If you wish to change the `configure' script or its related files, you'll need
to first install GNU m4, available from <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/m4/> and then
-GNU autoconf (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>).
+GNU autoconf (<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/>). Nmh is currently using
+a minimum of autoconf 2.54.
Most of the configure-related files are automatically generated. The only files
you should need to manually edit are acconfig.h and configure.in. Don't, for
of the users (and the configure script) it is an output file from the point of
view of the developers (and the autoconf script).
-If you do change acconfig.h or configure.in and want to `cvs commit' them, be
-sure to regenerate the output files and commit them as well. The easiest way to
-regenerate the files is to simply run `make' -- it'll do the necessary calls of
-autoconf and autoheader and will do a `./config.status --recheck', which will
-exercise your new configure script.
-
-When you commit the configure-related files, it's very important to commit them
-in the right order. The timestamps on the files in the CVS archive are based on
-the current time at the moment they were committed -- the timestamps from the
-local files you commit are not copied over. If you commit the files in the
-wrong order, you'll cause unnecessary calls of `autoconf' to occur when people
-try to `make' their copies of the latest CVS source. These people may be
-end-users who don't have any interest in changing the configure-related files
-and don't have autoconf installed. They'll be unable to make without playing
-around with `touch'.
-
-The correct order to commit the configure-related files is:
-
-% cvs commit acconfig.h aclocal.m4 config.h.in configure.in configure stamp-h.in
-
-If you haven't changed all of those files, just commit the rest in the
-stated order (e.g. cvs commit acconfig.h config.h.in stamp-h.in).
+Note that the automatically generated autoconf files (such as config.h.in,
+stamp-h.in, and configure), are NOT kept in CVS. Thus, when you check out
+a CVS tree, you need to do the following things before you can build
+anything:
+ % autoheader
+ % autoconf
+ % date > stamp-h.in
-------------------
directory structure
Contains utility files for the `configure' process. Ordinarily nothing in
here needs to be messed with.
+doc/
+ Contains more specialized documentation, such as this file and
+ the FAQ.
+
etc/
Contains files, file templates, and scripts to generate files that will be
installed in the ${prefix}/etc directory. Stuff like replcomps.
"mts" stands for "Message Transfer Service". Source files specific to the
different MTSs go in the subdirectories.
-mts/mmdf/
+mts/mmdf/ (deprecated)
"mmdf" stands for "Multichannel Memorandum Distribution Facility". It is an
alternative to sendmail used primarily on SCO UNIX.
-mts/sendmail/
+mts/sendmail/ (deprecated: handled by mts.conf)
When nmh is configured --with-mts=sendmail, the files in this directory are
used.
<command>sbr.c which contains additional subroutines called from <command>.c
(which would contain not much else besides main()).
-zotnet/
+zotnet/ (deprecated)
Files in this hierarchy were either written by or moved here by UCI
(University of California, Irvine) after they took over MH from the Rand
Corporation. "Zot!" is the sound effect made by the anteater in the "B.C."
comic strip when its tongue lashes out at ants. The anteater is UCI's
official mascot. Not sure whether UCInet was once called ZotNet...
-zotnet/bboards/
+zotnet/bboards/ (deprecated)
UCI added Bulletin Board functionality to MH with the `bbc' command. This
functionality has been removed from nmh but apparently files in this
directory are still needed for other purposes.
-zotnet/mf/
+zotnet/mf/ (deprecated, now in sbr/)
"mf" stands for "Mail Filter". The filtering in this case apparently refers
to translation between different address and mailbox formats.
-zotnet/mts/
+zotnet/mts/ (deprecated, now in sbr/)
MTS code not specific to any single MTS apparently goes here.
-zotnet/tws/
- No idea what "tws" stands for, other than 't' almost certainly standing for
- "time". Date and time manipulation routines go here.
+zotnet/tws/ (deprecated, now in sbr/)
+ "tws" apparently stands for "time with structure", a rather odd phrase.
+ This directory used to be the place for date and time manipulation code, but
+ currently nothing in here is compiled. There are new, more portable
+ versions of the key files in h/ and sbr/, and this directory will soon go
+ away completely.
+
+
+-------------------------------------------------------
+nmh-local functions to use in preference to OS versions
+-------------------------------------------------------
+
+For some system functions whose availability or behavior varies from OS to OS,
+nmh conditionally uses a local definition with the same name as the OS function
+(e.g. snprintf()). For other functions, developers need to avoid the OS
+versions and always use the nmh-supplied function. Here is a list of such
+functions:
+
+OS function nmh-local version to use instead
+=========== ================================
+getpass() nmh_getpass()
-------------
To make a public release of nmh (we'll use version 1.0.4 and my mhost.com
account, danh, as examples here):
-1. % echo 1.0.4 > VERSION
+ 1. % echo 1.0.4 > VERSION
+ % date +"%e %B %Y" > DATE
+ (DATE should contain something like "30 December 2000")
+
+ 2. Put a comment like "Released nmh-1.0.4." in the ChangeLog.
+
+ 3. % cvs commit ChangeLog VERSION DATE
+
+ 4. % cvs tag nmh-1_0_4
+ (cvs treats dots specially, so underscores are substituted here.)
+
+ 5. % make nmhdist
+
+ 6. Untar nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz and `diff -r' it vs. your CVS tree. Make sure no
+ files got left out of the distribution that should be in it (due to someone
+ forgetting to update the DIST variables in the Makefiles).
+
+ 7. If you have root access on your machine, it's good at this point to do:
+
+ % chown -R 0:0 nmh-1.0.4
+ % tar cvf nmh-1.0.4.tar nmh-1.0.4
+ % gzip nmh-1.0.4.tar
+
+ If you leave the files in the archive as being owned by yourself, your UID
+ may coincide with one of a user on a machine where nmh is being installed,
+ making it possible for that user to Trojan the nmh code before the system
+ administrator finishes installing it.
-2. Put a comment like "Released nmh-1.0.4." in the ChangeLog.
+ 8. Make sure your new tarball uncompresses and untars with no problem. Make
+ sure you can configure, make, and install nmh from it.
-3. % cvs commit ChangeLog VERSION
+ 9. If all is well and your tarball is final, go back to your CVS tree and do:
-4. % cvs tag nmh-1_0_4
- (cvs treats dots specially, so underscores are substituted here.)
+ % echo 1.0.4+dev > VERSION
-5. % make nmhdist
+10. Put a comment like "Upped the version number to 1.0.4+dev until the next nmh
+ release." in the ChangeLog.
-6. Preferably make an MD5 hash and/or a PGP signature of nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz.
+11. % cvs commit ChangeLog VERSION
-7. Preferably test out the tarball, making sure you can uncompress and untar it,
- and configure, make, install, and use nmh from it.
+12. If possible, make an MD5 hash and/or a PGP signature of nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz.
-8. % scp -p nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz* your-uid@mhost.com:/home/ftp/pub/nmh
+13. % scp -p nmh-1.0.4.tar.gz* danh@mhost.com:/var/ftp/pub/nmh
-9. Send an announcement to exmh-users@redhat.com, exmh-workers@redhat.com,
- mh-users@ics.uci.edu, and nmh-announce@mhost.com. If the release fixes
- significant security holes, also send an announcement to
- bugtraq@securityfocus.com. The exmh lists require you to be subscribed in
- order to post. Note that you don't need to post separately to comp.mail.mh,
- as the mh-users mailing list is apparently bidirectionally gatewayed to it.
+14. Send an announcement to exmh-users@redhat.com, exmh-workers@redhat.com,
+ mh-users@ics.uci.edu, and nmh-announce@mhost.com. If the release fixes
+ significant security holes, also send an announcement to
+ bugtraq@securityfocus.com. The exmh lists require you to be subscribed in
+ order to post. Note that you don't need to post separately to comp.mail.mh,
+ as the mh-users mailing list is apparently bidirectionally gatewayed to it.
- Preferably, the announcement should contain the MD5 hash generated above, and
- should be PGP-signed. It should include the FTP URL for the tarball as well
- as the URL of the website. It should contain a brief summary of visible
- changes, as well as the URL of the cvsweb diff page that would show a
- detailed list of changes. The changes between 1.0.3 and 1.0.4 would be shown
- by:
+ Preferably, the announcement should contain the MD5 hash generated above,
+ and should be PGP-signed. It should include the FTP URL for the tarball as
+ well as the URL of the website. It should contain a brief summary of
+ visible changes, as well as the URL of the cvsweb diff page that would show
+ a detailed list of changes. The changes between 1.0.3 and 1.0.4 would be
+ shown by:
- http://www.mhost.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/nmh/ChangeLog?r1=1.40&r2=1.71
+ http://www.mhost.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb/nmh/ChangeLog?r1=1.40&r2=1.71
projects / mmh / blobdiff