Blogging about deprecated macros

[Marko Lindqvist]

FYI

Recent automake-1.13 release has been keeping me busy as I try to fix
the majority (it feels) of FOSS projects upon which it fails, due to
AM_CONFIG_HEADER having been removed.

So in the hope that projects would be better prepared for future
autotool releases, a quick note about autoupdate:
http://cazfi.livejournal.com/195108.html


- ML

[Jeffrey Walton]

Post by Marko Lindqvist
FYI
Recent automake-1.13 release has been keeping me busy as I try to fix
the majority (it feels) of FOSS projects upon which it fails, due to
AM_CONFIG_HEADER having been removed.
So in the hope that projects would be better prepared for future
http://cazfi.livejournal.com/195108.html

OT: It sounds like there's a communication or awareness problem.

is it not possible to have the GNU standards changed to reflect
current needs, and then have the Foundation send a message to all
project maintainers? It seems like you have better things to do than
their administivia.

Jeff

[Marko Lindqvist]

Post by Jeffrey Walton

Post by Marko Lindqvist
FYI
Recent automake-1.13 release has been keeping me busy as I try to fix
the majority (it feels) of FOSS projects upon which it fails, due to
AM_CONFIG_HEADER having been removed.
So in the hope that projects would be better prepared for future
http://cazfi.livejournal.com/195108.html

OT: It sounds like there's a communication or awareness problem.
is it not possible to have the GNU standards changed to reflect
current needs, and then have the Foundation send a message to all
project maintainers? It seems like you have better things to do than
their administivia.

Oh, I don't think I've encountered any GNU/FSF packages affected.


- ML

[Stefano Lattarini]

Post by Marko Lindqvist
FYI
Recent automake-1.13 release has been keeping me busy as I try to fix
the majority (it feels) of FOSS projects upon which it fails, due to
AM_CONFIG_HEADER having been removed.

That had actually been my fault, since I mistakenly didn't follow the
proper deprecation path for the removal: I jumped directly from
deprecation in the manual to abrupt removal, instead of following the
(doc warning) -> (runtime warnings) -> (fatal error) -> (removal)
safe path.

If I had been more careful, projects would have been warned beforehand
with non-fatal warnings, and would have add all the time to update
their configure.ac before the warning became fatal.

Post by Marko Lindqvist
So in the hope that projects would be better prepared for future
http://cazfi.livejournal.com/195108.html

Actually, Automake is not using AU_DEFUN for the macros (or macro
usages) currently deprecated; it's merely printing warnings in the
category "obsolete". Since warnings in this category are enabled
be default (in automake since the 1.12.4 release, while in autoconf
they should be since the future release 2.70), the best way to
upgrade your 'configure.ac' and/or 'Makefile.am' is to pay attention
to the warning messages (they should give enough of a hint about how
to modernize your usage, or at least give pointers to documentation
explaining how to do so).

Best regards,
Stefano

[Stefano Lattarini]

[Moving to the Automake list, that is the correct place for this dicussion]

Reference:
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2013-01/msg00004.html>

Post by Marko Lindqvist
FYI
Recent automake-1.13 release has been keeping me busy as I try to fix
the majority (it feels) of FOSS projects upon which it fails, due to
AM_CONFIG_HEADER having been removed.
So in the hope that projects would be better prepared for future
http://cazfi.livejournal.com/195108.html

In addition to what I said in my previous reply

<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2013-01/msg00007.html>

please note that the NEWS file in the 'maint' branch of the Automake
git repository contains a list of planned behavioural changes and/or
future backward incompatibilities:

<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/automake.git/tree/NEWS?h=maint>

This NEWS entries are reported in any announcement of a new Automake
version, to make them easier to spot for "advanced" users. Example:

<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2013-01/msg00000.html>

Also, to make it more difficult to incur into another unannounced backward
incompatibility like the AM_CONFIG_HEADER one, I've added a PLANS directory
in the Automake source tree, where non-trivial changes (whether backward
incompatible or not) can be motived, discussed, and planned:

<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/automake.git/tree/PLANS/README?h=maint>

This is also meant to integrate discussions in the Bug Tracker, which
can sometimes span several months and become tangled, and make the
general direction not trivial to follow and the main points more
difficult to condense and remember.

Regards,
Stefano