commands 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
<thomas.riedl@siemens.com> 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 at least one command.
- 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:
http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?group=make&report_id=111&fix_release_id=103
wiz
jlam