Automake 1.8b uploaded (beta for Automake 1.9)

Hi people,

Here is a first beta release of the next version of Automake (1.9).
The list of changes relative to Automake 1.8.5 are appended below.
Since most bug fixes occured on the 1.8.x branch, only new features
and hard-to-fix bugs remain on this list.

If you have some time, please help us tracking down bugs by trying
this beta with your packages and reporting any issue you encounter.
Especially, please shout loud if your package works with 1.8.5 but
does not with 1.8b.

** Please report bugs to <[email protected]>. **

You can find this beta here:

    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.gz
    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.gz.sig
    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.bz2
    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.bz2.sig
    ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.gz
    ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.gz.sig
    ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.bz2
    ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/automake/automake-1.8b.tar.bz2.sig

Here are the MD5 sums:

    3a07d8613639fcd525f040896df0c39a  automake-1.8b.tar.gz
    a6f2761a58ba2d2b104794b876fce93d  automake-1.8b.tar.bz2

New in 1.8b (since 1.8.5):

* Makefile.in bloat reduction:

  - Inference rules are used to compile sources in subdirectories when
    the `subdir-objects' option is used and no per-target flags are
    used.  This should reduce the size of some projects a lot, because
    Automake used to output an explicit rule for each such object in
    the past.

  - Automake no longer outputs three rules (.o, .obj, .lo) for each
    object that must be built with explicit rules.  It just outputs
    the rules required to build the kind of object considered: either
    the two .o and .obj rules for usual objects, or the .lo rule for
    libtool objects.

* Change to Libtool support:

  - Libtool tags are used with libtool versions that support them.
    (I.e., with Libtool 1.5 or greater.)

  - Automake is now able to handle setups where a libtool library is
    conditionally installed in different directories, as in

      if COND
        lib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
      else
        pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = liba.la
      endif
      liba_la_SOURCES = ...

* Changes to aclocal:

  - aclocal now ensures that AC_DEFUNs and AU_DEFUNs it discovers are
    really evaluated, before it decides to include them in aclocal.m4.
    This solves nasty problems with conditional redefinitions of
    Autoconf macros in /usr/share/aclocal/*.m4 files causing extraneous
    *.m4 files to be included in any project using these macros.
    (Calls to AC_PROG_EGREP causing libtool.m4 to be included is the
    most famous instance of this bug.)

  - Do not complain about missing conditionally AC_REQUIREd macros
    that are not actually used.  In 1.8.x aclocal would correctly
    determine which of these macros were really needed (and include
    only these in the package); unfortunately it would also require
    all of them to be present in order to run.  This created
    situations were aclocal would not work on a tarball distributing
    all the macros it uses.  For instance running aclocal on a project
    containing only the subset of the Gettext macros in use by the
    project did not work, because gettext conditionally requires other
    macros.

* Portability improvements:

  - Tar format can be chosen with the new options tar-v7, tar-ustar, and
    tar-pax.  The new option filename-length-max=99 helps diagnosing
    filenames that are too long for tar-v7.  (PR/414)

  - Variables aumented with `+=' are now automatically flattened (i.e.,
    trailing backslashes removed) and then wrapped around 80 colummns
    (adding trailing backslashes).  In previous versions, a long series
    of
      VAR += value1
      VAR += value2
      VAR += value3
      ...
    would result in a single-line definition of VAR that could possibly
    exceed the maximum line length of some make implementations.

    Non-augmented variables are still output as they are defined in
    the Makefile.am.

* Miscellaneous:

  - Support Fortran 90/95 with the new "fc" and "ppfc" languages.
    Works the same as the old Fortran 77 implementation; just replace
    F77 with FC everywhere (exception: FFLAGS becomes FCFLAGS).
    Requires a version of autoconf which provides AC_PROG_FC (>=2.59).

  - Support for conditional _LISP.

  - Diagnose AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR calls following AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE. (PR/49)

  - Automake stops writing Makefile.ins as soons as it encounters an
    error.  (Warnings will not prevent output, but remember they can
    be turned into errors with -Werror.)

  - The restriction that SUBDIRS must contain direct children is gone.
    Do not abuse.

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