This is Info file ../info/standards.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.63
from the input file standards.texi.

START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Standards: (standards).        GNU coding standards.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

   GNU Coding Standards Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 Free
Software Foundation, Inc.

   Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

   Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.

   Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a
translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.


File: standards.info,  Node: Standard Targets,  Prev: Directory Variables,  Up: Makefile Conventions

Standard Targets for Users
--------------------------

   All GNU programs should have the following targets in their
Makefiles:

`all'
     Compile the entire program.  This should be the default target.
     This target need not rebuild any documentation files; Info files
     should normally be included in the distribution, and DVI files
     should be made only when explicitly asked for.

     By default, the Make rules should compile and link with `-g', so
     that executable programs have debugging symbols.  Users who don't
     mind being helpless can strip the executables later if they wish.

`install'
     Compile the program and copy the executables, libraries, and so on
     to the file names where they should reside for actual use.  If
     there is a simple test to verify that a program is properly
     installed, this target should run that test.

     Do not strip executables when installing them.  Devil-may-care
     users can use the `install-strip' target to do that.

     If possible, write the `install' target rule so that it does not
     modify anything in the directory where the program was built,
     provided `make all' has just been done.  This is convenient for
     building the program under one user name and installing it under
     another.

     The commands should create all the directories in which files are
     to be installed, if they don't already exist.  This includes the
     directories specified as the values of the variables `prefix' and
     `exec_prefix', as well as all subdirectories that are needed.  One
     way to do this is by means of an `installdirs' target as described
     below.

     Use `-' before any command for installing a man page, so that
     `make' will ignore any errors.  This is in case there are systems
     that don't have the Unix man page documentation system installed.

     The way to install Info files is to copy them into `$(infodir)'
     with `$(INSTALL_DATA)' (*note Command Variables::.), and then run
     the `install-info' program if it is present.  `install-info' is a
     program that edits the Info `dir' file to add or update the menu
     entry for the given Info file; it is part of the Texinfo package.
     Here is a sample rule to install an Info file:

          $(infodir)/foo.info: foo.info
          # There may be a newer info file in . than in srcdir.
                  -if test -f foo.info; then d=.; \
                   else d=$(srcdir); fi; \
                  $(INSTALL_DATA) $$d/foo.info $@; \
          # Run install-info only if it exists.
          # Use `if' instead of just prepending `-' to the
          # line so we notice real errors from install-info.
          # We use `$(SHELL) -c' because some shells do not
          # fail gracefully when there is an unknown command.
                  if $(SHELL) -c 'install-info --version' \
                     >/dev/null 2>&1; then \
                    install-info --dir-file=$(infodir)/dir \
                                 $(infodir)/foo.info; \
                  else true; fi

`uninstall'
     Delete all the installed files that the `install' target would
     create (but not the noninstalled files such as `make all' would
     create).

     This rule should not modify the directories where compilation is
     done, only the directories where files are installed.

`install-strip'
     Like `install', but strip the executable files while installing
     them.  The definition of this target can be very simple:

          install-strip:
                  $(MAKE) INSTALL_PROGRAM='$(INSTALL_PROGRAM) -s' \
                          install

     Normally we do not recommend stripping an executable unless you
     are sure the program has no bugs.  However, it can be reasonable
     to install a stripped executable for actual execution while saving
     the unstripped executable elsewhere in case there is a bug.

`clean'
     Delete all files from the current directory that are normally
     created by building the program.  Don't delete the files that
     record the configuration.  Also preserve files that could be made
     by building, but normally aren't because the distribution comes
     with them.

     Delete `.dvi' files here if they are not part of the distribution.

`distclean'
     Delete all files from the current directory that are created by
     configuring or building the program.  If you have unpacked the
     source and built the program without creating any other files,
     `make distclean' should leave only the files that were in the
     distribution.

`mostlyclean'
     Like `clean', but may refrain from deleting a few files that people
     normally don't want to recompile.  For example, the `mostlyclean'
     target for GCC does not delete `libgcc.a', because recompiling it
     is rarely necessary and takes a lot of time.

`maintainer-clean'
     Delete almost everything from the current directory that can be
     reconstructed with this Makefile.  This typically includes
     everything deleted by `distclean', plus more: C source files
     produced by Bison, tags tables, Info files, and so on.

     The reason we say "almost everything" is that running the command
     `make maintainer-clean' should not delete `configure' even if
     `configure' can be remade using a rule in the Makefile.  More
     generally, `make maintainer-clean' should not delete anything that
     needs to exist in order to run `configure' and then begin to build
     the program.  This is the only exception; `maintainer-clean' should
     delete everything else that can be rebuilt.

     The `maintainer-clean' target is intended to be used by a
     maintainer of the package, not by ordinary users.  You may need
     special tools to reconstruct some of the files that `make
     maintainer-clean' deletes.  Since these files are normally
     included in the distribution, we don't take care to make them easy
     to reconstruct.  If you find you need to unpack the full
     distribution again, don't blame us.

     To help make users aware of this, the commands for the special
     `maintainer-clean' target should start with these two:

          @echo 'This command is intended for maintainers to use; it'
          @echo 'deletes files that may need special tools to rebuild.'

`TAGS'
     Update a tags table for this program.

`info'
     Generate any Info files needed.  The best way to write the rules
     is as follows:

          info: foo.info
          
          foo.info: foo.texi chap1.texi chap2.texi
                  $(MAKEINFO) $(srcdir)/foo.texi

     You must define the variable `MAKEINFO' in the Makefile.  It should
     run the `makeinfo' program, which is part of the Texinfo
     distribution.

`dvi'
     Generate DVI files for all Texinfo documentation.  For example:

          dvi: foo.dvi
          
          foo.dvi: foo.texi chap1.texi chap2.texi
                  $(TEXI2DVI) $(srcdir)/foo.texi

     You must define the variable `TEXI2DVI' in the Makefile.  It should
     run the program `texi2dvi', which is part of the Texinfo
     distribution.(1)  Alternatively, write just the dependencies, and
     allow GNU `make' to provide the command.

`dist'
     Create a distribution tar file for this program.  The tar file
     should be set up so that the file names in the tar file start with
     a subdirectory name which is the name of the package it is a
     distribution for.  This name can include the version number.

     For example, the distribution tar file of GCC version 1.40 unpacks
     into a subdirectory named `gcc-1.40'.

     The easiest way to do this is to create a subdirectory
     appropriately named, use `ln' or `cp' to install the proper files
     in it, and then `tar' that subdirectory.

     Compress the tar file with `gzip'.  For example, the actual
     distribution file for GCC version 1.40 is called `gcc-1.40.tar.gz'.

     The `dist' target should explicitly depend on all non-source files
     that are in the distribution, to make sure they are up to date in
     the distribution.  *Note Making Releases: Releases.

`check'
     Perform self-tests (if any).  The user must build the program
     before running the tests, but need not install the program; you
     should write the self-tests so that they work when the program is
     built but not installed.

   The following targets are suggested as conventional names, for
programs in which they are useful.

`installcheck'
     Perform installation tests (if any).  The user must build and
     install the program before running the tests.  You should not
     assume that `$(bindir)' is in the search path.

`installdirs'
     It's useful to add a target named `installdirs' to create the
     directories where files are installed, and their parent
     directories.  There is a script called `mkinstalldirs' which is
     convenient for this; you can find it in the Texinfo package.  You
     can use a rule like this:

          # Make sure all installation directories (e.g. $(bindir))
          # actually exist by making them if necessary.
          installdirs: mkinstalldirs
                  $(srcdir)/mkinstalldirs $(bindir) $(datadir) \
                                          $(libdir) $(infodir) \
                                          $(mandir)

     This rule should not modify the directories where compilation is
     done.  It should do nothing but create installation directories.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1)  `texi2dvi' uses TeX to do the real work of formatting. TeX is
not distributed with Texinfo.


File: standards.info,  Node: Releases,  Prev: Makefile Conventions,  Up: Managing Releases

Making Releases
===============

   Package the distribution of Foo version 69.96 in a gzipped tar file
named `foo-69.96.tar.gz'.  It should unpack into a subdirectory named
`foo-69.96'.

   Building and installing the program should never modify any of the
files contained in the distribution.  This means that all the files
that form part of the program in any way must be classified into "source
files" and "non-source files".  Source files are written by humans and
never changed automatically; non-source files are produced from source
files by programs under the control of the Makefile.

   Naturally, all the source files must be in the distribution.  It is
okay to include non-source files in the distribution, provided they are
up-to-date and machine-independent, so that building the distribution
normally will never modify them.  We commonly include non-source files
produced by Bison, `lex', TeX, and `makeinfo'; this helps avoid
unnecessary dependencies between our distributions, so that users can
install whichever packages they want to install.

   Non-source files that might actually be modified by building and
installing the program should *never* be included in the distribution.
So if you do distribute non-source files, always make sure they are up
to date when you make a new distribution.

   Make sure that the directory into which the distribution unpacks (as
well as any subdirectories) are all world-writable (octal mode 777).
This is so that old versions of `tar' which preserve the ownership and
permissions of the files from the tar archive will be able to extract
all the files even if the user is unprivileged.

   Make sure that all the files in the distribution are world-readable.

   Make sure that no file name in the distribution is more than 14
characters long.  Likewise, no file created by building the program
should have a name longer than 14 characters.  The reason for this is
that some systems adhere to a foolish interpretation of the POSIX
standard, and refuse to open a longer name, rather than truncating as
they did in the past.

   Don't include any symbolic links in the distribution itself.  If the
tar file contains symbolic links, then people cannot even unpack it on
systems that don't support symbolic links.  Also, don't use multiple
names for one file in different directories, because certain file
systems cannot handle this and that prevents unpacking the distribution.

   Try to make sure that all the file names will be unique on MS-DOS.  A
name on MS-DOS consists of up to 8 characters, optionally followed by a
period and up to three characters.  MS-DOS will truncate extra
characters both before and after the period.  Thus, `foobarhacker.c'
and `foobarhacker.o' are not ambiguous; they are truncated to
`foobarha.c' and `foobarha.o', which are distinct.

   Include in your distribution a copy of the `texinfo.tex' you used to
test print any `*.texinfo' or `*.texi' files.

   Likewise, if your program uses small GNU software packages like
regex, getopt, obstack, or termcap, include them in the distribution
file.  Leaving them out would make the distribution file a little
smaller at the expense of possible inconvenience to a user who doesn't
know what other files to get.


