Priorities for release: [ none ] consider supporting "var+= stuff" syntax. rewrite to just var=... on output. This is sometimes convenient when you want to write a Makefile.am in more-or-less modular parts dejagnu support: * create site.exp based on known things: tool, srcdir, objdir, maybe host_alias, host_triplet, target_alias, target_triplet, build_triplet (depending on whether AC_CANONICAL_* is used) * use RUNTEST_FOR_TARGET in some cases? * defining RUNTEST, RUNTESTFLAGS should require dejagnu option should be able to determine what is built by looking at rules (and configure.in). Then built man pages (eg) could automatically be omitted from the distribution. Consider using libfoo_SOURCES, etc, for libraries. From Gord Matzigkeit. There is a patch. Idea from Joerg-Martin Schwarz: allow passing different -D flags to different compiles. This can be done, but with the restriction that a .c cannot appear in 2 different "objects" (programs/libraries) compiled with different -D options (because -c and -o do not always work together and parallel makes must work). This could be implemented by noticing whenever a ".o" target with no rules is being emitted, and adding the appropriate compilation rule as appropriate. This should work with targets from Makefile.am as well as from .P files, which means rewriting so that the Makefile.am contents aren't copied into the output immediately. This feature is probably required to fully support libtool ("grody compilation issue") If @LIBOBJS@ or @ALLOCA@ appears in _LDADD or _LIBADD, put it into dependencies automatically Man pages can be generated * ansi2knr.c needs STDC_HEADERS and HAVE_STRING_H [ I've asked François about this. The change should probably be in the fp_C_PROTOTYPES macro ] Think about: maybe "make check" should just bomb if error occurs? Then user must use "make -k check". This is probably more natural. Consider: should Gnits require jm_MAINTAINER_MODE? Consider: "cvs" option adds some cvs-specific rules? Consider adding an option that statically rewrites @MAINT@ to "#M#". (this would be useful at Cygnus) Automake and Cygnus: info target separate from all. Always make install-info target. install-info separate from install. Automake: should EXTRA_DIST files be statically findable? Automake: devo/inet/Makefile.am has "all-local". "install" depends on "all", but the local installs get run before the stuff in "all". Gross. Right now, targets generated internally (eg "install") are not overridable by user code. This should probably be possible, even though it isn't very important. This could be done by generating all internal rules via a function call instead of just appending to $output_rules. * Should be a way to have "nobuild_PROGRAMS" which aren't even built, but which could be by running the magic make command. * Should have tool like "autoreconf" that only remakes Makefiles that need it. Probably autoreconf should be modified to handle automake Other priorities: * Must rewrite am_install_var. Should break into multiple functions. This will allow the callers to be a little smarter. * Rewrite clean targets. * Must rewrite error handling code. Right now it is a real mess Should fix up require_file junk at the same time Things to finish libtool support: * Handle grody compilation issue * Handle install changes * Handle clean changes * New definition for LINK Scan source directories and warn about missing files, eg .c/.h files that aren't mentioned? Currently gettext requires @INTLSUB@ and @POSUB@ in SUBDIRS. In the future this will be just intl and po. When that happens, re-enable warnings in handle_subdirs. Need way to say there are no suffixes in a Makefile (Franc,ois' "override" idea suffices here) Check to make sure various scripts are executable (IE when looking for them in a directory) Think about ways to make automake fit better with Cygnus-style trees. Use recode in dist target when MAINT_CHARSET specified. Read caveats in automake.in before doing this. Note the same problem used to apply to the no-dependencies option; maybe it still should? Note also that each Makefile.am must be rewritten at "make dist" time if MAINT_CHARSET and DIST_CHARSET are not identical. NOTE: gettext must arrange for all .po files not to be recoded. In the long term this might be a problem (consider when some systems use Unicode but the rest do not) MAINT_CHARSET *must* be local to each Makefile.am, to enable merged distributions. DIST_CHARSET must be passed down to subdir makes during a "make dist" Handle dist-zoo. Generally add more DOS support. Maybe run "doschk" (why isn't this merged with "pathchk"?) when doing a dist. Do whatever else François says here... Add support for html via an option. Use texi2html. Use "html_TEXINFOS", and htmldir = .../html. Include html files in distribution. Also allow "html_DATA", for raw .html files. [ when will texinfo support html? ] uninstall and pkg-dirs should rm -rf the dir. a potential bug: configure puts "blah.o" into LIBOBJS, thus implying these files can't be de-ansified. Not a problem? In general most .am files should be merged into automake. For instance all the "clean" targets could be merged by keeping lists of things to be removed. This would be a lot nicer looking. Note that the install targets probably should not be merged; it is sometimes useful to only install a small part. Clean up the output: * Order rules sensibly * Ensure every line has a purpose. Omit unused stuff * Eliminate extraneous rules when possible (eg 'install-am' stuff) * Make sure vertical spacing is correct * pretty-print targets * regularize how backslash-newline is done. Just one space between text and backslash should be the rule. Update makefile-mode to allow this. (set column to 0, probably) Omit program transform vars from header if no program installed. This is currently pretty hard to do. (But with beautification code it would probably be easy) It should be possible to have ansi2knr in just one place in a package. Jim Meyering says just rely on configure to make links as appropriate. Maybe introduce syntax like this: AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS = ../ansi2knr ? Consider putting it into AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR Lex, yacc support: * It would be nice to automatically support using bison's better features to rename the output files. This requires autoconf support * Consider supporting syntax from autoconf "derived:source", eg: y.tab.c:perly.y for yacc and lex source * if AC_PROG_LEX used, ensure LEXLIB is in foo_LDADD * require AC_DECL_YYTEXT for lex require AC_PROG_CXX if any C++ source files found? Better support for C++ all around Write autoconf macro to do all work necessary for automake. Eg define PACKAGE, VERSION, etc. 'maintainer-clean' should "rm -rf .deps". Ditto distclean Should look for clean-local targets in Makefile.am. It might be cool to generate .texi dependencies by grepping for @include. (If done, it should be done the same way C dependencies are done) It would be good to check some parts of GNU standards. Already check for install-sh and mkinstalldirs. What else is required to be in package by GNU standards or by automake? Some things for --strictness=gnits: * "cd $(foo); something" is an error in a rule. Should be: "cd $(foo) && something" * Look for 'ln -s' and warn about using $(LN) and AC_PROG_LN_S * Look for $(LN) and require AC_PROG_LN_S automake.in: should ".cc" really -> "$o"? This doesn't really seem right, but maybe it is so names can be rewritten uniformly? Must check Auto-distribute "ChangeLog.[0-9]+"? "ChangeLog.[a-z]+"? Internationalize. [ gettext doesn't have the necessary machinery yet ] am_error should use printf-style arguments (for eventual gettext scheme) François says the ordering of files in a distribution should be as follows: * README * source files * derived files I agree, but I don't see how to implement this yet. It might be easier if "derived files" is limited to those that Automake itself knows about, eg output of yacc. Check all source files to make sure that FSF address is up-to-date. --gnits or --gnu only. Merge each -vars.am file with corresponding ".am" file. Can do this because of changes to &file_contents. Looked at a program called 'ezmake', which seems to do something similar. The only idea there that is possibly worth stealing is using globs in definitions. Also has negations. Eg in a directory with files a.c, b.c and c.c, the line: foo_SOURCES = *.c ~c.c would be equivalent to: foo_SOURCES = a.c b.c Is this worth implementing? Should libexec programs have the name transform done on them? Order the output rules sensibly, so FOO_SOURCES and FOO_OBJECTS are together and rules are in the usual order. Make the output minimal: only output definitions for variables that are used. Look at dist's jmake for ideas. dist is the name of the distribution including Metaconfig. Perl uses it. Should handle directory hierarchies deeper than 2. Right now there is some support for this. Here are some of the issues: * Should handle AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS, ie must handle configure.in in subdirs * Must handle SUBDIRS in subdir Makefile.am's These can both be handled via dist-hook: . Consider supporting guile-style PLUGIN directories automatically? . Consider allowing eg "foo/bar" to appear in EXTRA_DIST, and generating code to make directory foo at dist time ================================================================ Document: Defined variables, their meanings, and their effects: DEFS cpp definitions INCLUDES -I options to cpp CPPFLAGS more cpp flags CFLAGS flags to cc COMPILE how to compile a C program LINK how to link a C program DIST_SUBDIRS directories which are copied verbatim into the distribution. Used eg for directories holding only example code (which don't have their own makefile). This variable might be a bad idea. [ should just require a new Makefile.am. They are supposed to be easy to write ] Document customary ordering of Makefile.am. From François. must document that @ALLOCA@ works in _LDADD Must document BUILT_SOURCES variable. See depend.am. Should include extended version of diagram from Autoconf (suggested by Greg Woods) Must document macros which can be used when writing one's own rules. Must document INCLUDES Document gettext support Make a definition of the term "source" need xref to libtool in docs document how to use Automake with CVS. Idea from Mark Galassi. Also include Greg Woods' more sophisticated "cvs-dist" target. document that there is no uninstall-{exec,data} document rebuilding configure. CONFIGURE_DEPENDENCIES document TAGS_DEPENDENCIES ================================================================ Libraries: * Should support standalone library along with subdir library in same Makefile.am. Maybe: turn off "standalone" mode if library's Makefile.am is not only one specd? [ add an option for this ] ================================================================ Longer term: Have a program that generates a Makefile on stdout, passes it through a "config.status"-style filter, and thence into make. Why bother, other than the gee-whiz factor? It might be interesting to figure out how a GNU system could use Makefile.am's without resorting to Automake. This might be impossible in a practical sense. Would it be useful to integrate in some way with the Debian package building utility? Must check. maybe it would be possible to deal with all the different package utilities somehow. Lately I've been hearing good things about the RedHat packaging utilities. Why are there so many of these? Are they fun to write or something? The RedHat package utility is called RPM; see ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/code/rpm It actually has problems, like no configure script and no documentation. ================================================================ A tool to guess what the local Makefile.am should look like: * Probably integrate with autoscan * Use various simple rules to determine what to do: * get name of top directory, sans version info * search for .c files with 'main' in them * if in main.c, use directory name for program * if in more than one, generate multiple programs * if not found, generate a library named after directory * order subdir searches correctly: lib first, src last * assume 'testsuite' dir means we are using dejagnu * maybe be smart about reading existing Makefile.am, so tool can be run for incremental changes? You could imagine: Makefile.am: autoproject --incremental ================================================================ Stuff NOT to do, and why: consider auto-including any file that matches "*.in". [ no: po/Makefile.in shouldn't be included ] must look at mkid to see how it works (for subdir usage) [ right now, it doesn't. i don't see a simple fix right now ] if configure.in not found, move up a directory and try again? This could eliminate a common source of problems. [ this is just a bad idea ] * scripts are installed in $exec_prefix/bin, not $prefix/bin Bug or feature? [ the consensus on Gnits is that this isn't required. doubters can work around it anyway ] * make the auto-dep code crash if GNU make not in use? (doesn't it already?)