Make:NG, The Superior Makefile System / News: Recent posts

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Released new versions of the packages to include the few fixes mentioned in the past news items. See the Release Notes and Change Log for details.

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Two updates of note to the current 1.10 version.

The first is a change to "scripts/Makefile.stdinc". The current file forcefully inclues the win32 environmental settings:

include $\{MAKENG\_LOC\}Makefile.stdinc.win32

The "include" line should look as follows:

include $\{MAKENG\_LOC\}Makefile.stdinc.$\{HOST\}

This change has been checked into CVS.

Additionally, the user guide has been updated with a brief comparison between oldstyle makefiles and Make:NG files. This has also been checked in.... read more

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Tarballs have been released for 1.10. Two tarballs are available, the first (makeng-1.10.tar.gz) includes an already patched version of GNU Make 3.79.1, ready to be configured and built.

The second tarball, makeng-1.10-src.tar.gz, contains similar contents to prior releases, including the necessary patch files to patch your own copy of GNU Make 3.79.1

As always, the latest documentation will be checked into CVS, as well as packaged into the released tarballs.... read more

Make:NG 1.10 has been committed to CVS. The most significant change is the addition of "tokens" to the option system. Tokens allow you to specify an unlimited number of option "slots" in your build scripts, vastly increasing the control available on a per component basis.

Other changes include a range of bugfixes, the addition of "local-type" options, and a massive collection of sample scripts and tests organized as an automated test suite ( excute testbed/sample.test/Makefile.test-all).... read more

This new version includes several bugfixes, and enhanced support for cross-component option sharing.

It has not been tested in Win32; any problems reported running in that environment will be fixed as soon as possible.

Make:NG now supports the windows platform, and has some basic logic in it for determining which operating system it is operating under (certain things like "paths" care about that, but most everything else does not).

I'll be placing the Windows Compatible version 1.8 up over the next few days. I've already commited the patch that fixes a build problem (Win32 doesn't have snprintf? Bizzare.), and will be flushing out a couple script features and portability alterations over the next couple of days. Nothing substantial, just a few additional hooks and API's that I've had requested from the users.

Hi guys --
This is the somewhat-final release. I've added all the features I really want, and tested it somewhat extensively. I'll let it sit for a couple of days and see if I can drum up anyone to try it, and then toss it up on freshmeat and hope it doesn't fail miserably :)

New features for this release are:
An 'alias' function to do command-line script alias's (i.e. 'gmake all' -> 'gmake build')
An improved default stdinc library.
A new testbed project (project.5) to demonstrate using the stdinc library.
Slightly improved documentation, thanks to czth.

I've placed a tarball up for 1.6, I strongly recommend everyone upgrades. There were quite a few problems in 1.3 (none-the-least problems with the linux support) that have been fixed. Additionally, there is increased feature support within the scripts, better documentation, and a much more thorough feel of "feature complete".

Remaining items on my todo list:
Add a "make-script-alias" command so those who want to can map "all" to "build" (i.e. "gmake all" == "gmake build").
Flush out the functionality in the Makefile.stdinc. The current one in the scripts directory is a pale ineffectual shadow of where I want it to be -- eventually, you will be able to find the components you want by looking them up in a table and specifying the appropriate derivations.
Write a top level README with an even shorter quickstart guide.
Write another example using the new Makefile.stdinc as soon as it is finished.
Consider renaming the 'Makefile.*' files to 'makeng.*' to reduce semantic confusion.
Get more feedback! :)

The user guide has been completed and uploaded. It's in fairly rough text, anyone out there want to suggest a quick and easy way to make it pretty? :)

Thanks to an assist from Darius, I've replaced the tmpfile mechanism with a pipe(2) mechanism for magnitude faster processing. Usability is finally in place :)

As soon as the latest upload finishs, I'm going to start working on usage examples, documentation, and refining the scripts themselves as needed.

The scripts have basic functionality, which is to say they build, and collate project files. Unfortionately, they're fairly slow right now, and there's still a couple features/demonstration packages I'd like to put together.

In short, however, they are functional right now.

This means that the pre-compiled binary I have is deprecated. I'll post a new one up as soon as I'm confident that there are no ill side effects in this version.

I ran into an annoying problem just the other night. There is no way, in make, to set the value of a recursive variable equal to the value of another recursive variable. That is to say, if you do the following:
foo = $@
bar = $(foo)
foo = muh
aa :
@echo $(foo) and $(bar)
You'll get "muh and muh", which are not what I was trying to get. The behavior I'd like is one where:
bar = $(foo)
was equilivent to:
bar = $@ # in this case, that is.... read more

Flushing out the functionality, I've added support for rule options, the groundwork for link chain's, and the intelligence to automatically create the necessary object directories.

Because people have been asking for it, I've added in a preliminary draft of the files I'm working on. I don't believe this version currently works, but 'scripts/Makefile' is an example of what your makefile could look like. The only really interesting line is the 'add-entries' line, which adds a set of files to a project. Most everything else is one-off boiler plate or things that you will be part of the standard package that you can derive from via an 'include-component' command.... read more

Yay! As a celebration of the makefile system actually *gasp* building a file, I have added the project in to sourceforge (and freshmeat, as soon as it reaches stable). File uploads will begin tonight into the cvs tree.