GNU Automake 1.12.5 released

[Stefano Lattarini]

We are pleased to announce the Automake 1.12.5 maintenance release.

This release fixes a couple of minor bugs: one related to the use
of Microsoft tools for compiling and linking, the other related
to spurious remake rules being generated in some cases by the
AC_CONFIG_HEADERS macro.  Support for the Vala programming language
is also enhanced.

See below for the detailed list of changes since Automake 1.12.4,
as summarized by the NEWS file.

Download here:

  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.12.5.tar.gz
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.12.5.tar.xz

Please report bugs and problems to <address@hidden>, and send
general comments and feedback to <address@hidden>.

Thanks to everyone who has reported problems, contributed patches,
and helped testing Automake!

-*-*-*-

New in 1.12.5:

* WARNING: Future backward-incompatibilities!

  - Future versions of Automake will likely drop support for the
    long-deprecated 'configure.in' name for the Autoconf input file.
    You are advised to use the recommended name 'configure.ac' instead.

  - Support for the "Cygnus-style" trees (as enabled by the 'cygnus'
    option) will be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).

  - The long-obsolete (since automake 1.10) AM_PROG_MKDIR m4 macro will
    be removed in Automake 1.13.  The $(mkdir_p) make variable and the
    @mkdir_p@ substitution will still remain available (as aliases of
    $(MKDIR_P)) for the moment, for better backward compatibility.

  - Autoconf 2.65 or later will be required by the next major Automake
    version (1.13).  Until now, Automake has required Autoconf version
    2.62 or later.

  - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the rules
    to build pdf, ps and dvi output from Texinfo input will use the
    '--build-dir' option by default.  Since such an option was only
    introduced in Texinfo 4.9, this means that Makefiles generated by
    future Automake versions will require at least that version of
    Texinfo.

  - Starting from the next major Automake version (1.13), the parallel
    testsuite harness (previously only enabled by the 'parallel-tests'
    option) will become the default one; the older serial testsuite
    harness will still be available through the use of the 'serial-tests'
    option.

  - The following long-obsolete m4 macros will be removed in the
    next major Automake version (1.13):

      AM_PROG_CC_STDC:    superseded by AC_PROG_CC since October 2002
      fp_PROG_CC_STDC:    broken alias for AM_PROG_CC_STDC
      fp_WITH_DMALLOC:    old alias for AM_WITH_DMALLOC
      AM_CONFIG_HEADER:   superseded by AC_CONFIG_HEADERS since July 2002
      ud_PATH_LISPDIR:    old alias for AM_PATH_LISPDIR
      jm_MAINTAINER_MODE: old alias for AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
      ud_GNU_GETTEXT:     old alias for AM_GNU_GETTEXT
      gm_PROG_LIBTOOL:    old alias for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL
      fp_C_PROTOTYPES:    old alias for AM_C_PROTOTYPES (which was part
                          of the now-removed automatic de-ANSI-fication
                          support of Automake)

  - All the "old alias" macros in 'm4/obsolete.m4' will be removed in
    the next major Automake version (1.13).

  - The '--acdir' option of aclocal is deprecated, and will probably
    be removed in the next major Automake release (1.13).  You should
    use the options '--automake-acdir' and '--system-acdir' instead
    (which have been introduced in Automake 1.11.2).

  - The 'missing' script will no longer try to update the timestamp
    of out-of-date files that require a maintainer-specific tool to be
    remade, in case the user lacks such a tool (or has a too-old version
    of it).  In fact, starting from Automake 1.13, all it'll do will be
    giving more useful warnings than a bare "command not found" from a
    make recipe would.

* Vala support:

  - The AM_PROG_VALAC macro has been enhanced to takes two further
    optional arguments; it's signature now being

        AM_PROG_VALAC([MINIMUM-VERSION], [ACTION-IF-FOUND],
                      [ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])

  - By default, AM_PROG_VALAC no longer aborts the configure invocation
    if the Vala compiler found is too old, but simply prints a warning
    messages (as it did when the Vala compiler was not found).  This
    should avoid unnecessary difficulties for end users that just want
    to compile the unmodified, distributed Vala-generated C sources,
    but happens to have an old Vala compiler in their PATH.  This fixes
    automake bug#12688.

  - If no proper Vala compiler is found at configure runtime, AM_PROG_VALAC
    will set the AC_SUBST'd variable 'VALAC' to 'valac' rather than to ':'.
    This is a better default, because with it a triggered makefile rule
    invoking a Vala compilation will clearly fail with an informative error
    message like "valac: command not found", rather than silently, with
    the error possibly going unnoticed or triggering harder-to-diagnose
    fallout failures in later steps.

* Miscellaneous changes:

  - automake and aclocal no longer honours the 'perllibdir' environment
    variable.  That had always been intended only as an hack required in
    the testsuite, not meant for any use beyond that.

Bugs fixed in 1.12.5:

* Long-standing bugs:

  - Automake no longer generates spurious remake rules invoking autoheader
    to regenerate the template corresponding to header files specified after
    the first one in AC_CONFIG_HEADERS (automake bug#12495).

  - When wrapping Microsoft tools, the 'compile' script falls back to
    finding classic 'libname.a' style libraries when 'name.lib' and
    'name.dll.lib' aren't available.