Merged changes from 3.14 branch to revno 12636

documentation/RELEASE_NOTES.html

@@ -109,6 +109,53 @@ dbQuietMacroWarnings=1          <i>VxWorks</i>
 <h2 align="center">Changes pulled from the 3.14 branch since 3.15.3</h2>
 <!-- Insert inherited items immediately below here ... -->
 
+<h3>New CONFIG_SITE variable for running self-tests</h3>
+
+<p>The 'make runtests' and 'make tapfiles' build targets normally only run the
+self-tests for the main <tt>EPICS_HOST_ARCH</tt> architecture. If the host is
+able to execute self-test programs for other target architectures that are being
+built by the host, such as when building a <tt>-debug</tt> version of the host
+architecture for example, the names of those other architectures can be added to
+the new <tt>CROSS_COMPILER_RUNTEST_ARCHS</tt> variable in either the
+<tt>configure/CONFIG_SITE</tt> file or in an appropriate
+<tt>configure/os/CONFIG_SITE.&lt;host&gt;.Common</tt> file to have the test
+programs for those targets be run as well.</p>
+
+<h3>Additional RELEASE file checks</h3>
+
+<p>An additional check has been added at build-time for the contents of the
+configure/RELEASE file(s), which will mostly only affect users of the Debian
+EPICS packages published by NSLS-2. Support modules may share an install path,
+but all such modules must be listed adjacent to each other in any RELEASE files
+that point to them. For example the following will fail the new checks:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+AUTOSAVE = /usr/lib/epics
+ASYN = /home/mdavidsaver/asyn
+EPICS_BASE = /usr/lib/epics
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>giving the compile-time error</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+This application's RELEASE file(s) define
+	EPICS_BASE = /usr/lib/epics
+after but not adjacent to
+	AUTOSAVE = /usr/lib/epics
+Module definitions that share paths must be grouped together.
+Either remove a definition, or move it to a line immediately
+above or below the other(s).
+Any non-module definitions belong in configure/CONFIG_SITE.
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>In many cases such as the one above the order of the <tt>AUTOSAVE</tt> and
+<tt>ASYN</tt> lines can be swapped to let the checks pass, but if the
+<tt>AUTOSAVE</tt> module depended on <tt>ASYN</tt> and hence had to appear
+before it in the list this error indicates that <tt>AUTOSAVE</tt> should also be
+built in its own private area; a shared copy would likely be incompatible with
+the version of <tt>ASYN</tt> built in the home directory.</p>
+
 <h3>String field buffer overflows</h3>
 
 <p>Two buffer overflow bugs that can crash the IOC have been fixed, caused by