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@@ -1,1228 +0,0 @@ -GNU M4 NEWS - History of user-visible changes. -*- outline -*- - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.9b (201x-??-??) [beta] - Released by ????, based on git version 1.9a-* - -NOTE - there are still a number of FIXMEs to resolve before this can be -promoted to 2.0. - -** Building M4 - -*** The build environment has been updated to modern GNU practices, - depending on newer features of Autoconf, Automake, Libtool, Gettext, - and Gnulib to be more portable to a wide variety of platforms. - -** New command line behavior - -*** If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set, it implies the - `-G' and `-Q' options, effectively giving a more fully POSIX-compliant - implementation with only compatible GNU extensions. - -*** New `-b'/`--batch' command-line option to force non-interactive mode. - Also, in addition to `-e'/`--interactive' requesting interactive mode, - m4 now follows the lead of sh, and automatically enters interactive - mode when there are no files specified, and when both standard input - and standard error are terminals. - -*** New `-B'/`--prepend-include' command-line option allows prepending to - the include path, rather than always searching `.' first. - -*** New `--debuglen' command-line option matches the spelling of a new - macro, and the old spelling `--arglength' now issues a warning that it - might be withdrawn in the future. - -*** The `-g'/`--gnu' command-line option is now required to allow all GNU - extensions when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set. - -*** The `-H'/`--hashsize' command-line options, which were made no-ops in - a previous beta, now issue a deprecation warning. - -*** The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command-line option now performs argument - validation and accepts an optional multiplier suffix. - -*** New `-p'/`--pushdef' and `--popdef' command-line options allow more - control over macro definitions from the command line between input - files. - -*** New `--posix' command-line option is a synonym for `-G'/`--traditional'. - -*** New `-r'/`--regexp-syntax' command-line option changes the default - regular expression syntax used by M4. Without this option, M4 - continues to use EMACS style expressions. A new section in the info - docs explains the differences between them, and what builtins are - affected. - -*** New `--safer' command-line option cripples the potentially unsafe - builtins `debugfile', `esyscmd', `maketemp', `mkdtemp', `mkstemp', and - `syscmd'. - -*** New `--syncoutput' command-line option matches the builtin added in a - previous beta, and provides more control over sync line generation - from the command line between input files. The previous options - `-s'/`--synclines' remain as aliases for `--syncoutput=1'. - -*** New `--traceoff' command-line option, and new spelling `--traceon' for - `--trace', allow more control over macro tracing from the command line - between input files. - -*** New `--warnings' command-line option re-enables warnings, overriding - `-Q'/`--quiet'/`--silent', allowing warnings even when POSIXLY_CORRECT. - -*** When GNU extensions are enabled, any command line arguments that wauld - have been interpreted as input file names with previous releases are - still searched for as before, but will first attempt to be loaded as - compiled modules before falling back on loading as m4 input. In - POSIXLY_CORRECT mode, only m4 input files in the current directory can - be loaded. - -** POSIX conformance - -*** The `defn' builtin now allows any number of arguments, as POSIX requires. - - FIXME: This still doesn't work with concatenating builtins with text. - - - FIXME: POSIX recommends using ${10} instead of $10 for the tenth - positional argument. We should deprecate $10. - -** Removed builtins - -*** The experimental `epatsubst' and `eregexp' builtins have been removed - in favor of a new `changeresyntax' builtin. - -*** The `load' builtin, introduced in previous betas has been removed in - lieu of richer `include' and `sinclude' functionality. - -** New builtins - -*** New `changeresyntax' builtin allows programmatic setting of the default - regular expression flavor, to match `-r'/`--regexp-syntax' command-line - option. - -*** New `debuglen' builtin allows runtime setting of debug output length, - previously controlled only by the `-l' command line argument. - Additionally, whether using the new macro or the command line argument, - the length limitation now affects dumpdef output as well as trace - output, undergoes argument validation, and accepts an optional - multiplier suffix. - - FIXME the multiplier suffix isn't reliable yet - -*** New `mkdtemp' builtin parallels `mkstemp', but allows the creation of - temporary directories instead of files. - -*** New `refcount' builtin allows tracking how many times a module has - been loaded. - - FIXME: consider making m4modules smarter for this purpose - -*** New `renamesyms' builtin allows programmatic renaming of all symbols - according to a regular expression. - - FIXME: This feature can cause core dumps when renaming multiple - symbols to the same name. - -*** New `__traditional__' builtin identifies when the traditional module - is loaded instead of the gnu module. - -*** The `modules' and `symbols' builtins, introduced in previous betas, - have been renamed `m4modules' and `m4symbols', in order to minimize - problems when upgrading from 1.4.x and processing English text. To - prevent future problems, any future macro added as a GNU extension will - either be blind (ie. be unrecognized without arguments), or begin with - the prefix `m4' or `__'. - -** Changed behavior of builtins - -*** The module identifier builtins, such as `__gnu__', `__m4_version__', - and `__unix__', now warn if given arguments. - -*** The `builtin' builtin now has a special form, where if the first - argument is exactly the special token representing defn(`builtin'), the - expansion is the special token representing the builtin named in the - second argument. This allows regenerating a macro with a more - efficient mapping directly to a builtin function, rather than through - textual indirection through further expansions of `builtin'. - -*** The `changesyntax' builtin has been improved, to make it easier to add - and remove characters from a syntax class without having to specify the - entire set of characters in that class. It also supports new syntax - categories, `$', `{' and `}', for extended argument handling in macro - definitions. See the manual for more examples. - -*** New `m' flag to `-d'/`--debug' command-line option or `debugmode' - builtin traces actions related to module loading and unloading, and - affects `dumpdef' and trace output to show where builtins come from. - New `s' flag shows the entire stack of `pushdef' definitions during - `dumpdef'. The `c' flag has been updated to add information to the - first line to show the definition of the macro being expanded. - -*** The `eval' and `mpeval' builtins now support the following new - operators: `>>>', `\', and `,'. - -*** When GNU extensions are enabled, the `include' and `sinclude' builtins - continue to search directories one at a time, but will first attempt to - load arguments as compiled modules and then as m4 input before moving - to the next directory in the search path. In POSIXLY_CORRECT mode, - only m4 input in the current directory can be loaded. - -*** The `maketemp' builtin now always warns that it is obsolete, even in GNU - mode where it uses the same secure algorithm as `mkstemp', because of - the recommendation of POSIX to obsolete `maketemp' as inherently - insecure when obeying POSIX. - -*** The `m4symbols' builtin now warns if given a builtin token instead of - a macro name. It remains silent for undefined macros. - -*** The `patsubst' and `regexp' builtins have a new optional 4th argument - to use a different regular expression syntax for the duration of that - invocation. - -*** The semantics of the `traceon' and `traceoff' builtins now match - traditional implementations: when called without arguments, they affect - global state rather than affecting only the macros defined at that - moment. The manual includes an example of how to recover 1.4.x - semantics. - -** Other changes - -*** The syntax of frozen files format V2 has been improved to save - additional state. This includes the `R' directive for default regular - expression syntax, the `t' directive for traced macros, and the `d' - directive for debug mode. Existing directives with consecutive strings - now require an intermediate newline, for faster parsing. Also, a V2 - file can now be represented completely in ASCII, thanks to escape - sequences. Unfortunately, files frozen by M4 1.4q cannot be read by - 1.9b, but since 1.4q was not widely distributed, this is not expected - to be much of an issue, and comes with the territory of using a beta - release. - - FIXME: format 2 still needs to catch more missing state; once 2.0 is - released, any further changes would introduce format 3. - -*** Improvements made in the 1.4.x and 1.6 stable series have been - incorporated. - - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.6 (????-??-??) [stable] - Released by ????, based on git versions 1.4.10b.x-* and 1.5.* - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.4b where using `traceon' could delete - a macro. This was most noticeable with `traceon(`traceon')', but - would also happen in cases such as `foo(traceon(`foo'))'. - -** Fix regressions introduced in 1.4.10b: -*** Using `builtin' or `indir' to perform nested `shift' calls triggered - an assertion failure (not present in 1.4.11). -*** The command-line option -dV, as well as the builtin `debugmode(V)', - failed to enable `t' and `c' debug options (not present in 1.4.11). -*** Comments that contain unbalanced quotes were not rescanned correctly - when passed through $@ (not present in 1.4.11). -*** Using `defn' on a traced but undefined macro triggered an assertion - failure (also present in 1.4.11, but not 1.4.12). - -** Remove the undocumented command-line option '-N', as no one complained - about the assertion failure regression that it introduced in 1.4.7. - -** The `-o'/`--error-output' command-line options, which were replaced by - `--debugfile' in 1.4.7, now issue a deprecation warning. This warning - harmlessly triggers with versions of Autoconf 2.60 and earlier, but can - be silenced by applying this patch: - http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=autoconf.git;a=commitdiff;h=714eeee87 - -** Fix the `m4wrap' builtin to accumulate wrapped text in FIFO order, as - required by POSIX. The manual mentions a way to restore the LIFO order - present in earlier GNU M4 versions. NOTE: this change exposes a bug - in Autoconf 2.59 and earlier (which was fixed in Autoconf 2.60). - - If you want your package to work with pre-installed Autoconf without - requiring 2.60, then add these lines to your project's configure.ac, - prior to calling AC_INIT: - - # As long as this project is not ready to upgrade to autoconf 2.60 - # or newer, make sure that newer M4 will still use LIFO order: - m4_define([m4_wrap], [m4_ifdef([_$0_text], - [m4_define([_$0_text], [$1]m4_defn([_$0_text]))], - [m4_define([_$0_text], [$1])m4_builtin([m4wrap], - [m4_default(m4_defn([_$0_text])m4_undefine([_$0_text]))])])]) - - On the other hand, if you want to install Autoconf 2.59 or earlier, - then apply this patch: - http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=autoconf.git;a=commitdiff;h=56d42fa71 - -** The `changecom' builtin semantics now match traditional - implementations; if the start-comment string resembles a macro name or - the start-quote string, comments are effectively disabled. - -** The `divert' builtin now accepts an optional second argument of text - that is immediately placed in the new diversion, regardless of whether - the current expansion is nested within argument collection of another - macro. It has also been optimized for faster performance. - -** The `substr' builtin now treats negative arguments as indices relative - to the end of the string, and accepts an optional fourth argument of - text to supply in place of the selected substring. The manual gives an - example of how to recover M4 1.4.x behavior, as well as an example of - simulating the new negative argument semantics with older M4. - -** The `index' builtin now takes an optional third argument as the index - to begin searching from, with a negative argument relative to the end of - the string. - -** The `-d'/`--debug' command-line option now understands `-' and `+' - modifiers, the way the builtin `debugmode' has always done; this allows - `-d-V' to disable prior debug settings from the command line, similar to - using the builtin `debugmode' without arguments. The option - `--debugmode' is added as an alias for `-d'. The new flag `d' is added - to control whether dereferencing an undefined macro causes a warning; - this flag is enabled by default if neither `-d' nor `-E' are specified. - The new flag `o' is added to control whether `dumpdef' outputs to stderr - or the current `debugfile' location. When the command line option is - given the empty string, the mode is treated as `+adeq' instead of `aeq'. - Also, the position of `-d' with respect to files on the command line is - now significant. - -** A new predefined text macro, `__m4_version__', expands to the unquoted - version number of M4, if GNU extensions are enabled. While you should - generally favor feature tests over version number checks, this macro can - be used, via `defn', to determine whether the version of m4 processing - your file is adequate. - -** The `defn', `popdef', and `undefine' builtins gained a new warning when - operating on an undefined macro name, to match the warning already - present in `builtin', `indir', and `dumpdef'. For backwards - compatibility, the warning can be disabled by using `debugmode(`-d')' - (or the command line option `--debug=-d'). The flag is also cleared by - the command line option `-E'/`--fatal-warnings', so that scripts written - for 1.4.x do not cause the script to fail because of new warnings. - -** Enhance the `indir' builtin to trace indirect macros, where the trace - is requested via `traceon' or the command-line option `-t'. Previously, - it was impossible to trace macro names such as `foo-bar' which could - only be invoked indirectly, without relying on global tracing (such as - with `debugmode(`t')') or the experimental `changeword'. - -** Aspects of tracing output that were previously undocumented have been - slightly altered, and the effect of the builtin `debugmode' on trace - output is more fully documented. As POSIX does not specify trace output - format, parsing such output is inherently fragile in the first place. - The intent is that future M4 versions will not change documented trace - output without adding additional `debugmode' flags. - -** Enhance the `ifdef', `ifelse', and `shift' builtins, as well as all - user macros, to transparently handle builtin tokens generated by `defn'. - -** Allow the concatenation of builtin macros with arbitrary text in - several contexts, via the `defn' builtin or argument expansion, rather - than warning and converting the builtin token to an empty string. - However, it is still not possible to use a concatenated builtin when - defining a macro. - -** Enhance the `defn', `dumpdef', `ifdef', `popdef', `traceon', `traceoff', - and `undefine' macros to warn when encountering a builtin token in the - context of a macro name, rather than acting on the empty string. This - was already done for `define', `pushdef', `builtin', and `indir'. - -** Enhance the `eval' builtin to understand the `?:' operator, and - downgrade a failed parse due to an unknown operator from an error to a - warning. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.18 (2016-12-31) [stable] - -** Diagnose --word-regexp as unsupported if it was not configured. - -** Preliminary support for OS/2. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - - -* Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.17 (2013-09-17) [stable] - -** Fix compilation with newer glibc headers. - -** Fix a failure with diverting large amounts of text on mingw (does - not affect platforms that can rename an open file). - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - - -* Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.16 (2011-03-01) [stable] - -** Fix regressions in the `index' builtin. On glibc platforms, this - avoids false positives from a strstr bug in glibc 2.9 through 2.12; - on many other platforms, it fixes two separate regressions, a false - positive introduced in 1.4.11 and a false negative in 1.4.15. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - - -* Noteworthy changes in release 1.4.15 (2010-08-31) [stable] - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9b where the `format' builtin could - crash on an invalid format string. - -** Fix compilation against newer glibc, and on AIX 7.1BETA. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.14 (2010-02-24) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.13.* - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.12 where executing with stdout closed - could crash m4 on exit on some platforms. - -** Fix regressions introduced in 1.4.13 in the `esyscmd' builtin, where - closed file descriptors could interfere with child execution, and where - a child status of 127 made m4 print a spurious message to stderr. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.13 (2009-04-01) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.12.* - -** The manual is now distributed under the terms of FDL 1.3. - -** The `divert' and `undivert' builtins have been made more efficient - when using temporary files for large diversions. - -** The `translit' builtin has been made more efficient when the second - argument is short. - -** The input engine has been optimized for faster processing. - -** The command line option `--debugfile', introduced in 1.4.7, now - treats its argument as optional, in order to allow setting the debug - output back to stderr when used without an argument; and order is now - significant with respect to command line files. You must therefore use - `m4 --debugfile=trace file', not `m4 file --debugfile trace'. This - change does not affect the deprecated `-o'/`--error-output' option. - -** The `syscmd' and `esyscmd' builtins can be configured to use an - alternate shell, via the new `configure' option `--with-syscmd-shell'. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.12 (2008-10-10) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.11.* - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.4b where using `traceon' could delete - a macro. This was most noticeable with `traceon(`traceon')', but - would also happen in cases such as `foo(traceon(`foo'))'. - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.7 where `m4 -N9' died with an assertion - failure. - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.11 where `defn' died with an assertion - failure on a traced but undefined macro. - -** New `-g'/`--gnu' command-line option overrides `-G'/`--traditional'. - For now, the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT has no effect on M4 - behavior; but a future release of M4 will behave as though --traditional - is implied if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set (this future change is necessary, - because in the current release, there is no way to disable GNU - extensions that conflict with POSIX without the use of a non-POSIX - command-line argument). Clients of M4 that want to use GNU extensions, - even when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, should start using the -g command-line - argument, even though it is currently a no-op if -G did not appear - earlier in the command line, so that the client will not break in the - face of an upgraded m4 and a POSIXLY_CORRECT execution environment. - -** The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command-line option now defaults to 0 for - unlimited on platforms that can detect and deal with stack overflow. On - systems that lack alternate stack support, such as Cygwin, and on - systems that do not obey the POSIX semantics for distinguishing stack - overflow from other exceptions, such as Linux, you can optionally - install the libsigsegv library (version 2.6 or newer recommended) to - enhance m4's ability to accurately report stack overflow: - http://www.gnu.org/software/libsigsegv/ - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.11 (2008-04-02) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.10a - -** Security fixes for the -F option, for bugs present since -F was - introduced in 1.3: Avoid core dump with 'm4 -F file -t undefined', and - avoid arbitrary code execution with certain file names. - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9b in the `divert' builtin when more - than 512 kibibytes are saved in diversions on platforms like NetBSD - or darwin where fopen(name,"a+") seeks to the end of the file. - -** The output of the `maketemp' and `mkstemp' builtins is now quoted if a - file was created. This is a minor security fix, because it was possible - (although rather unlikely) that an unquoted string could match an - existing macro name, such that use of the `mkstemp' output would trigger - inadvertent macro expansion and operate on the wrong file name. - -** Enhance the `defn' builtin to support concatenation of multiple text - arguments, as required by POSIX. However, at this time, it is not - possible to concatenate a builtin macro with anything else; a warning is - now issued if this is attempted, although a future version of M4 may - lift this restriction to match other implementations. - -** Enhance the `format' builtin to parse all C99 floating point numbers, - even on platforms where strtod(3) is buggy, although the replacement - function does have the known issue of rounding errors when parsing - some decimal floating point values. This fixes testsuite failures - introduced in 1.4.9b. - -** Enhance the `index' builtin to guarantee linear behavior, in spite of - the surprisingly large number of systems with a brain-dead quadratic - strstr(3). - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.10b (2008-02-25) [beta] - Released by Eric Blake, based on git version 1.4.10a - -Note that M4 1.4.10b was released prior to 1.4.11, and includes all the -features of 1.4.11 except for C99 parsing in the `format' builtin. It also -contains the following beta features that were deemed worth deferring until -1.6: - -** Further enhance the `index' builtin to often achieve sublinear results. - -** Enhance the `regexp' and `patsubst' builtins to cache frequently used - regular expressions, which speeds up typical Autoconf usage. - -** Enhance the `format' builtin to warn for more suspicious usages, such as - missing arguments or problems parsing according to the format string. - -** Enhance the `ifelse' and `shift' builtins so that tail-recursive - algorithms based on `$@' operate in linear, rather than quadratic, time - and memory. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.10 (2007-07-09) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.9c - -** Upgrade from GPL version 2 to GPL version 3 or later. - -** A number of portability improvements inherited from gnulib. - -** Avoid undefined behavior introduced in 1.4.9b in the `format' builtin - when handling %c. However, this area of code has never been documented, - and currently does not match the POSIX behavior of printf(1), so it may - have further changes in the next version. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.9b (2007-05-29) [beta] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.9a - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.9 in the `eval' builtin when performing - division. - -** Fix regression introduced in 1.4.8 in the `-F' option that made it - impossible to freeze more than 512 kibibytes of diverted text. - -** The synclines option `-s' no longer generates sync lines in the middle of - multiline comments or quoted strings. - -** Work around a number of corner-case POSIX compliance bugs in various - broken stdio libraries. In particular, the `syscmd' builtin behaves - more predictably when stdin is seekable. - -** The `format' builtin now understands formats such as %a, %A, and %'hhd, - and works around a number of platform printf bugs. Furthermore, the - sequence format(%*.*d,-1,-1,1) no longer outputs random data. However, - some non-compliant platforms such as mingw still have known bugs in - strtod that may cause testsuite failures. - -** The testsuite is improved to also run gnulib portability tests for the - features that M4 imports from gnulib. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.9 (2007-03-23) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.8c - -** Minor documentation and portability cleanups. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.8b (2007-02-24) [beta] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.8a - -** Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 unable to process - files larger than 2GiB on some platforms. - -** Fix a regression introduced in 1.4.8 that made m4 dump core when - invoked as 'm4 -- file'. - -** The `eval' builtin now follows C precedence rules. Additionally, the - short-circuit operators correctly short-circuit division by zero. The - previously undocumented alias of '=' meaning '==' in eval now triggers a - deprecation warning, so that a future version of M4 can implement a form - of variable assignment as an extension. - -** The `include' builtin now affects exit status on failure, as required by - POSIX. Use `sinclude' if you need a successful exit status. - -** The `-E'/`--fatal-warnings' command-line option now has two levels. When - specified only once, warnings affect exit status, but execution - continues, so that you can see all warnings instead of fixing them one - at a time. To achieve 1.4.8 behavior, where the first warning - immediately exits, specify -E twice on the command line. - -** A new `--warn-macro-sequence' command-line option allows detection of - sequences in `define' and `pushdef' definitions that match an optional - regular expression. The default regular expression is - `\$\({[^}]*}\|[0-9][0-9]+\)', corresponding to the sequences that might - not behave correctly when upgrading to the eventual M4 2.0. By default, - M4 2.0 will follow the POSIX requirement that a macro definition - containing `$11' must expand to the first argument concatenated with 1, - rather than the eleventh argument; and will take advantage of the POSIX - wording that allows implementations to treat `${11}' as the eleventh - argument instead of literal text. Be aware that Autoconf 2.61 will not - work with this option enabled with the default regular expression; but - Autoconf 2.62 will be compatible with this option. - -** Improved portability to platforms such as BSD/OS and AIX. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.8 (2006-11-20) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.7a - -** The `divert' macro and `-H'/`--hashsize' command line option no longer - cause a core dump when handed extra large values. Also, `divert' now - uses memory proportional to the number of diversions in use, rather than - to the maximum diversion number encountered, so that large diversion - numbers are less likely to exhaust system memory; and is no longer - limited by the maximum number of file descriptors. - -** The `--help' and `--version' command line options now consistently - override all earlier options. For example, `m4 --debugfile=trace - --help' now no longer accidentally creates an empty file `trace'. - -** The `-L'/`--nesting-limit' command line option can now be set to 0 - to remove the default limit of 1024. However, it is still possible that - heavily nested input can cause abrupt program termination due to stack - overflow. - -** Problems encountered when writing to standard error, such as with the - `errprint' macro, now always cause a non-zero exit status. - -** Warnings and errors issued during macro expansion are now consistently - reported at the line where the macro name was detected, rather than - where the close parenthesis resides. Text wrapped by `m4wrap' now - remembers the location that was in effect when m4wrap was invoked, - rather than changing to line 0 and the empty string for a file. The - macros `__line__' and `__file__' now work correctly even as the last - token in an included file. - -** The `builtin' and `indir' macros now transparently handle builtin - tokens generated by `defn'. - -** When diversions created by the `divert' macro collect enough text that - M4 must use temporary files, the environment variable $TMPDIR is now - consulted, and a better effort is made to clean up those files in the - event of a fatal signal. - -** The `mkstemp' builtin is added with the same GNU semantics as `maketemp', - based on the recommendation of POSIX to deprecate the POSIX semantics of - `maketemp' as inherently insecure. In GNU mode (no -G supplied on the - command line), `maketemp' silently retains the secure GNU semantics, but - a future release of M4 will change this to emit a warning. In - traditional mode (m4 -G), `maketemp' now uses the POSIX-mandated - insecure semantics, and issues a warning that you should convert your - script to use `mkstemp' instead. Additionally, `mkstemp' and `maketemp' - are now well-defined even if the template argument does not end in six - `X' characters. - -** The manual has been improved, including a new section on a composite - macro `foreach'. - -** The `changecom' and `changequote' macros now treat an empty second - argument the same as if it were missing, rather than using the empty - string and making it impossible to end a comment or quote. - -** The `translit' macro now operates in linear instead of quadratic time, - and is now eight-bit clean. - -** The `-D', `-U', `-s', and `-t' command line options now take effect - after any files encountered earlier on the command line, rather than up - front, as is done in traditional implementations and required by POSIX. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.7 (2006-09-25) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.6a - -** Fix regression from 1.4.5 in handling a file that ends in a macro - expansion without arguments instead of a newline. - -** The define and pushdef macros now warn when the first argument is not - a string, rather than silently doing nothing. - -** Standard input can now be read more than once, as in 'm4 - file -', and - is not closed until all wrapped text is handled. This makes a - difference when stdin is not a regular file, and also fixes bugs when - using the syscmd or esyscmd macros from wrapped text. - -** When standard input is a seekable file, the m4exit, syscmd, and esyscmd - macros now restore the current position to the next unread byte rather - than discarding an arbitrary amount of buffered data. - -** SysV command-line compatibility is no longer a goal of GNU M4; the - focus will be instead on POSIX compatibility. This release continues to - support previous usage, but adds warnings in areas which will allow a - future version of GNU M4 to use its own extensions without being tied to - the SysV command line interface. - -** The no-op compatibility command line options -B, -N, -S, -T, and - --diversions may be withdrawn or assigned new meanings in future - releases, so they now issue a warning if used. - -** A new command line option -i replaces the compatibility -e as the - short spelling of --interactive, for consistency with other GNU tools; a - warning is issued if the old spelling is used, and it may be assigned - new meaning in future releases. - -** A new command line option --debugfile replaces the options -o and - --error-output as the preferred spelling. The old options were - misleading in their names and inconsistent with other GNU tools; they - are still silently accepted, but no longer documented in --help, and may - be assigned new meanings in future releases. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.6 (2006-08-25) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.5a - -** Fix buffer overruns in regexp and patsubst macros when handed a trailing - backslash in the replacement text, or when handling \n substitutions - beyond the number of \(\) groups. - -** Fix memory leak in regexp, patsubst, and changeword macros. - -** The format macro now understands %F, %g, and %G. - -** When loading frozen files, m4 now exits with status 63 if version - mismatch is detected. - -** Fix bugs that occurred when invoked with stdout or stderr closed, - and detect write failures to stdout or to the target of the debugfile - macro. In particular, the syscmd and esyscmd macros can no longer - interfere with the debug stream or diversions. - -** The m4exit macro now converts values outside the range 0-255 to 1. - -** It is now an error if a command-line input file ends in the middle of a - comment, matching the behavior of mid-string and mid-argument - collection. - -** The dnl macro now warns if end of file is encountered instead of a - newline. - -** The error message when end of file is encountered now uses the file and - line where the dangling construct started, rather than `NONE:0:'. - -** The debugmode and __file__ macros, and the -s/--synclines option, now - show what directory a file was found in when the -I/--include option or - M4PATH variable had an effect. - -** The changequote and changecom macros now work with 8-bit characters, and - quotes and comments that begin with `(' are properly recognized - following a word. - -** The new macro __program__ is added, which allows the input file to issue - an error message that resembles messages from m4. Warning and error - messages have been reformatted to comply with GNU Coding Standards. - -** The errprint, m4wrap, and shift macros are now recognized only with - arguments. - -** The index, substr, translit, regexp, and patsubst macros now produce - output when given only one argument, but still warn about a missing - second argument. - -** The patsubst macro now reliably finds zero-length matches at the end - of a string. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.5 (2006-07-15) [stable] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.4c - -** Fix sysval on BeOS, OS/2, and other systems that store exit status - in the low-order byte. Additionally, on Unix platforms, if syscmd was - terminated by a signal, sysval now displays the signal number shifted - left by eight bits, to match traditional m4 implementations. - -** The maketemp macro is no longer subject to platform limitations (such as - 26 or 32 max files from a given template). - -** Frozen files now require that the first directive be V (version), to - better diagnose version mismatch. Additionally, if the F directive - (builtin function) names an unknown builtin that existed in the m4 that - froze the file but not in the current m4 (for example, changeword), the - warning is deferred until an attempt is made to actually use the - builtin. This allows downgrading from beta m4-1.4o to stable m4-1.4.5 - without breaking autoconf. - -** The format and indir macros are now recognized only with arguments. - -** The eval macro no longer crashes on x86 architectures when dividing the - minimum integer by -1. - -** On systems with ecvt and fcvt, format no longer truncates trailing - zeroes on integers printed with %.0f. On systems without these - functions, format is no longer subject to a buffer overflow that - permitted arbitrary code execution. - -** On native Windows builds, the macro __windows__ is provided instead of - __unix__. Likewise, on OS/2 builds, the macro __os2__ is provided. - This allows input files to determine when syscmd might behave - differently. - -** Fix bug in 1.4.3 patch to use \n line-endings that did not work for - cygwin. - -** When given the empty string or 0, undivert is now documented as a no-op - rather than closing stdout, warning about a non-existent file, or trying - to read a directory as a file. - -** Many documentation improvements. Also, the manual is now distributed - under FDL 1.2, rather than a stricter verbatim-only license. - -** Raise the -L (--nesting-limit) command line option limit from 250 to - 1024. - -** The decr, incr, divert, m4exit, and substr macros treat an empty number - as 0, issue a warning, and expand as normal; rather than issuing an - error and expanding to the empty string. - -** The eval macro now treats an empty radix argument as 10, handles radix 1, - and treats the width argument as number of digits excluding the sign, - for compatibility with other m4 implementations. - -** The ifdef, divert, m4exit, substr, and translit macros now correctly - ignore extra arguments. - -** The popdef and undefine macros now correctly accept multiple arguments. - -** Although changeword is on its last leg, if enabled, it now reverts to the - default (faster) regexp when passed the empty string. - -** The regexp and substr macros now warn and ignore a trailing backslash in - the replacement, and warn on \n for n larger than the number of - sub-expressions in the regexp. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.4b (2006-06-17) [beta] - Released by Eric Blake, based on CVS version 1.4.4a - -** Fix a recursive push_string crashing bug, which affected changequote of - three or more characters on some compilers. - -** Use automake to fix build portability issues. - -** Fix a recursive m4wrap crashing bug. - -** Fix a 1 in 2**32 hash crashing bug. - -** Tracing a macro by name is now persistent, even if the macro is - subsequently undefined or redefined. The traceon and traceoff macros no - longer warn about undefined symbols. This solves a crash when using - indir on an undefined macro traced with the -t option, as well as an - incorrect result of ifdef. Furthermore, tracing is no longer - transferred with builtins, solving the bug of "m4 -tm4_eval" failing to - give trace output on the input - "define(`m4_eval',defn(`eval'))m4_eval(1)". - -** Fix a crash when a macro is undefined while collecting its arguments, by - always using the definition that was in effect before argument - collection. This behavior matches the C pre-processor, and means that - the sequence "define(`f',`1')f(define(`f',`2'))f" is now documented to - result in "12", rather than the previously undocumented "22". - -** Update the regex engine to fix several bugs. - -** Fix a potential crash on machines where char is signed. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.4 (Oct 2005) [stable] - Released by Gary V. Vaughan - -** ./configure --infodir=/usr/share/info now works correctly. - -** When any file named on the command line is missing exit with status 1. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.3 (Mar 2005) [stable] - Released by Gary V. Vaughan - -** DESTDIR installs now work correctly. - -** Don't segfault with uncompilable regexps to changeword(). - -** Always use \n line-endings for frozen files (fixes a Windows bug). - -** Portability fix for systems lacking mkstemp(3). - -** Approximately 20% speed up in the common case of usage with autoconf. - -** Supported on QNX 6.3. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.2 (Aug 2004) [stable] - Released by Paul Eggert - -** No user visible changes; portability bug fixes only. - -* Noteworthy changes in Version 1.4.1 (Jun 2004) [stable] - Released by Paul Eggert - -** The 1.4.x series is intended to be stable; features added in 1.4[a-q] - were not backported to 1.4.x unless specifically mentioned above. - -** maketemp now creates an empty file with the given name, instead of merely - returning the name of a nonexistent file. This closes a security hole. - - -* Version beta 1.4q - August 2001, by Gary V. Vaughan - -** Support for the experimental `changeword' has been dropped. - -** `m4 --hashsize' and `-H' are still accepted, but have no effect. M4 - will grow its internal symbol table if the symbol density is having an - effect on performance. - -** `configure --without-modules' will build an m4 binary with no preloaded - modules. At startup it will search for and load modules `m4' and either - `gnu' or `traditional'. This mode of operation can be used for - development and debugging of the base modules without the need to - recompile all of m4 with each modification. - -** `configure --with-modules="gnu m4 traditional load"', for example, - will build an m4 binary with the named modules preloaded, ready to be - activated (even on static lib only machines) with the `-m' option or - using the `load' builtin. - -** M4 has no builtins or macros in core, they are all loaded from modules - at startup. This means that modules are no longer optional, though the - standard build will statically link the modules `m4', `gnu' and - `traditional', so even on machines with no ltdl support, all of the - functionality from previous releases is available. - -** New builtin `load' to dynamically load modules which can define new - builtins and user macros. - -** New builtin `unload' to remove loaded modules (and the builtins and user - macros they define) from the running m4 interpreter. - -** New builtins `eregexp' and `epatsubst' to use Extended Regular - Expressions syntax in lieu of Basic Regular Expressions as used by - `regexp' and `patsubst'. - -** The names of all currently loaded modules are returned by the new - builtin, ``modules''. - -** Loadable modules can define new builtin functions or text expansion - macros. - -** The module code has been rewritten to use libltdl, the libtool dynamic - loader, which means GNU m4 can now load (and unload) modules just about - anywhere which it can be built. This includes obscure hosts such as - cygwin and BeOS, and also on hosts which do not have shared libraries, - through preloading (see libtool manual) and GNU dld. - -** Modules can now be built without the m4 source being available using the - installed m4module.h header file (and some other headers that it - includes for you), and the installed libm4.la libtool library. All - symbols exported from libm4.la have a prefix of `m4_' or `M4_'. See the - modules directory for examples of usage. - -** A new V2 format for frozen files that saves module and syntax information. - -* Version beta 1.4o - January 2000, by Rene' Seindal - -** Modules can be loaded from the command line with --load-module - -** Modules now use libtool's wrapper libltdl. - -** New builtin `symbols' allows dynamic queries of all currently defined - macros. - -** Various Bug fixes. - -* Version beta 1.4n - November 1998, by Rene' Seindal - -** The module code has been reorganised yet again, and now compiles - correctly on GNU/Linux, HPUX 9 and 10, SunOS 5 and Solaris 5. - -** When configured --with-gmp a new builtin `mpeval' is now defined. The - builtin `eval' retains its normal behaviour. - -** m4 --version also shows which options were used for compilation, such as: - "GNU m4 1.4n (options: modules gmp changeword)" - -** New option --import-environment defines all environment variables as - macros. This is done before -D and -U are handled, so the macros can be - changed through these options. - -** Error messages now always print program name before input file name as - specified by GNU coding standards. Reported by Akim Demaille. - -** Bug fixed: "undivert(0)" could cause m4 to read standard output. A call - of "undivert(0)" is now silently ignored. - -** Bug fixed: when compiling --with-included-gettext, <libintl.h> wasn't - found in intl/ directory. Reported by Andrew Bettison. - -* Version beta 1.4m - November 1998, by Rene' Seindal - -** Using libtool for compiling modules and for linking main app. - -** Reorganised the dynamic module code to encapsulate system dependencies - better. The code for HPUX shl_load() still needs testing and debugging. - A dld interface is also missing. Any volunteers? - -** The files from the GNU m4 web-site is now in examples/WWW as a more - complete example of what GNU m4 can do. - -* Version beta 1.4l - November 1998, by Rene' Seindal - -** GNU m4 now has an escape syntax category. If a character is marked as - an escape, words are only recognised as macros if preceded by an escape - character. It is a bit like -P, but dynamic: it can be turned on and - off. The GNU m4 web-site on http://www.seindal.dk/rene/gnu/ is - maintained with this feature - the m4 source is available on the site. - -** The module interface is improved, thanks to "Brian J. Fox", - who has contributed some code from Meta-HTML. The modules now build - automatically and installs properly, by default in - /usr/local/libexec/m4. There is a preliminary, untested support for - shl_load(). - -** There is now a __m4_version__ macro that expands to the current version - number. - -* Version beta 1.4k - November 1998, by Erick Branderhorst and Rene' Seindal - -** GNU m4 now uses gettext to support internationalization. - -** GNU m4 now uses automake to control Makefile.in generation. This - should make it more consistent with the GNU standards. - -** GNU m4 will use the gmp library for multiple precision integral and - rational arithmetic in `eval' if configured with `--with-gmp'. If - configured without `--with-gmp' or if gmp is not available, and the type - `long long int' is, GNU m4 will use that for `eval' arithmetic. - -** GNU m4 now parses the input according to a syntax table, that can be - modified through the new builtin `changesyntax'. It is a generalisation - of the existing builtins `changecom' and `changequote'. The changes are - completely backwards compatible (except for the existence of - `changesyntax'). - -** Sync lines can be turned on and off with the `syncoutput' builtin. The - builtin `syncoutput' is a GNU extension. - -** New experimental feature: dynamically loadable modules. New builtin - `loadmodules' loads shared libraries, that can define new builtin - macros, ie, new macros can be written in C. Depends on the dlopen() - interface, and is currently only tested on Linux. Enabled at configure - time with `--with-modules'. Documentation is in src/module.c and - module/README. - -** Implement a GNU message catalog for French (Franc,ois Pinard). - -** Filenames found through path searches are now correctly reflected in - error and debug messages and through the `__file__' macro. - -** Bugs fixed: - -*** All 8-bit characters can now be used for quotes. - -* Version 1.4 - October 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard - -** (No user visible changes) - -* Version 1.3 - September 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard - -** Diversions are created as needed. Option `-N' is still accepted, but - otherwise ignored. Users should use only negative diversion numbers, - instead of high positive numbers, for diverting to nowhere. - -** Diversions should also work faster. No temporary files will be needed - at all if all diversions taken altogether do not use more than 512K. - -** Frozen state files may be produced with the `--freeze-state' (-F) - option and later brought back through the `--reload-state' (-R) option. - -* Version 1.2 - July 1994, by Franc,ois Pinard - -** In patsubst(STRING, REGEXP, REPLACEMENT), \& in REPLACEMENT has been - changed to represent this part of STRING matched by the whole REGEXP, - instead of the whole STRING as before. \0 does the same, but emits a - diagnostic saying it will disappear in some subsequent release. - -** eval(EXPR) emits a diagnostic if EXPR has suffixed crumb. The same for - other numeric conversions in incr(), decr(), divert(), etc. - -** `--fatal-warnings' (-E) stops execution at first warning. - -** `--nesting-limit=LEVEL' (-L LEVEL) sets a limit to macro nesting. - It is initially fixed at 250. - -** `--word-regexp=REGEXP' (-W REGEXP) modifies macro name syntax, like - does the new `changeword(REGEXP)' macro. This feature is experimental, - tell me your opinions about it. You do need --enable-changeword at - configure time to get these things. Do *not* depend on them yet. - -** Trace output format is scannable by GNU Emacs' next-error function. - -** Stack overflow is detected and diagnosed on some capable systems. - -** Various bugs have been corrected, m4 should be more portable. See the - ChangeLog for details. - -* Version 1.1 - November 1993, by Franc,ois Pinard - -** Changes which might affect existing GNU m4 scripts: - -*** Option `-V' has been removed, use `--version' instead. `--version' - writes on standard output instead of standard error, and inhibits any - script execution. - -*** `--no-gnu-extensions' has been renamed `--traditional'. - -*** In `eval', `^' used to indicate exponentiation, use `**' instead. - -*** The automatic undiversion which takes place at end of all input is - forced into the main output stream. - -** Changes which are unlikely to affect existing scripts: - -*** `--help' prints an usage summary on standard output. Script execution - is then inhibited. - -*** `--prefix-builtins' (-P) prefixes all builtin macros by `m4_'. - -*** Most builtin macros for which arguments are mandatory, called without - any arguments, are no more recognized as builtin macros: they are - consequently copied verbatim to the output stream. - -*** `define' and `pushdef' are usable with only one argument, they give - this argument an empty definition. - -*** `eval' new operators for binary representation handling: `^' for - exclusive-or, `~' for the bitwise negation, `<<' and `>>' for shifts. - -*** `eval' recognizes the notation 0bDIGITS for binary numbers and the - notation 0rRADIX:DIGITS for numbers in any radix from 1 to 36. - -* Version 1.0.3 - December 1992, by Franc,ois Pinard - -** Changes for the user: - -*** `dnl' outputs a diagnostic if immediately followed by `('. Usually, - `dnl' is followed by newline or whitespace. - -*** `ifelse' accepts without complaining the common idiom of having only - one argument. This is useful for introducing long comments. - -*** `eval' always expresses values as signed, whatever the radix. - -*** M4OPTS environment variable is no longer obeyed. - -*** `--no-warnings' option is renamed `--silent'. - -*** Debug lines use a new format more compatible with GNU standards. - -*** Various bugs have been corrected. See the ChangeLog for details. - -** Changes for the installer: - -*** GNU m4 now uses an Autoconf-generated configure script, and should be - more easily portable in many ways. (Cray is not supported yet). - -*** `make check' has been made more portable, expect no errors. - -** Changes for the programmer: - -*** Sources have been fully reindented to comply with GNU standards, and - cleaned up in many ways. - -*** Sources have been protoized. Non-ANSI compilers are automatically - detected, then sources are unprotoized on the fly before compilation. - -*** GNU m4 uses newer versions of obstack, regex, getopt, etc. - -* Version 1.0 - October 1991, by Rene' Seindal - -** Uses GNU configure, taken from the gdb distribution. - -** Uses GNU getopt(), with long option names. - -** The -Q/+quiet option is added, which suppresses warnings about missing - or superflous arguments to builtin macros. - -** Added default options via the M4OPTS environment variable. - -** Several minor bugs have been fixed. - -* Version 0.99 - July 1991, by Rene' Seindal - -** The builtins `incr' and `decr' are now implemented without use of - `eval'. - -** The builtin `indir' is added, to allow for indirect macro calls - (allows use of "illegal" macro names). - -** The debugging and tracing facilities has been enhanced considerably. - See the manual for details. - -** The -tMACRO option is added, marks MACRO for tracing as soon as it - is defined. - -** Builtins are traced after renaming iff they were before. - -** Named files can now be undiverted. - -** The -Nnum option can be used to increase the number of divertions - available. - -** Calling changecom without arguments now disables all comment handling. - -** A bug in `dnl' is fixed. - -** A bug in the multi-character quoting code is fixed. - -** Several typos in the manual has been corrected. More probably persist. - -* Version 0.75 - November 1990, by Rene' Seindal - -** Implemented search path for include files (-I option and M4PATH - environment variable). - -** Implemented builtin `format' for printf-like formatting. - -** Implemented builtin `regexp' for searching for regular expressions. - -** Implemented builtin `patsubst' for substitution with regular - expressions. - -** Implemented builtin `esyscmd', which expands to a shell commands output. - -** Implemented `__file__' and `__line__' for use in error messages. - -** Implemented character ranges in `translit'. - -** Implemented control over debugging output. - -** Implemented multi-character quotes. - -** Implemented multi-character comment delimiters. - -** Changed predefined macro `gnu' to `__gnu__'. - -** Changed predefined macro `unix' to `__unix__', when the -G option is - not used. With -G, `unix' is still defined. - -** Added program name to error messages. - -** Fixed two missing null bytes bugs. - -* Version 0.50 - January 1990, by Rene' Seindal - -* Initial beta release. - -======================================================================== - -Local Variables: -fill-column: 75 -End: - -Copyright (C) 1992-1994, 2004-2011, 2013-2014, 2017 Free Software -Foundation, Inc. - -Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document -under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or -any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no -Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover -Texts. A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free -Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution. |