GNU M4 NEWS - User visible changes. Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Version 1.4.6 - 25 August 2006, by Eric Blake (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. Version 1.4.5 - 15 July 2006, by Eric Blake (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. Version 1.4.4b - 17 June 2006, by Eric Blake (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. Version 1.4.4 - October 2005, 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. Version 1.4.3 - March 2005, 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. Version 1.4.2 - August 2004, by Paul Eggert * No user visible changes; portability bug fixes only. Version 1.4.1 - June 2004, by Paul Eggert * 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 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 built-in 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. 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