Edit
kc3-lang/automake/TODO
Akim Demaille
- TODO
-
for 1.5 investigate problems with conditionally defined libraries add an error if the user makefile.am violates our namespace rules have 'make check' print tests which are skipped we need a document describing automake from the end user's point of view eg describe INSTALL_HEADER there, among other things * dist-all Don't run distdir each time. * maintainer-clean Akim: > @@ -31,5 +31,9 @@ > DISTCLEAN -test -z "$(DISTCLEANFILES)" || rm -f $(DISTCLEANFILES) > > maintainer-clean-generic: > +## FIXME: shouldn't we really print these messages before running > +## the dependencies? > + @echo "This command is intended for maintainers to use" > + @echo "it deletes files that may require special tools to rebuild." > -rm -f Makefile.in Tom: > I'd like to eventually fix the FIXME comment by having > maintainer-clean look like: > > maintainer-clean: > @echo ... > $(MAKE) whatever > > We're left with the question of whether we should repeat them in every > subdir. * Alexandre Oliva: > Hmm... Interesting. It must have been a side effect of the enabling > of forced `relink' on GNU/Linux/x86. Anyway, on platforms that > actually require relinking, this problem remains, and I see no way to > overcome it other than arranging for automake to install libraries > before executables, as you suggest. This shouldn't be a big problem, > anyway. > > A bigger problem could show up if two libraries in the same directory, > one dependent on the other, are installed concurrently. If relinking > is needed for the dependent library, we have a problem. It appears to > me that user will have to live without `make -j install', in this > case. Alex Hornby > Here's an Automake patch and changelog entry allow make -j install on > such degenerate systems (and Linux with buggy libtool <g>) > > If you install to locations other that bin_ and lib_ then a larger fix > is necessary, but this should fix the 90% case. * in depend2.am, in specialization case, what if @SOURCE@ is found in srcdir? We can't depend on $<! We must search explicitly. this is a very serious problem! one solution would be to make built-source handling smarter and a bit more strict. For instance require that built sources have an associated target. In this case we must also handle suffix rules and the like. * Document why putting @FOO@ in _SOURCES doesn't work. This must be done for 1.5 * think about how per-object flags should work. in particular: * how should they be specified? using the object name is confusing when .lo/.obj in use however, the object name provides a nice interaction with per-exe flags * how should they interact with per-executable flags? * cross-compilation support: programs built and used by the build process need to be built for CC_FOR_BUILD introduce a new variable for this [ we can do this in an automatic way I think. unfortunately it isn't that useful until autoconf has support for this sort of thing as well ] * distcheck should make sure that each file that uses _() is listed in POTFILES.in From Jim Meyering: # Verify that all source files using _() are listed in po/POTFILES.in. po-check: grep -E -v '^(#|$$)' po/POTFILES.in | sort > $@-1 grep -E -l '\b_\(' lib/*.c src/*.c | sort > $@-2 diff -u $@-1 $@-2 rm -f $@-1 $@-2 * support prog_LIBS as override for LIBS * Scan configure.in using the same trick that autoheader uses. This will be much more reliable. * Test subdir-objects option with yacc, lex, ansi2knr Our locking scheme won't prevent a parallel make from losing if there are two `bar.o' files and the timing is just right This only happens with parallel make and no-`-c -o' compiler, so it probably isn't very important `-c -o' when doing libtool try to find a losing compiler and see if it really works. (actually: hack config.cache and do it) * We're using `$<' in explicit rules when using per-exe flags per-exe flags don't work for CPPFLAGS/YFLAGS/LFLAGS. Fix. LIBOBJS shouldn't be used when there are per-exe flags (?) * Need a way to pass flags to makeinfo esp --no-split * test `make clean' with subdir-objects * Test nodist_SOURCES with lex, yacc, etc. * Support subdir-objects with fortran * Allow creation of Java .zip/.jar files in natural way If you are building a compiled Java library, then the .zip/.jar ought to be made automatically. * Run automake before libtool. It will report an error but still won't put the file into the disty. This is wrong. From Mark H Wilkinson <mhw@kremvax.demon.co.uk> * CFLAGS only defined if C source seen but really it should be a configure variable, shouldn't it? There are other examples of this [ moving to autoconf --trace ought to fix this ] * in gnu/gnits mode, give error if Makefile.am overrides a user variable like CFLAGS. [ this is low priority because the package author can always circumvent our check by redefining in configure.in plus it is probably better to encourage good behavior than to punish bad ] * If we see `foo.o' in LIBOBJS, and we've seen AC_OBJEXT, then complain. [ how will we know that? it is better to handle this automatically via an autoconf hook ] * examine possibility of using any character in a macro name and rewriting names automatically. this means we must rewrite all references as well. [ this is a 2.0-style feature ] * AM_CONFIG_HEADER might generate the wrong stamp file names when given multiple headers. Write a test. * Currently don't correctly handle multiple inputs to a config header. * header stamp files still in wrong dirs. stamp-h.in must be in dir with h.in file stamp-h must be in dir with output file * foo=bar if cond foo += joe endif ... this ought to work. The fix is probably complicated * `distcheck' and `dist' should depend on `all' * Add code to generate foo-config script like gnome, gtk * `DEFS += foo' won't work. That's because DEFS is defined in header-vars.am, which is read after the user's Makefile.am. This will be a problem for any macro defined internally [ fixing this will probably fix the nasty `exeext redefines foo_PROGRAMS' hack that is in there right now ] [ we currently give an error when this occurs, so this is very low priority ] * document user namespace for macro/target names adopt some conventions and use uniformly [ this is a good thing for the rewrite ] * make distcheck uses directories like `=build'. Some (very rare) POSIX systems don't support `=' in filenames. If this ever becomes a problem, fix it * distclean must remove config.status can't this cause problems for maintainer-clean? shouldn't maintainer-clean print the message before running any part of the make? (just to slow things down long enough for the user to stop it) (maybe doesn't matter since people who even know about maintainer-clean already have a clue) * There are probably more bugs in variable_conditions_sub along the lines of the one that caused cond4.test to fail. * reintroduce AM_FUNC_FNMATCH which sets LIBOBJS Then have automake know about fnmatch.h. [ probably should wait for autoconf to get right functionality ] * Every program foo has FOOFLAGS right now. It should also have AM_FOOFLAGS, which can be set in Makefile.am. DONE: but needs to be documented * "make diff" capability look at gcc's Makefile.in to see what to do or look at maint program * BUILT_SOURCES should not be distributed, even when they appear in another _SOURCES line. [? or maybe just leave this up to the to-be-defined generic distribution method ] must completely revisit the entire BUILT_SOURCES idea * in --cygnus, clean-info not generated at top level * what if an element of a scanned variable looks like $(FOO).$(BAR) ? or some other arbitrary thing? right now we try to cope, but not very well [ this is only of theoretical interest for now ] * make sure every variable that is used is also defined [ we don't really look at variable uses in detail. 2.0 thing ] * make sure `missing' defines are generated * if no AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE, then don't handle `missing' stuff. Yuck! * missing should handle install -d and rmdir -p (for uninstall) * a couple ways to be smarter: - notice when a .c file is a target somewhere, and auto-add it to BUILT_SOURCES - notice a target of the form `.x.y:' and assume it is a suffix rule * NORMAL_INSTALL / NORMAL_UNINSTALL -vs- recursive rules [ requires changes to the standard ] * copyrights on m4 files, aclocal output * should not put texiname_TEXINFOS into distribution should rename this macro anyway, to foo_texi_DEPENDENCIES * *all* installed scripts should support --version, --help For now I guess I'll just have automake give an error if it encounters non-C source in a libtool library specification. * must split $obj into two parts: one for libtool and one for deansification. Otherwise .S files will be deansified! * ansi2knr must currently appear in a directory that has some source * if program has the same name as a target, do something sensible: - if the target is internal, rename it - if the target is mandated (eg, "info"), tell the user consider auto-modifying the program name to work around this * should separate actual options from strictness levels strictness should only cover requirements You should be able to pick and choose options should clean up texinfos.am; one rule is repeated 3 times, but shouldn't be should always use perl -w rewrite in guile (RMS request) at the same time, consider adding a GUI could use the same parsing code for the GUI and the standalone version that means figuring out a better representation of internal state [ that's easy -- anything is better than what we have now ] having just one Makefile for a project would give a big speed increase for a project with many directories, eg glibc. ideally (?) you'd still be able to have a Makefile.am in each directory somehow; this might make editing conceptually easier. * finish up TAGS work * only remove libtool at top level? * clean up source directory by moving stuff into subdirs * consider adding pkglibexecdir, maybe others? requests for pkg-dirs with version included Avoid loops when installing; instead unroll them in automake * for new autoconf: * completely handle multi-":" mode for AC_CONFIG_HEADER * Scan multiple input files when Makefile is generated? This would provide flexibility for large projects; subsumes the "Makefile.tmpl" idea [ can't do this. must explain why in manual. basically, solving all the problems is too hard like: how to remove redundancies between generated .in files instead should implement `include' directive for Makefile.am ] * for multi-":" mode and AC_OUTPUT, it might be good to pick the first input file that has a corresponding .am file. Some long-term projects: * if $(FOO) is used somewhere, ensure FOO is defined, either by user or by automake if possible [ include, += support ] * even better would be allowing targets in different included fragments to be merged. e.g., `install-local'. consider putting all check-* targets onto @check? To support --help/--version checking? take diff-n-query code from libit Per Bothner says: Per> 1) Being able to build a set of non-source programs Per> from source programs, without necessarily linking them together. Per> I.e. one should be able to say something like: Per> dummy_SOURCES=foo.c bar.c Per> and automake should realize that it needs to build foo.o and bar.o. Per> 2) Being intelligent about new kinds of suffixes. Per> If it sees: Per> SUFFIXES = .class .java Per> and a suffix rule of the form: Per> .java.class: Per> then it should be able to realize it can build .class files from Per> .java files, and thus be able to generate a list of Per> .class files from a list of .java source files. !! Must fix require_file stuff. It is really gross, and I don't understand it any more. Jim's idea: should look for @setfilename and warn if filenames too long * guess split size ** many requests for a way to omit a file from the distribution. Should be done like `!foo' or `~foo' in _SOURCES, etc. Such files should be removed explicitly after the copy step! Doing this requires rewriting macros before generating Makefile.in. from joerg-martin schwarz: -- If Makefile.am contains $(CC), $(COMPILE), $(YLWRAP), .... in an explicitly written rule, you should emit the corresponding Makefile variables automatically. Configuring in the large: * allow hierarchy of dirs to share one aclocal.m4 How? consider printing full file name of Makefile.am or configure.in when giving error. This would help for very large trees with many configure.in scripts From the GNU Standards. These things could be checked, and probably should be if --gnu. * Make sure that the directory into which the distribution unpacks (as well as any subdirectories) are all world-writable (octal mode 777). * Make sure that no file name in the distribution is more than 14 characters long. * Don't include any symbolic links in the distribution itself. (ditto hard links) * Make sure that all the files in the distribution are world-readable. ** also, check --help output and --version output. Idea from Fran