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NEWS
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GNU Make NEWS -*-indented-text-*-
History of user-visible changes.
26 February 2023
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 4.4.90 (26 Feb 2023)
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=111&set=custom
* WARNING: Removed AmigaOS support!
This version of GNU Make no longer supports AmigaOS. If you need support
for AmigaOS please use one of the older versions of GNU Make.
* WARNING: Loaded Object ABI incompatibility!
This release changes the loaded object feature from "technology preview" to
fully-supported feature. However, it introduces an ABI incompatibility with
previous releases: the setup function now takes an ABI version as its first
argument. At compile time you can test the GMK_ABI_VERSION constant to
detect which ABI should be used. At runtime your initialization function
can check the provided ABI version to verify it's being loaded correctly.
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
Parsing of the first argument in ifeq/ifneq with () has been cleaned up.
When locating the separating "," any variable reference (single char as well
as using $() or ${}) is skipped. However parentheses that are not part of
or contained in variable references will not be counted. This means that
things like "ifeq ((foo,bar),)" are now syntax errors. Use a variable to
hide the comma if needed: "COMMA = ," / "ifeq ((foo$(COMMA)bar),)".
See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?64402
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
If -e is given all environment variables will now have an origin of
"environment override" even if they are not otherwise set in the makefile.
See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?64803
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
The behavior of appending to pattern-specific variables has been clarified
when combined with command-line settings or -e overrides.
See https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?64822
* NOTE: Deprecated behavior.
The check in GNU Make 4.3 for suffix rules with prerequisites didn't check
single-suffix rules, only double-suffix rules. Add the missing check.
* New feature: Any assignment operator can be made conditional
GNU Make has long supported the conditional operator "?=" which creates a
recursive variable set to a value if and only if the variable is not already
defined. In this release, the "?" can precede any assignment operator to
make it conditional. For example, "?:=" creates a simply-expanded variable
and expands the right-hand side if and only if the variable is not already
defined. The constructs "?::=", "?:::=", and "?!=" also behave as expected.
* New feature: Unload function for loaded objects
When a loaded object needs to be unloaded by GNU Make, it will invoke an
unload function (if one is defined) beforehand that allows the object to
perform cleanup operations.
Original idea and implementation: Dmitry Goncharov <[email protected]>
* New feature: Makefile warning reporting control
A new option "--warn" controls reporting of warnings for makefiles. Actions
can be set to "ignore", "warn", or "error". Two new warnings are reported:
assigning to invalid variable names, and referencing invalid variable names
(both set to "warn" by default), in addition to the existing warning for
undefined variables (defaults to "ignore"). "--warn-undefined-variables" is
deprecated, and is translated to "--warn=undefined-vars" internally.
* New feature: Control warnings with the .WARNINGS variable
In addition to --warn from the command line, which takes effect for make
invoked recursively, warnings can be controlled only for the current
instance of make using the .WARNINGS variable.
* New feature: Printing targets defined by the makefile
A new option "--print-targets" will print all explicit, non-special targets
defined in the makefiles, one per line, then exit with success. No recipes
are invoked and no makefiles are re-built.
* Warnings for detecting circular dependencies are controllable via warning
reporting, with the name "circular-dep".
* 'make --print-data-base' (or 'make -p') now outputs time of day
using the same form as for file timestamps, e.g., "2023-05-10
10:43:57.570558743". Previously it used the form "Wed May 10
10:43:57 2023", which has less detail and is harder to compare.
* Conditional statements starting with the recipe prefix were sometimes
interpreted in previous versions. As per the documentation, lines starting
with the recipe prefix are now never considered conditional statements.
* Tests in the regression test suite now are run in their own directory to
avoid cross-contamination and allow cleanup if the tests are interrupted.
More information is printed about failing tests.
Version 4.4.1 (26 Feb 2023)
This release is primarily a bug-fix release.
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=110&set=custom
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
In previous releases it was not well-defined when updates to MAKEFLAGS made
inside a makefile would be visible. This release ensures they are visible
immediately, even when invoking $(shell ...) functions. Also, command line
variable assignments are now always present in MAKEFLAGS, even when parsing
makefiles.
Implementation provided by Dmitry Goncharov <[email protected]>
* New feature: Parallel builds of archives
Previously it was not possible to use parallel builds with archives. It is
still not possible using the built-in rules, however you can now override
the built-in rules with a slightly different set of rules and use parallel
builds with archive creation. See the "Dangers When Using Archives" section
of the GNU Make manual, and https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?14927
* Previously target-specific variables would inherit their "export" capability
from parent target-specific variables even if they were marked private. Now
private parent target-specific variables have no affect. For more details
see https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?61463
* Disable FIFO jobserver on GNU/Hurd and Cygwin
Experimentation shows that the new FIFO-based jobserver doesn't work well on
GNU/Hurd or Cygwin: revert these systems to use the pipe-based jobserver.
* Updates to allow building on OS/2
Provided by KO Myung-Hun <[email protected]>
* New platform: GNU Make is supported on z/OS
Thanks to Igor Todorovski <[email protected]> for the patches and testing
assistance.
Version 4.4 (31 Oct 2022)
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: Deprecation!
The following systems are deprecated in this release:
- OS/2 (EMX)
- AmigaOS
- Xenix
- Cray
In the NEXT release of GNU Make, support for these systems will be removed.
If you want to see them continue to be supported, contact <[email protected]>.
* WARNING: Future backward-incompatibility!
In the NEXT release of GNU Make, pattern rules will implement the same
behavior change for multiple targets as explicit grouped targets, below: if
any target of the rule is needed by the build, the recipe will be invoked if
any target of the rule is missing or out of date. During testing some
makefiles were found to contain pattern rules that do not build all targets;
this can cause issues so we are delaying this change for one release cycle
to allow these makefiles to be updated. GNU Make shows a warning if it
detects this situation: "pattern recipe did not update peer target".
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
GNU Make now uses temporary files in more situations than previous releases.
If your build system sets TMPDIR (or TMP or TEMP on Windows) and deletes the
contents during the build, or uses restrictive permissions, this may cause
problems. You can choose an alternative temporary directory only for use by
GNU Make by setting the new MAKE_TMPDIR environment variable before invoking
make. Note that this value CANNOT be set inside the makefile, since make
needs to find its temporary directory before the makefiles are parsed.
* WARNING: Backward-incompatibility!
Previously each target in a explicit grouped target rule was considered
individually: if the targets needed by the build were not out of date the
recipe was not run even if other targets in the group were out of date. Now
if any of the grouped targets are needed by the build, then if any of the
grouped targets are out of date the recipe is run and all targets in the
group are considered updated.
* 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. If you want to check MAKEFLAGS for a one-letter
option, expanding "$(firstword -$(MAKEFLAGS))" is a reliable way to return
the set of one-letter options which can be examined via findstring, etc.
* 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 ...). If this leads to recursion during expansion, then
for backward-compatibility the value from the original environment is used.
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 .WAIT special target
If the .WAIT target appears between two prerequisites of a target, then
GNU Make will wait for all of the targets to the left of .WAIT in the list
to complete before starting any of the targets to the right of .WAIT.
This feature is available in some other versions of make, and it will be
required by an upcoming version of the POSIX standard for make.
Different patches were made by Alexey Neyman <[email protected]> (2005)
and Steffen Nurpmeso <[email protected]> (2020) that were useful but the
result is a different implementation (closer to Alexey's idea).
* New feature: .NOTPARALLEL accepts prerequisites
If the .NOTPARALLEL special target has prerequisites then all prerequisites
of those targets will be run serially (as if .WAIT was specified between
each prerequisite).
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* New feature: The $(intcmp ...) function
This function allows conditional evaluation controlled by a numerical
comparison.
Implementation provided by Jouke Witteveen <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* New feature: The --jobserver-style command line option and named pipes
A new jobserver method is used on systems where mkfifo(3) is supported.
This solves a number of obscure issues related to using the jobserver
and recursive invocations of GNU Make. This change means that sub-makes
will connect to the jobserver even if they are not marked as recursive.
It also means that other tools that want to participate in the jobserver
will need to be enhanced as described in the GNU Make manual.
You can force GNU Make to use the simple pipe-based jobserver (perhaps if
you are integrating with other tools or older versions of GNU Make) by
adding the '--jobserver-style=pipe' option to the command line of the
top-level invocation of GNU Make, or via MAKEFLAGS or GNUMAKEFLAGS.
To detect this change search for 'jobserver-fifo' in the .FEATURES variable.
* Some POSIX systems (*BSD) do not allow locks to be taken on pipes, which
caused the output sync feature to not work properly there. Also multiple
invocations of make redirecting to the same output file (e.g., /dev/null)
would cause hangs. Instead of locking stdout (which does have some useful
performance characteristics, but is not portable) create a temporary file
and lock that. Windows continues to use a mutex as before.
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 pipe-based 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 <[email protected]>
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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>
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 <FILE).
The function is expanded to the contents of the file. The contents are
expanded verbatim except that the final newline, if any, is stripped.
* The makefile line numbers shown by GNU Make now point directly to the
specific line in the recipe where the failure or warning occurred.
Sample changes suggested by Brian Vandenberg <[email protected]>
* 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 <[email protected]>.
Reworked and enhanced by Frank Heckenbach <[email protected]>.
Windows support by Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]>.
* 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 <[email protected]>
* New feature: The .ONESHELL capability is now supported on Windows. Support
added by Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]>.
* 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 https://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
<[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>.
* For compatibility with SysV make, GNU Make now supports the peculiar
syntax $$@, $$(@D), and $$(@F) in the prerequisites list of a rule.
This syntax is only valid within explicit and static pattern rules: it
cannot be used in implicit (suffix or pattern) rules. Edouard G. Parmelan
<[email protected]> provided a patch implementing this feature; however, I
decided to implement it in a different way.
* The argument to the "ifdef" conditional is now expanded before it's
tested, so it can be a constructed variable name.
Similarly, the arguments to "export" (when not used in a variable
definition context) and "unexport" are also now expanded.
* A new function is defined: $(value ...). The argument to this
function is the _name_ of a variable. The result of the function is
the value of the variable, without having been expanded.
* A new function is defined: $(eval ...). The arguments to this
function should expand to makefile commands, which will then be
evaluated as if they had appeared in the makefile. In combination
with define/endef multiline variable definitions this is an extremely
powerful capability. The $(value ...) function is also sometimes
useful here.
* A new built-in variable is defined, $(MAKEFILE_LIST). It contains a
list of each makefile GNU Make has read, or started to read, in the
order in which they were encountered. So, the last filename in the
list when a makefile is just being read (before any includes) is the
name of the current makefile.
* A new built-in variable is defined: $(.VARIABLES). When it is
expanded it returns a complete list of variable names defined by all
makefiles at that moment.
* A new command line option is defined, -B or --always-make. If
specified GNU Make will consider all targets out-of-date even if they
would otherwise not be.
* The arguments to $(call ...) functions were being stored in $1, $2,
etc. as recursive variables, even though they are fully expanded
before assignment. This means that escaped dollar signs ($$ 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.