The OMake CHANGELOG

|  | OMake Home Documentation Download Publications Mailing lists Users and projects Bugzilla Browse sources Changelog summary, verbose

## OMake Change Log

Jump to version 0.9.8.5, 0.9.8.4, 0.9.8.3, 0.9.8.1, 0.9.8, 0.9.6.9, 0.9.6.8, 0.9.6.7, 0.9.6.6, 0.9.6.5, 0.9.6, 0.9.4, 0.9.3, 0.9.2.

See also the brief summary change log.

### Version 0.9.8.5 (August 7, 2007)

This is a somehat major feature enhancement release

- Made sure that Ctrl-C would correctly stop OMake on Windows, making it much easier to use `-p` and `-P` on Windows.
- Added `export` sections.
  - Exports take effect for all sections within their static scope. For example,

           section
              export
              section
                 public.X = 1

           println($X)  # Prints 1

  - In addition, exports augment any existing exports. For example,

           section
              public.X = 1
              public.Y = 2

              export X
              section
                 X = 3
                 Y = 4
              export Y
           # X is 3
           # Y is 2

  - Variable definitions also allow exports. For example,

           public.X = 1
           public.f() =
              X = 2
              export

           public.Y = $f
           # X is 2
           # Y is 2

    Note: this is, of course, not the same as imperative programming, because functions can always choose not to export. In particular, the string "functions" do not export.

           public.X = 1
           export X
           public.f() =
              X = 2
           Y = $"$f"
           # X = 1
           # Y = 2

- Added `.STATIC` and `.MEMO` rules - an enhanced, yet lazy (delayed) version of the `static.` sections.
  - Basic usage:

           .STATIC:
               println(foo)
               X = 1
           Y = $X

    The variable `X` is exported, with a "delayed" value. The rule is only evaluated if the value for `$X` is needed, but it is lazy. The definition of Y does not force evaluation.
  - `.STATIC` rules allow dependencies, for example:

           .STATIC: x.input
               X = $(expensive-function x.input)

    This is be evaluated if `x.input` changes and `X` is forced.
  - `.STATIC` rules also allow explicitly specifying which variables are exported, for example:

           .STATIC: X: x.input
               Y = 1
               X = $Y

    Here, `Y` is not exported from the section.
  - By default, if a `.STATIC` rule is evaluated several times (for example, if the `.STATIC` rule is present inside a body of a function that is called several times), the result is the same set of delayed variables.
  - `.STATIC` rules can have `:key:` dependency that specify whether we are getting the same set of delayed variables or not, when re-executing the same `.STATIC` rule. For example,

            g(x) =
                eprintln($"g($x)")
                add($x, 1)

            f(x) =
                .STATIC: :key: $x
                    y = $(g $x)
                value $y

            println($(f 1))
            println($(f 2))
            println($(f 1))

    will call function `g` twice - only once for each argument, printing:

            g(1)
            2
            g(2)
            3
            2

  - `.STATIC` rules have their values are stored in `.omakedb`, not in `.omc`, so they are distinct between different projects (while the `static.` sections in common library files are shared between projects).
  - The `.MEMO` rules are very similar to the `.STATIC`, except the `.MEMO` values are not preserved across runs of OMake. They are, however, preserved for the duration of OMake session.
- Fields in sub-objects can now be referenced directly using the `$(X.Y.Z)` form (bug 580). For example,

         X. =
            Y. =
               Z. =
                  x = 1
         X.Y.Z.y = 2
         X.Y.Z.f() =
             value $(add $x, $y)
         echo $(X.Y.Z.f)
         # prints "3"

- Allow functions to take their bodies as array arguments (bug 645). The `[...]` argument to a function call stands for an array body and `...` stands for a normal body argument. For example,

         X =
            file([...])
               a
               b
               c
         - :
             : Array

- Corrected several cases where the `exit` shell alias would not do the right thing. For example, pipelines like `false || exit 5` will now return the correct exit code.
- Added a `build` function, so that builds can be performed from `osh` scripts (the function may be called only from `osh`).
- `build/C.om`: new functions for building DLLs: `DynamicCLibrary`, `DynamicCLibraryCopy`, `DynamicCLibraryInstall`, `DynamicCXXLibrary`, `DynamicCXXLibraryCXXopy`, `DynamicCXXLibraryInstall`.
- New built-in functions: `sort` (AKA `Sequence.sort`), `replace-nth`, `input-line` (AKA `InChannel.readln`), `channel-name` (AKA `Channel.name`), `sequence-sub` (AKA `Sequence.sub`).
- New `Shell` alias: `Shell.pwd`
- The `defined`, `getvar`, `setvar` now allow qualified names (e.g `public.x` or `private.y`).
- Built-in `awk` will now set the `FILENAME` and `FNR` ("line number") variables when evaluating its body.
- The run-time is now included in `- exit` messages (e.g. when `--print-exit` is enabled) - bug 680. Note that this only indicates when OMake have noticed that the command have finished, which may be quite inaccurate in parallel builds (where OMake may be busy setting up parallel jobs and not paying attention).
- Significant code reorganization in preparation for OMake 0.9.9, should be largely transparent to the end-users

### Version 0.9.8.4 (June 4, 2007)

- Fixed a file descriptor leak
- Fixed: `$(OCAMLDEPFLAGS)` should be passed to "ocamldep -modules"
- Other minor bug fixes

### Version 0.9.8.3 (June 1, 2007)

- The 3-place rules are now considered implicit and will be inherited by subdirectories. This makes it easier to declare default rules for common targets, such as

        clean: %:
           rm -f ...

- Allow `.PHONY` sections to have a body. A `.PHONY` declaration with a body would create a default (implicit) rule for the newly created phony target(s).
- Detect case-insensitive filesystems on Unix-like operating systems (especially common under Mac OS X). This should make it possible to use `OCAMLDEP_MODULES_ENABLED=true` under Unix-like operating systems with case-insensitive filesystems.
- Changed the default value for the `OCAMLDEP_MODULES_ENABLED` to `$(OCAMLDEP_MODULES_AVAILABLE)`. In other words, `ocamldep -modules` will be used whenever it is available (e.g. under OCaml 3.10 or if the bytecode executable distributed with OMake can be used).
- A number of performance improvements. In particular, the size of the .omakedb should now be significantly smaller.
- Documentation improvements

### Version 0.9.8.2

The version number 0.9.8.2 was skipped.

### Version 0.9.8.1 (March 16, 2007)

- Additional “autoconfiguration” functionality:
  - New functions in `configure/Configure.om`, including `ConfMsgChecking`, `ConfMsgResult`, `ConfMsgYesNo`, `ConfMsgWarn`, `ConfMsgError`, `ConfMsgFound`, `TryCompileC`, `TryLinkC`, `TryRunC`, `RunCProg`.
  - Added `configure/X.om` with some basic tests for X (experimental, not very well tested).
- A number of new built-in and standard library functions: `join`, `min`, `max`, `Map.keys`, `Map.values`, `getpwnam`, `getpwuid`, `getpwents`, `getgrnam`, `getgrgid`, `tgetstr`, `xterm-escape`, `prompt-invisible```
- Improvements in `-p`/`-P` (“poll”) mode:
  - Various errors in `OMakefile`s will now cause OMake to poll for `OMakefile` changes after reporting the error, instead of aborting.
  - Will watch “`:optional:`” and “`:exists:`” dependencies (but will still ignore “`Delete`” events for them).
- In implicit rules, allow the source files to contain more than one instance of the `%` “wildcard” character.
- Significant improvements in the command line completion in the interactive `osh` shell.
- `build/C.om`:
  - Added `StaticCXXLibrary` function;
  - Use `/Fo` and `/Fe` flags in place of `-o` on Windows.
- `build/LaTeX.om`: added some support for MikTeX.
- A number of documentation improvements.
- A number of other improvements and bugfixes.

### Version 0.9.8 (December 11, 2006)

- The main change in this release is that the OMake values will now be converted into the shell command lines directly (all the previous versions of OMake should first "flatten" the value into a string and then perform `sh`-like parsing of the resulting string). In particular, this means that:
  - All the special symbols in files and directory values will be preserved.
  - All the spaces inside the array elements will be preserved.
  - All the special symbols in OMake-quoted values (`$"`...`"` and `$'`...`'`) will be preserved.
  - If the first element of the command line is a file value, neither PATH- nor alias-expansion will be performed. Note - there will also be no alias-expansion if the executable value contains quoted parts or starts with a `\`.
  - The `Shell.` aliases will now receive the values passed on the shell command line as is, not the string-expanded version. Also, if some of the arguments are the result of a glob-expansion, the alias function will receive the appropriate file values, not the strings.
  - OMake 0.9.8 will not be fully backwards-compatible with the earlier releases.
- Major redesign of the OMake documentation (using HEVEA).
  - The documentation is significantly expanded, examples added, bugs fixed.
  - There are now a number of indices, including a index of variables, an index of functions, and an overall index.
- `OCaml.om` improvements:
  - Implemented a new approach to computing the dependencies in OCaml projects in OMake. In this approach a special version of `ocamldep` is used to only extract the list of the external modules a file depends on and then OMake is used to map those modules to files in the include path. This eliminates the "standard" deficiency of having to generate all the relevant OCaml source files before `ocamldep` is called. This feature is considered highly experimental and is disabled by default. Use the `OCAMLDEP_MODULES_ENABLED` variable to enable.
  - Added support for the Menhir parser-generator (experimental).
- `C.om` improvements:
  - Changed the `CProgram` function to consider `LIBS` to be the actual library files (_without_ the extension) that need to be linked in.
  - Improved the C scanner rule on Windows.
- `LaTeX.om` improvements:
  - `BSTINPUTS` environment variable joins `TEXINPUTS` and `BIBINPUTS` in the list of variables initialized from the OMake's `TEXINPUTS` variable.
  - The list of such variables is now configurable (`TEXVARS` variable contains an array of names).
- More control over the OMake output and verbosity.
  - By default, OMake is now much more silent ("`-S --progress`" is enabled by default when it outputs to a terminal, and "`-S`" is enabled in all other cases).
  - Added a `--verbose` option that would make OMake very verbose, when needed.
  - Added an ability to postpone and/or repeat the rule execution output (so that, for example, only the output of the rules that fail is printed, or the output of the rules that failed is repeated at the end of the `omake -k` execution). This feature is somewhat experimental and might change in the future versions of OMake.
  - Added the `-o` option for better control of OMake verbosity.
- Added three special `.PHONY` targets: `.BUILD_BEGIN`, `.BUILD_SUCCESS`, and `.BUILD_FAILURE`. `.BUILD_BEGIN` is built before anything else in your project. One of `.BUILD_SUCCESS` or `.BUILD_FAILURE` is built when the build for your project terminates.
  Note:
  - This feature is experimental and is likely to change in the future versions of OMake.
  - If you want to use these targets, you should probably add them to your `~/.omakerc`, rather than adding them directly to each of the projects you work on.
- OMake will now save the `.omakedb` periodically, preventing the state loss in case the OMake process dies unexpectedly (for example, when Cygwin kills OMake after user presses Ctrl-C). The checkpointing interval may be configured both at compile time and via the command line.
- The variables such as `$<` and `$@` in rules and `%` in implicit rules will no longer be expanded to strings; instead they will be passed as `Node` ("file") values.
- Much better handling of the `exit` function, a number of bugs fixed.
- Implicit rules can no longer have target patterns referring to another directories. See bug #456 for detail.
- New functions: `Shell.ln-or-cp`, `html-escaped`, `string-escaped`, `encode-uri`, `decode-uri`, `random`, `find-targets-in-path`.
- Added an ability to turn a string into an input channel. This allows, for example, to use an OMake variable as an input to built-in `awk` without having to write it to a temporary file first.
- New flags added to built-in `awk` and `grep`.
- A large number of other bug fixes and improvements.

### Version 0.9.6.9 (April 11, 2006)

- Standard library improvements:
  - Implemented Erick Tryzelaar's idea of having `*Program` and `*Library` functions return the array with all the targets that it have defined the rules for.
  - Improved C++ support:
    - Use `g++` (when present) instead of `gcc` as `CXX`.
    - Allow `.cc` and `.c++` extensions in addition to `.cpp`
    - Added `CXXProgram` and `CXXProgramInstall` functions.
  - Improved OCaml support:
    - Changed `USE_OCAMLFIND` to be always false by default.
    - Added `OCAMLC_EXISTS` variable.
  - `Pervasives.om`: use the built-in `cat` by default.
  - Added a `PID` built-in variable.
- Bug fixes and improvements:
  - Fixed problems with `:value:` dependencies in `.INCLUDE` rules and `:squash:` dependencies in implicit rules.
  - Added auto-rehashing on relative names in the `PATH`. In addition, you can define `AUTO_REHASH = true` if you want to auto-rehash on all directories in the path.
  - Comments in OMakefiles are now parsed more consistently.
  - Significantly improved the performance of the built-in `find` command.
- Updated the default (sample) `OMakefile`.
- A number of documentation fixes and improvements.

### Version 0.9.6.8 (January 23, 2006)

- Improved the handling of the ".PHONY" nodes, fixing a few bugs where a ".PHONY" node was used in place of a file with the same name.
- Fixed a bug with PATH-expansion for pipelines being performed too early.
- Added a `remove-project-directories` function, which will prevent the directories from being included even if there is a `.SUBDIRS` command for any of them.
- `OCaml.om`: fixed the installation of `.mli`, `.cmi` files (which is performed by the `OCamlLibraryCopy` function when `INSTALL_INTERFACES` is enabled).
- A number of documentation fixes and other improvements.

### Version 0.9.6.7 (December 28, 2005)

- Added basic support for C++ (Issue 389)
- Portability improvements:
  - More portable bootstrapping `Makefile`
  - When lockf is not supported and we fail to lock the project because of that, print a warning message and keep going (this is fairly safe). We used to go into an infinite loop before.
- `OCaml.om` improvements:
  - Added an `OCAMLOPT_FOUND` variable that can be used to tell whether `OCAMLOPT` exists.
  - Now by default, `NATIVE_ENABLED` and `BYTE_ENABLED` variables will be set to enable the "best available" compilation mode:
    - When `OCAMLOPT` is fould, the defaults are `
      NATIVE_ENABLED=true
      BYTE_ENABLED=false`
      as before.
    - Otherwise, the values are swapped.
  - Allow the usage of `OCamlLibraryInstall` and `OCamlLibraryCopy` when the destination directory is the same as the source one.
- Fixed a (somewhat recently introduced) problem with OMake failing to properly restart when the "`-p`"/"`-P`" filesystem watch is used and OMake detects that one of the relevant OMake file have changed.
- Couple of "`-w`" option improvements.
- A number of minor documentation fixes.

### Version 0.9.6.6 (November 5, 2005)

- Made sure OMake compiles fine with both OCaml 3.08 and 3.09.
- A few minor bugfixes and improvements:
  - Avoid giving bogus "These file are targeted separately, but appear as effects of a single rule." warnings (thanks to Florian Hars for reporting the problem).
  - LaTeX rules: do not assume that .aux will always be created (based on a patch by Cristian Tapus).
  - Fixed ocamlfind support (based on a patch by Peter Jolly).

### Version 0.9.6.5 (September 14, 2005)

- Improved support for configure-style scripts in OMake (using the run-once `static.` sections). OMake installation now includes a small library of useful helpful configure functions and a number of examples (`ncurses`, `readline`, `fam`).
- LaTeX rules improvements, including support for TeTeX v.3 and better pdflatex support.
- The `which` function should now work correctly in Cygwin. Fixed a number of issues related to using `ocamlfind` under Cygwin and Windows.
- Fixed a number of bugs related to execution of complex shell pipelines.
- New built-in functions: `get-registry` (Windows-only), `removeprefix`, `html-string`.
- Fixed a problem with interactive `osh` sessions not handling the `return` operator correctly.
- Improved handling of implicit `:value:` dependencies (implicit value dependencies are added for all the “free”variables in `section eval`). The free variable computation is more precise, and the implicit dependencies are now allowed to contain undefined variables.
- The `include foo` directive will now try opening `foo.om` before trying to open `foo`. Same is true for the `.INCLUDE` rules.
- A number of documentation fixes.
- Significant changes in the setup for compiling OMake. No more autoconf, bootstapping uses make to build a feature-limited bootstrapping binary and the normal version of OMake is compiled using OMake itself. Makefiles are now generated by OMake.
- Significant reorganization of the source three. Now the source three has a reasonable directory structure, instead of a single flat directory with all the files.
- A number of other improvements and bug fixes.

### Version 0.9.6 (July 17, 2005)

- Added "static" sections that are evaluated once. Values defined in static sections are persistent across runs of omake. This is convenient for implementing configure-style tests in omake files.
- Added `:value:` dependencies.

  Value dependencies are specified using the :value: option in rules.

                a: b c :value: $(X)
                    ...

  This rule specifies that "a" should be recompiled if the value of `$(X)` changes (X does not have to be a filename). This is intended to allow greater control over dependencies. In addition, it can be used in place of other kinds of dependencies. For example, the following rule:

                a: b :exists: c
                    commands

  is the same as

                a: b :value: $(target-exists c)
                    commands

  Notes:

  - The values are arbitrary (they are not limited to variables)
  - The values are evaluated at rule expansion time, so variables like `$@`, `$^`, etc are legal.

  One other significant difference is that the rule cache now uses a digest of the rule commands text, not the text itself. This has an impact on initial omake speed (I am not sure how significant it is) but the cache is smaller. Also, "`section eval`" should now be handled correctly.

- Significantly changed the meaning of the `.SCANNER` rules. Now the `.SCANNER` rules are treated much more like normal rules.

  Externally, a `.SCANNER` rule has the usual rule form:

             .SCANNER: target: dependencies...
                ...scanner commands...

  However, the scanner target is now decoupled from the build target, allowing a scanner result to be used for multiple build targets. For example, ocamldep produces dependencies for .cmo and .cmx files simultaneously. They can share the scanner rule by specifying an explicit :scanner: dependency.

              .SCANNER: scan-ocaml-%.ml: %.ml
                  ocamldep $lt;

              %.cmo: %.ml :scanner: scan-ocaml-%.ml
                  $(OCAMLC) ...

              %.cmx %.o: %.ml :scanner: scan-ocaml-%.ml
                  $(OCAMLOPT) ...

  The current convention is that scanner targets should be named `scan-<language>-<source-file>`.

  - If a rule has multiple `:scanner:` dependencies, the actual dependencies will be the union of the scanner results.
  - The `.SCANNER` targets use a different namespace than normal targets, so it is valid to have overlapping rules.

                      .SCANNER: foo:
                          echo "foo: boo"

                      foo: :scanner: foo
                          ...

  - For backwards compatibility, if a rule has no :scanner: dependencies, then omake will try to find a scanner with the same name as the target. So in the example above, the `:scanner:` foo is actually unnecessary.
- Added file locking for the `.omakedb` and `.omc` files, so that multiple processes can be run simultaneously.
- Fixed issues where files were being expanded during the string to array conversion.
- Better accessibility of the build rules and dependencies from OMake scripts.

  See documentation for the `Target` object and the "Examining the dependency graph" Section of the OMake Documentation for more information.

- Improved the latex-related rules.
- Rule execution now fails when any shell command fails, even those in nested sections.
- Regular expressions now handle \(...\) arguments correctly. Also, the lexer has better performance, searching is now roughly linear time.
- Added `.SUBDIRS` bodies. If you don't want to write an `OMakefile` for each subdirectory, you can define a `.SUBDIRS` body that defines the it instead.

              .SUBDIRS: foo boo
                  println(Current directory is $(CWD))
                  ...normal configuration...

- Added the `vmount` function to define a "virtual mount" of one directory over another. This adds a fairly simple way to define multiple versions of a project. Suppose your source files are in a directory src/. Then one easy way to compile a version of the project is the following.

              vmount(-l, src, x86)
              .SUBDIRS: x86

  Files from the src directory are now automatically linked into the x86 directory as needed. If you want to have multiple versions, you can use multiple directories (and multiple vmounts).

- The Map object is now completely changed.

  The keys are now "simple" values, not just strings. Simple values include integers, floats, strings, arrays of simple values, files, and directories.

  Only the Map class has the map functions defined. If you want to have, say, a File that also includes a Map, create a subclass that extends both File and Map.

  Literal string keys can be written in the form `$|key...|`. This works both for definitions and uses. The usual modifiers are allowed `$,|key|` and `$`|key|`.

            X. =
               extends $(Map)
               $|key 1| = 1
               $|key 2| = $|key 1| boo
               $|key 2| += foo

- Bugs fixed: 158, 299, 315, 335, 338, 359, 376, 377, 379, 387, 393, 394, 397, 402, 403, 423, 425, 427, 428, 431, 441, 443, 445, 446, 447, 449, 452, 453, 454, 459, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 470, 471, 472, 473, 476, 477, 478, 480, 481, 482, 483, 487, 488, 489, 493
- Numerous other improvements.

### OMake 0.9.5

The version number 0.9.5 was skipped.

### OMake 0.9.4 (January 4, 2005)

- Portability improvements. OMake should now compile and work under Windows 2000, Windows NT and FreeBSD. A number of Windows-specific bugs are fixed. A Windows installer is added.
- OMake now uses the built-in versions of the following commands: `cp`, `mv`, `mkdir`, `rm`, `rmdir`, `chmod`
- Improvements to the filesystem watch functionality. In particular, the build will now restart if a change to one of the OMakefiles is detected.
- Added a `USE_OCAMLFIND` variable that can be used to force or prohibit the usage of ocamlfind in a project (by default `USE_OCAMLFIND` is set to true iff the ocamlfind executable is found in path).
- Added a `--force-dotomake` option to create all `.omc` and `.omo` files under `$HOME/.omake/cache` and a `--dotomake` option to specify an alternative to `$HOME/.omake`
- Added `:squash:` dependencies (that specify that the dependency must be built, but when the dependency changes, it does not cause the target to be rebuilt).
- OMake will now read `~/.omakeinit` and `~/.omakerc` files on startup.
- Improved the latex-related rules.
- Documentation improvements.
- Bugs fixed: 142, 153, 311, 313, 314, 316, 332, 333, 339, 350, 360, 361, 366, 367, 368, 374, 375.

### OMake 0.9.3 (October 18, 2004)

- OMake now supports ocamlfind in its default configuration file (thanks to Bardur Arantsson for the initial patch).
- OMake should now also work with OCaml 3.07 (in addition to 3.08).
- A large number of bug fixes, including:
  - OMake should now compile correctly under Cygwin (thanks to Peter Jolly who provided the patch),
  - "double-colon" rules (that allow specifying multiple rules for the same target) should now work correctly,
  - kqueue-based file system monitoring (Mac OS X, FreeBSD) should now work correctly
  - array definitions should now work better.
- Added a work around for the command line length limitation of `lib.exe` on Windows
- Filesystem monitoring functionality now provides a choice whether to continue monitoring once the project is built successfully.

### OMake 0.9.2 (September 8, 2004)

- Bugs fixed:
  - "`make install`" will no longer create `$HOME/.omake` as root;
  - the `-custom` option is now a part of `OCAML_BYTE_LINK_FLAGS` and can be easily disabled;
  - omake should now allow specifying dependencies for the same file more than once.
- The `OMakeroot.src`, `OMakeroot.default` and `OMakefile.default` are now under MIT license to allow users to freely borrow from them into their own omake build files. (The rest of OMake is still under GPL).
- Fixed a number of typos and formatting errors in documentation.