Read Me(Cook)                                                    Read Me(Cook)



[1mNAME[0m
       cook - a file construction tool

[1mDESCRIPTION[0m
       The [4mcook[24m program is a tool for constructing files, and maintaining
       referential integrity between files.  It is given a set of files to
       create, and recipes of how to create and maintain them.  In any non-
       trivial program there will be prerequisites to performing the actions
       necessary to creating any file, such as include files.  The [4mcook[0m
       program provides a mechanism to define these.

       When a program is being developed or maintained, the programmer will
       typically change one file of several which comprise the program.  The
       [4mcook[24m program examines the last-modified times of the files to see when
       the prerequisites of a file have changed, implying that the file needs
       to be recreated as it is logically out of date.

       The [4mcook[24m program also provides a facility for implicit recipes,
       allowing users to specify how to form a file with a given suffix from a
       file with a different suffix.  For example, to create [4mfilename[24m.o from
       [4mfilename[24m.c

       * Cook is a replacement for   * There is a [4mmake2cook[0m
       the traditional [4mmake[24m(1)       utility included in the
       tool.                         distribution to help
       * Cook is more powerful       convert makefiles into
       than the traditional [4mmake[24m     cookbooks.
       tool.
       * Cook has true variables,    * Cook has a simple but
       not simple macros.            powerful string-based
       * Cook has user defined       description language with
       functions.                    many built-in functions.
                                     This allows sophisticated
                                     filename specification and
                                     manipulation without loss
                                     of readability or
                                     performance.
       * Cook can build in           * Cook is able to build
       parallel.                     your project with multiple
       * Cook can distribute         parallel threads, with
       builds across your LAN.       support for rules which
                                     must be single threaded.
                                     It is possible to
                                     distribute parallel builds
                                     over your LAN, allowing you
                                     to turn your network into a
                                     virtual parallel build
                                     engine.
       * Cook is able to use         * Cook can be configured
       fingerprints to supplement    with an explicit list of
       file modification times.      primary source files.  This
       This allows build             allow the dependency graph
       optimization without          to be constructed faster by
       contorted rules.              not going down dead ends,
       * In addition to walking      and also allows better
       the dependency graph, Cook    error messages when the
       can turn the input rules      graph can't be constructed.
       into a shell script, or a     This requires an accurate
       web page.                     source file manifest.



       * Cook runs on almost any     * Cook has special [4mcascade[0m
       flavor of UNIX.  The source   dependencies, allowing
       distribution is self          powerful include dependency
       configuring using a GNU       specification, amongst
       Autoconf generated            other things.
       configure script.

       If you are putting together a source-code distribution and planning to
       write a makefile, consider writing a cookbook instead.  Although Cook
       takes a day or two to learn, it is much more powerful and a bit more
       intuitave than the traditional [4mmake[24m(1) tool.  And Cook doesn't
       interpret tab differently to 8 space characters!

[1mARCHIVE SITE[0m
       The latest version of [4mcook[24m is available on the Web from:

           URL:    http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/cook/
           File:   cook-2.21.README     # the README from the tar file
           File:   cook-2.21.lsm        # LSM format description
           File:   cook-2.21.spec       # RedHat package specification
           File:   cook-2.21.rm.ps.gz   # PostScript of the Reference Manual
           File:   cook-2.21.ug.ps.gz   # PostScript of the User Guide
           File:   cook-2.21.tar.gz     # the complete source

       This Web page also contains a few other pieces of software written by
       me.  Please have a look if you are interested.

       Cook is also carried by sunsite.unc.edu in its Linux archives.  You
       will be able to find Cook on any of its mirrors.

           URL:    ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/make/
           File:   cook-2.21.README     # the README from the tar file
           File:   cook-2.21.lsm        # LSM format description
           File:   cook-2.21.spec       # RedHat package specification
           File:   cook-2.21.rm.ps.gz   # PostScript of the Reference Manual
           File:   cook-2.21.ug.ps.gz   # PostScript of the User Guide
           File:   cook-2.21.tar.gz     # the complete source
       This site is extensively mirrored around the world, so look for a copy
       near you (you will get much better response).

[1mMAILING LIST[0m
       A mailing list has been created so that users of [4mcook[24m may exchange
       ideas about how to use the [4mcook[24m program.  Discussion may include, but
       is not limited to: bugs, enhancements, and applications.  The list is
       not moderated.

       The address of the mailing list is
              cook-users@canb.auug.org.au
       Please DO NOT send subscribe requests to this address.

       To subscribe to this mailing list, send an email message to
       majordomo@canb.auug.org.au with a message body containing the single
       line
              subscribe cook-users
       If you have an email address which is not readily derived from your
       mail headers (majordomo is only a Perl program, after all) you will
       need to use a message of the form:
              subscribe cook-users [4maddress[0m
       where [4maddress[24m is the email address to which you want messages sent.

       The software which handles this mailing list CANNOT send you a copy of
       the [4mcook[24m program.

[1mBUILDING COOK[0m
       Full instructions for building the [4mcook[24m program may be found in the
       [4mBUILDING[24m file included in this distribution.

[1mCOPYRIGHT[0m
       [4mcook[24m version 2.21
       Copyright (C) 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996,
       1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Peter Miller; All rights reserved.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
       Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
       option) any later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
       General Public License for more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
       with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
       59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

       It should be in the [4mLICENSE[24m file included with this distribution.

[1mAUTHOR[0m
       Peter Miller   E-Mail:   millerp@canb.auug.org.au
       /\/\*          WWW:      http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/

[1mNEW IN THIS RELEASE[0m
       A number of features have been added to [4mcook[24m with this release.  The
       following list is only a summary; for excruciating detail, and also
       acknowlegements of those who generously sent me feedback, please see
       the [4metc/CHANGES.*[24m files included in this distribution.

   [1mVersion 2.21[0m
       * The [4mc_incl[24m(1) command now accepts the -stripdot and -nostripdot
       options.  These may be used to control the removal of redundant leading
       dot directories.

       * A bug has been fixed where cascade recipes failed to heed the
       stripdot setting.

       * There is a new [stripdot] function, so that you can strip leading dot
       directories from file names within functions.

       * A bug has been fixed in how the builtin functions which manipulate
       build graphs were called.  This fixed a problem with freeing a string
       which had already been freed.

   [1mVersion 2.20[0m
       * There is a fix for the build problems caused by recent GNU Gettext
       releases.

       * The fingerprint handling is now more robust, particularly when faced
       with files that move backwards in time.

       * There is a fix for the build problems caused by recent Bison
       releases.

   [1mVersion 2.19[0m
       * Some introduced with recent versions of GNU Bison have been fixed.
       Bison's include file insulation didn't use YY in the insulating symbol
       (just to be completely inconsistent) and in another case a namespace
       clash occurred for a function name.

       * The generated Makefile has been improved, along with other small
       build and install improvements.

       * A top-level [4mfail[24m statement how halts the parse as soon as it is
       executed.  This will make it more useful for checking build
       environments.

       * Documentation about [4mcook_rsh[24m(1) has been added to the Parallel
       chapter of the User Guide.

   [1mVersion 2.18[0m
       * A bug has been fixed in the [4mingredients-fingerprint[24m recipe attribute.
       It was failing to save the fingerprint cache file in some cases, and
       thus came to incorrect conclusions on following runs.

       * The [4m(exists)[24m ingredients attribute has been fixed so that it no
       longer implies behavious rimilar to [4mset[24m [4mshallow[24m.

       * There is a new [4mcook_rsh[24m(1) program, for use with the [4mhost-binding[0m
       recipe attribute, which allows you to load balance builds across
       classes of hosts.  See [4mcook_rsh[24m(1) and the Parallel chapter of the User
       Guide for more information.

       * Some build problems have been fixed on various platforms.

       * More keywords are now understood for M4 include directives.

   [1mVersion 2.17[0m
       * When using file fingerprints, the way the [4m.cook.fp[24m file is written
       has been changed, so that the timestamp of the containing directory is
       modified much less often.  This is useul in combination with the
       [4mcook_bom[24m(1) utility.

       * A bug has been fixed under Cygwin, where archive members were not
       being fingerprinted correctly.

       * A bug has been fixed in the [quote] function.  It now quotes all
       [4msh[24m(1), [4mcsh[24m(1) and [4mbash[24m(1) special characters correctly.

       * A bug has been fixed in the [uptodate] function.  It now works as
       advertised.

       * There is a new [4mingredients-fingerprint[24m recipe flag.  This means that
       you can now cause a recipe to re-trigger when the ingredients list
       changes.  This is especially useful when a library has a file removed.

       * The dependency graph can now have the edge types specified.  The
       ``weak'' edge type if useful for managing links, and the ``exists''
       edge type is useful for managing version stamps.  See the User Guide
       for more information.

   [1mVersion 2.16[0m
       * The [4mstringset[24m function now accepts a `+' operator.  While union is
       implicit, the apparrently redundant `+' operator is useful for
       cancelling the other operators.

       * The ``reason and fingerprint bug'' has been fixed.  This caused a
       mysterious error message to appear sometimes when using the -reson
       option incombination with fingerprints.

       * The % and %[4mn[24m patterns are now allowed to match the empty string,
       provided they aren't the first thing in the pattern (otherwise
       undesirable absolute path problems can occur).

       * The [4mc_incl[24m(1) command now accepts `-' as a file name on the command
       line, meaning standard input.

       * Some improvements have been made to the Cygwin support, extending the
       ``.exe'' automatic executable suffix coverage to a couple more places.

       * A bug in the ``c'' cookbook has been fixed, which was getting .h
       dependency files wrong.

   [1mVersion 2.15[0m
       * The [4mC_incl[24m(1) problem with absolute paths has been fixed.

       * A bug has been fixed which caused problems on Solaris and SGI, where
       Cook would report a No child processes error.

   [1mVersion 2.12[0m
       * The [4mc_incl[24m program now has a [1m-quote-filenames [22moption, which means
       that you can have filenames with spaces and special characters in them.

       * A bug in the [4mc_incl[24m program's path flattening has been fixed.

       * A small Y2K bug has been fixed in the date parsing used by the
       [4mcooktime[24m(1) command.

       * A bug which caused the -parallel option to lose track of processes
       when you used [execute] in a recipe body has been fixed.

       * The restrictions on the placement of the placement of %0 in a pattern
       have been dropped; too many people didn't like it.  This does [4mnot[24m break
       any cookbooks.

       * Cook now copes with the absence of the HOME environment variable.
       This was a problem for CGI scripts.

   [1mVersion 2.11[0m
       * Numerous portability problems have been fixed in the configure and
       build.

       * A bug has been fixed which prevented Cook from working correctly when
       run by some versions of [4mcron[24m(8) and [4mat[24m(1).

       * There is a new [4mcook_bom[24m [4m--ignore[24m option, allowing you to nominate
       file patterns that you don't want in the file lists.

       * There is a new [__FUNCTION__] variable, which contains the name of
       the executing function, which suppliments the existing [__FILE__] and
       [__LINE__] variables.

       * Functions now have local variables, just put the word local on the
       left-hand-side of the first assignment.  Local variables are reentrant
       and thread-safe.

   [1mVersion 2.10[0m
       * The [4m[print][24m and [4m[write][24m functions now work more sensably with the
       [1m-SCript [22moption.

       * The fingerprint code has been improved.  It now does considerably
       fewer redundant fingeprint calculations, resulting is some very welcome
       speed improvements.

       * The behaviour of the remote shell invocation to cope with rshd at the
       remote end failing to spawn a shell, and it copes with the default
       shell at the remote end not being the Bourne shell.

       * The [1m-PARallel [22mbehaviour has been improved, so that it now looks for
       child process who have finished [4mmore[24m [4mthan[24m it looks for recipes to run.
       This doesn't change the semantics any, but it matches user expectations
       far better (and results in shorter-lived zombie processes).

       * The [4mset[24m [4mmeter[24m recipe flag works once more.  (It stopped working when
       the parallel modifications were made, and mysteriously forgotten until
       now.)

       * There are some changes made to the fingerprinting code to detect when
       files under ClearCase move backwards in time (because the underlying
       file version is ``uncovered'') meaning that the derived (object) files
       need to be rebuilt.

       * There is a new [mtime-seconds] function, similar to the [mtime]
       function, except that it returns seconds since the epoch, rather than a
       human readable date.  More useful to handing to [expr].

       * A bug has been fixed on SGI IRIX which failed to cope with not being
       able to create directories because they already exist.

       * Ingredient recipes (ones with no body) may now have a double colon
       rather than a single colon, even when there is more than on target
       specified.  Some users may find this a more natural syntax for
       ingredients recipes.

       * The [expr] function now reports an error when given a number too big
       to represent, rather than quietly returning wrong answers.  The range
       of representable values depends on your system.

       * Cook now works with GNU Regex correctly on Windows-NT.

   [1mVersion 2.9[0m
       * There is a new ``for each'' style looping construct.  See the User
       Guide for more information.

       * It is now possible to use regular expression patterns, instead of
       Cook's native patterns.  You can set this for a whole cookbook or
       individual recipes.  The default is to use Cook's native patterns.  See
       the [4mFile[24m [4mName[24m [4mPatterns[24m chapter of the User Guide for more information.

       * A bug which caused [4mhost-binding[24m and [4msingle-thread[24m to core dump has
       been fixed.

       * All text file input now copes with CRLF sequences, so mixing NT and
       Unix builds on the one file server no longer creates problems.

       * Fingerprints are now cached per-directory, rather than one huge file
       for an entire directory tree.  This is more useful in recursive build
       and [search_list] situations.

       * The [cando], [cook] and [uptodate] functions now return lists of
       successful files, rather than a simple true/false result.

       * The [in] and [matches] functions now return the list index (1 based)
       of the matching word.  See the User Guide for more information.

       * There is a new [4mcook[24m [4m-web[24m option, to print a HTML web page on the
       standard output, representing the dependency graph.  This is useful in
       documenting the build process, or debugging cookbooks.

       * There is a new [4mcook[24m [4m--fingerprint-update[24m option which scans the
       directory tree below the current directory and updates the file
       fingerprints.  This helps when you use another tool (such as RCS or
       ClearCase) which alters the file but preserves the file's modification
       time.

       * There is a new [write] function for writing text files.  This is
       useful for coping with Windows-NT's absurdly short command lines.

   [1mVersion 2.8[0m
       * The remote [4mhost-binding[24m code has been improved to cope with
       staggeringly long commands (which tended to make [4mrsh[24m(1) barf), and also
       wierd and wonderfull $SHELL settings.

       * The #include directive now accepts more than one file, to be more
       symmetric with the #include-cooked directive.

       * A bug has been fixed where cooktime gave an incorrect error message
       if setting the file's utimes failed.

       * The configure script has been improved for use on non-UNIX systems.

       * There is a new builtin [cook] function, a natural companion for the
       [cando] and [uptodate] functions.  See the Cook User Guide for more
       information.

   [1mVersion 2.7[0m
       * There is a new [4mcook_bom[24m(1) command (Bill Of Materials).  This may be
       used to efficiently scan a directory tree for files, so that
       ingredients lists may be produced automatically.  See [4mcook_bom[24m(1) for
       more information.

       * There is a new assign-append statement, so you can now use += to
       append to the value of a variable.  See the User Guide for more
       information.

       * There is a new [4mgate-first[24m recipe flag, which causes the recipe gate
       to be evaluated before the ingredients are derived, rather than after.

       * The [4mc_incl[24m(1) command has a new --interior-files option, so you can
       tell it about include files that don't exist yet.  This is helpful when
       they are generated, [4mi.e.[24m they are interior files of the dependency
       graph, hence the option name.

       * There is a new [interior-files] function, which returns the files
       interior to the dependency graph (constructed by a recipe), and a
       complementatry [leaf-files] function, which returns the leaf files of
       the dependency graph (not constructed by any recipe).

       * There is a new ``no-include-cooked-warning'' flag, if you want to
       suppress the warnings about derived file dependencies in include-cooked
       files.

       * There is a new [4mrelative_dirname[24m built-in function, similar to the
       existing [4mdirname[24m function, but it returns ``.'' for files with no
       directory part, rather than the absolute path of the current directory.

   [1mVersion 2.6[0m
       * Cook has been ported to Windows-NT using CygWin32.  See the BUILDING
       file for details.

       * There are two new functions ([4mdos-path[24m and [4mun-dos-path[24m) for use when
       invoking non-CygWin32 WindowsNT programs.  See the Cook User Guide for
       more information.

       * Fingerprints now work meaningfully with directories.

       * A bug has been fixed in the pattern matching code.  It would
       sometimes cause core dumps.

       * A bug involving fingerprints in combination with the search_list has
       been fixed.  Cook would occasionally conclude that a shallow target was
       up-to-date when a shallow ingredient was edited to be the same as a
       deeper ingredient.

       * A bug has been fixed in cooktime.  It would use an inappropriate
       timezone offset on some systems.

   [1mRelease 2.5[0m
       * A problem which caused some tests to fail on Solaris' tmpfs now has a
       work-around.

       * The ``setenv'' statement has finally been documented.  It's been in
       the code tfor years, but I could never figure out why folks weren't
       using it!

       * A number of build problems on various systems have been fixed.

   [1mRelease 2.4[0m
       * There is a new form of dependencies.  Known as cascaded dependencies,
       they allow the user to associate additional dependencies with an
       ingredient.  For example, a C source file can be associated with
       cascaded include dependencies.  This means that all files which depend
       on the C source file, also depend on the included files.  The Cook
       Reference Manual has been updated to include this new functionality.

       * There is a new section of the Cook Reference Manual giving
       suggestions and a template for building large projects.

       * There is a new [expr] function, to calculate simple arithmetic
       expressions.  See the User Guide for more information.

       * There is a new c_incl -no-recursion option, to prevent scanning
       nested includes.  This is of most use when combined with the new
       cascade dependencies.

       * There is a new [exists-symlink] function, which may be used to test
       for the existence of symlinks.  The [exists] function follows symbolic
       links, and is not useful when manipulating the links themselves.

   [1mRelease 2.3[0m
       * There are 6 new special variables: graph_leaf_file,
       graph_leaf_pattern, graph_interior_file, graph_interior_pattern,
       graph_exterior_file and graph_exterior_pattern.  These variables may be
       used to define the leaves of the derivation graph (the [4maccept[24m forms),
       and non-leave of the graph (the [4mreject[24m forms).  This can make the graph
       derivation faster, and greatly improves some error messages.  This
       functionality is of most use when you have an exact source file
       manifest, [4me.g.[24m from a software configuration management system.  See
       the User Guide for more information.

       * The %0 pattern element has been extended to permit the matching of
       absolute paths.

   [1mRelease 2.2.2[0m
       * There is a new statement type, allowing functions to be invoked as
       subroutines in any place where a command may be invoked.  See the User
       Guide for more information.

       * A number of problems with installing Cook have been fixed.  This
       includes changing -mgm to -mm for the documnetation formatting, and
       missing include dependencies and missing rules for installing the man
       pages.

       * There is a new ``print'' builtin function.  When combined with the
       new function call statement, this provides a way of printing
       information without invoking ``echo''.  See the User Guide for more
       information.

       * Cook now defaults the language to ``en'' internally if neoither the
       LANG nor LANGUAGE environment variable was set.  This gives better
       error messages.

   [1mRelease 2.2.1[0m
       * A bug was fixed where a recipe would fail to trigger if some, but not
       all, of its targets were not present, but the existing targets were up-
       to-date.  This bug was introduced in the inference engine re-write.

   [1mRelease 2.2[0m
       * The [4mc_incl[24m utility has had two new languages added.  It now
       understands M4, and also has an ``optimistic'' language which can scan
       many assemblers and even some high-level languages.  See [4mc_incl[24m(1) for
       more information.

       * The [4mc_incl[24m utility also has a new --no-absolute-path option, to
       supress scanning and reporting of such files.  See [4mc_incl[24m(1) for more
       information.

       * There is a new warning added for dependencies on derived ingredients
       when this information resides solely in derived cookbooks included
       using the #include-cooked facility.  This assists in detecting problems
       which may preclude a successful ``clean'' build.

       * This release adds a number of cookbook functions to the distrubuted
       cookbooks.  These may be used by adding a
           #include "functions"
       line to your cookbook.  See the Cook User Guide for more information.

       * This release fixes a bug where the graph walking phase ignored
       interrupts until something went wrong.

       * This release fixes a bug where [4mmake2cook[24m did not correctly translate
       ``%'' into sematicly equivalent Cook constructs.

   [1mRelease 2.1[0m
       * It is possible to specify that a command is to be executed on a
       specific machine or machines.  This can be useful for restrictively
       licensed third party software tools.

       * The parallel functionality has been extended to implement a virtual
       parallel machine on a LAN.

       * Fingerprinting has been enhanced to be more informative, and to
       adjust file modification times so that subsequest fingerprint-less runs
       will not find too much to do.

       * The #line directive is now available, for better diagnostics of
       generated cookbooks.  The __FILE__ and __LINE__ variable are also
       available.

       * There is now a thread-id variable, to obtain a thread-unique value
       for use in generating temporary file names or variable names, [4metc[24m,
       which are unique to a thread.

       * Added the wordlist function and the command-line-goals variable for
       compatibility with GNU Make.  Updated [4mmake2cook[24m to understand them.

   [1mRelease 2.0.1[0m
       * An install problem in the generated Makefile, to do with the the
       manuals, has been fixed.

   [1mRelease 2.0[0m
       Development of this release was generously supported by Endocardial
       Solutions, Inc.

       * Parallel execution is now supported.  If you have a multi-processor
       machine, you can specify the number of parallel processing threads with
       the -PARallel command line option, or via the [4m[parallel_jobs][24m variable.
       By using the [4m[os[24m [4mnode][24m function, the [4m[parallel_jobs][24m variable can be
       set appropriately for the host machine automatically by the cookbook.
       There is a new single-thread keyword to support single threading
       recipes which cannot be paralleized.

       * The dependency graph is now constructed differently.  This gives
       exactly the same results, but the order of evaluation of recipes is a
       little more random.  This different graph construction is able to give
       better error messages, better -Reason information, and allows the
       introduction of parallel recipe evaluation if you have a multi-
       processor computer.

       * Recipes which use [4mc_incl[24m(1) to calculate their dependencies in the
       ingredients section will need a small modification - they will need to
       use the --Absent-Program-Ignore option.  See the User Guide for more
       information.

       * You can now print pair-wise file dependencies by using the -PAirs
       option.

       * You can now print a shell script which approximates the actions cook
       would take when building the targets by using the -SCript option.

       * There is a new ``shallow'' recipe flag, allowing you to specify that
       the targets of a recipe are required to be in the top-level directory,
       not further down the search_list path.

       * You may now define user-written functions in the cookbook to
       supplement the built-in functions.  Your functions will be called in
       the same manner as built-in functions.  There are new function and
       return keywords to support definition of functions.

       * The progress indicators produced by the -STar option now have more
       detail: [1m+ [22mmeans that the cook book is being read, [1m* [22mmeans that the
       graph is being constructed, and [1m# [22mmeans that the graph is being walked.

   [1mRelease 1.11[0m
       * Fixed a bug in the pattern matching which caused %0 (when not at the
       start of the pattern) to fail to match the empty string.

       * The install locations have been changed slightly to conform better to
       the GNU filesystem standards, and to take advantage of the additional
       install location options of the configure scripts generated by GNU
       Autoconf.

   [1mRelease 1.10[0m
       * Error messages have been internationalized.  It is now possible to
       get error messages in your native language, if it is supported.

       * The cook command now accepts a -no-include-cooked option, to disable
       any cooking of the #include-cooked files.

       * The cook -TRace option has been renamed -Reason.  This is thought to
       more accurately reflect what it does.

       * The cook -Reason output has been changed to cite cookbook file names
       and line numbers, in order to be more useful.  In addition, more reason
       messages carry location information.

   [1mRelease 1.9[0m
       * There are new ``f77'' and ``g77'' cookbooks, to allow Fortran
       sources, in addition to C sources.

       * There is a new [options] function, which expands to the current
       settings of the command line options.  This is useful for recursive
       cook directory structures.  See the Reference Manual for more
       information.

       * There is a new ``recursive'' cookbook, to assist in constructing
       recursive cook structures.

       * The [4mfind_libs[24m program now understands about shared libraries.

       * A bug which made the builtin [glob] function far to generous has been
       corrected.

       * A bug which caused some expression evaluation errors to be ignored
       has been corrected.

       * The ``set update'' flag has been re-named the ``set time-adjust''
       flag, to more closely describe what it does.  The old name will
       continue to work indefinitely.

       * There is a new ``set time-adjust-back'' flag, which sets recipe
       target times to be exactly one (1) second younger than the youngest
       ingredient.  This is usually an adjustment into the recent past.

   [1mRelease 1.8[0m
       * The fingerprint code has been improved to work better with the
       search_list functionality.

       * The diagnostics have been improved when cook ``don't know how''.  A
       list of attempted ingredients is included in the error message.

       * There is a new [4mmkdir[24m recipe flag.  This creates recipe target
       directories before the recipe body is run.  See the Reference Manual
       for more information.

       * There is a new [4munlink[24m recipe flag.  This unlinks recipe targets
       before the recipe body is run.  See the Reference Manual for more
       information.

       * There is a new [4mrecurse[24m recipe flag.  This overrides the infinite loop
       recipe heuristic, allowing recipes to recuse upon themselves if one of
       their ingredients matches one of their targets.  See the Reference
       Manual for more information.

   [1mRelease 1.7[0m
       * The AIX code to handle archive files has been fixed.

       * The fingerprint code now works on 64-bit systems.

   [1mRelease 1.6[0m
       * Fixed a bug in the leading-dot removal code, and added an option to
       make it user-settable.  Fixed a bug in the search_path depth code.

   [1mRelease 1.5[0m
       * The [4mc_incl[24m program now correctly prints the names of absent include
       files, causing them to be cooked correctly in a greater number of
       cases.

       * Recipes with no ingredients are now only applied if the target is
       absent.  To still use the previous behaviour, use the "set force"
       clause on the recipe.

       * It is now possible to supplement the last-modified time with a
       fingerprint, so cook does even fewer unnecesary recompilations than
       before.  Put the statement
              set fingerprint;
       somewhere near the top of your [4mHowto.cook[24m file for this to be the
       default for your project.

       * There is a new form of include directive:
              #include-cooked [4mfilename[24m...
       When files are included in this way, [4mcook[24m will check to make sure they
       are up-to-date.  If not, they will be cooked, and then [4mcook[24m will start
       again and re-read the cookbook.  This is most often used for
       maintaining include-dependency files.

       * [1mCook [22mnow configured using a program called [4mconfigure[24m, distributed
       with the package.  The [4mconfigure[24m program is generated by GNU Autoconf.
       See the [4mBUILDING[24m file for more details.

       * The semantics of [4msearch_list[24m have been improved.  It is now
       guaranteed that when ingredients change they result in targets earlier
       in the [4msearch_list[24m being updated.

       * There is now a [4mmake2cook[24m translator, to translate [4mMakefile[24m files into
       [4mHowto.cook[24m files.  Most of the GNU Make extensions are understood.
       There is no exact semantic mapping between [4mmake[24m and [4mcook,[24m so manual
       editing is sometimes required.  See [4mmake2cook[24m(1) for more information.

       * [4mCook[24m now understands archive member references, in the same format as
       used by [4mmake[24m, et al.  Archive member references benefit from stat
       caching and fingerprinting, just as normal files do.

   [1mRelease 1.4[0m
       * The [4mcook[24m program is now known to work on more systems.  Most changes
       were aimed at improving portability, or avoiding problems specific to
       some systems.

       * The GNU long option name convention is now understood.  Option names
       for [4mcook[24m were always long, so this mostly consists of ignoring the
       extra leading '-'.  The "--foo=bar" convention is also understood for
       options with arguments.

       * Tests which fail now tell you what it was they were testing for.
       This will give the user some idea of what is happening.



Reference Manual                     Cook                        Read Me(Cook)
