Re: mk-configure: lightweight autoconf replacement written for/in bmake

[Aleksey Cheusov <cheusov%tut.by@localhost>]

> Hello.

> After three months of development I've released mk-configure-0.11.0.
> Huge amount of improvements were made since previous release.

Two releases were made since that release, 0.12.0 and 0.13.0

Have a look at wip/mk-configure package.

WHAT IS MK-CONFIGURE?

    mk-configure is a lightweight easy to learn replacement for GNU
    autotools, written in and for bmake (portable version of NetBSD
    make) and UNIX tools (shell, awk etc.).

README: http://mova.org/~cheusov/pub/mk-configure/README.txt

NEWS: http://mova.org/~cheusov/pub/mk-configure/NEWS.txt

Major changes in this release:

  CC, CXX and LD types are automatically detected and options passed
  to them (e.g. options for generating a position independent code or
  options for building a shared library) depend on this type.
  At the moment the following systems and compilers are supported:

      - NetBSD. Tested under NetBSD-5.0/x86 and NetBSD-2.0/alpha with
        gcc and pcc (Portable C compiler).

      - FreeBSD. Tested under FreeBSD-6.2/x86, 7.1/spark64 and 7.1/x86
        with gcc.

      - OpenBSD. Tested under OpenBSD-3.8/x86 and 4.5/x86 with gcc.

      - Solaris. Tested under Solaris-10/x86 and Solaris-10/spark64
        with sunpro-11, sunpro-12 and gcc.

      - Darwin (MacOS-X). Tested under Darwin-8.11.0/ppc (MacOS-X
        Tiger) with native gcc.

      - Interix. Tested under Interix-3.5/x86 with gcc.

      - QNX. Tested under QNX-6.3/x86 with gcc.

      - Partial support for AIX, HP-UX and Tru64 and their native
        compilers and linkers. Support is not complete because I have
        no access to these platforms.

      If you don't see your favourite system/compiler here and want to
      help me to improve mk-configure, feel free to contact
      me. mk-configure needs your help! ;-)

  The default directory for mk-files is ${PREFIX}/share/mkc-mk, where
  an empty sys.mk is installed unless NOSYSMK is defined whil
  installation.  See an explanation about this in README.

  So called built-in checks are implemented. See MKC_CHECK_BUILTINS
  variable. Built-in checks are checks provided by mk-configure. At
  the moment the following checks are implemented: endianess,
  prog_flex, prog_bison, prog_gawk, prog_gm4. See mk-configure.7 for
  the documentation.

  mkc.configure.mk:
    - At the end of this file MKC_{REQUIRE,CHECK}_XXX variables as
      well as MKC_{CFLAGS,LDADD,SRCS} are .undef-ed. This allows one
      to .include mkc.configure.mk several times.
    - This include file is activated automatically from mkc.prog.mk
      and mkc.lib.mk. You need to .include mkc.configure.mk
      explicitely only if postcheck actions are needed.

  SCRIPTS variable can contain subdir/<script>s, they are installed
  just as <script>s, i.e. subdir/ is silently stripped.
  SCRIPTSDIR_subdir_<script> and SCRIPTSNAME_subdir_<script> can be
  used for specifying an alternative destination path and filename.

  If .l or .y source files are listed in SRCS variable, mk-configure
  automatically checks weather ${LEX} and ${YACC} are available or
  not.  The same for .c/${CC}, .cpp|.cc|.cxx|.C/${CXX}, .f/${FC} and
  .p/${PC}.  In case of absense of appropriate tool bmake exits with
  error on early stage.

  MKC_CHECK_CUSTOM, MKC_REQUIRE_CUSTOM:
    - HAVE_CUSTOM.xxx bmake's variables and HAVE_CUSTOM_xxx #defines
      have been renamed to CUSTOM.xxx and CUSTOM_xxx respectively.
      Formally speaking this breaks backward compatibility with
      earlier mk-c releases.
    - Support for checks written in C++ (.cc, .cxx, .C and .cpp) and
      Fortran (.f) is added.
    - Support for checks implemented as an executable program/script is added.

  FIXES:
    - mkc_imp.man.mk: useless TMACDIR and dependencies on tmac files
      under /usr/share are removed
    - mkc_check_decl:
      void function() cannot 'return 0' (thanks to SunPro compiler!)
    - If C++ source files are listed in SRCS, ${CXX} is used as a
      linker both for executables and shared libraries.
    - Linux, SunOS and lots of others have no "wheel" group.  They use
      "root".
    - "make installdirs" should not create man/htmlN directories
      unless MKHTML is set to "yes"
    - mkc_imp.lib.mk: .so build rule must use ${LDFLAGS}

  ADDED: mkcmake utility (trivial wrapper over bmake) which should be
  used for building a software instead of bmake.

  .c:, .f:, .l: and similar useless rules are removed. It is enough to
  have .c.o:, .f.o:, .l.c etc.

  Improvements for cross-compilation.

  Lots of new regression tests:

  mkc_check_common.sh:
    if MKC_NOCACHE=1, tmp.c, tmp.o, tmp.exe and tmp.err are
    removed.

  Support for lex:
    -ll is added to linker if needed.

  mkc_check_compiler:
    - Added support for the following compilers: IBM Visual Age, HP
      cc/aCC, SunPro C/C++, Watcom, Borland, DEC C/C++ and Comeau C/C++
    - New option '-x' for checking C++ compiler type.

  mkc_which:
    Accepts full paths. /path/to/program -> /path/to/program

  In order to avoid confusion, position independent object files (.so)
  have been renamed to .os. Also, .po has been renamed to .op.

  mkc_imp.lib.mk:
    - suffix rules for .cpp, widely used extension for C++ sources, are
      added.
    - LDCOMPILER variable is introduced, if "yes", compiler is used
      for linking a shared library.

  INCSSRCDIR variable is introduced, see the documentation.

  mkc_install: New utility for platforms having no BSD compatible
  install(1). INSTALL variable is set to mkc_install if needed.

  mkc.intexts.mk is included from mkc.prog.mk and mkc.lib.mk
  automatically just like mkc_imp.*.mk includes.

-- 
Best regards, Aleksey Cheusov.