Adjust RELEASE file variable name recognition

I was asked to support the use of hyphens `-` in names.

documentation/RELEASE_NOTES.md

@@ -12,12 +12,32 @@ The external PVA submodules each have their own separate set of release notes
 which should also be read to understand what has changed since an earlier
 release.
 
-## EPICS Release 7.x.y.z
+## EPICS Release 7.0.3.2
+
+### Variable names in RELEASE files
+
+`configure/RELEASE` files are parsed by both GNUmake and the `convertRelease.pl`
+script. While GNUmake is quite relaxed about what characters may be used in a
+RELEASE variable name, the `convertRelease.pl` script parser has only recognized
+variable names that match the Perl regular expression `\w+`, i.e. upper and
+lower-case letters, digits and underscore characters.
+
+The script has been modified so now RELEASE variable names must start with a
+letter or underscore, and be followed by any number of letters, digits,
+underscore or hyphen characters, matching the regular expression
+`[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9-]*`. The hyphen character `-` was not previously allowed
+and if used would have prevented a build from finding include files and
+libraries in any module using that in its RELEASE variable name.
+
+This change does disallow names that start with a digit which used to be
+allowed, but hopefully nobody has been relying on that ability. The regular
+expression used for names can be found in the file `src/tools/EPICS/Release.pm`
+and can be adjusted locally if necessary.
 
 ### caRepeater /dev/null
 
 On *NIX targets caRepeater will now partially daemonize by redirecting
-stdin/out/err with /dev/null.  This prevents caRepeater from inheriting
+stdin/out/err to /dev/null.  This prevents caRepeater from inheriting
 the stdin/out of a process, like caget, which has spawned it in the
 background.  This has been known to cause problems in some cases when
 caget is itself being run from a shell script.

src/tools/EPICS/Release.pm

@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@
 # in file LICENSE that is included with this distribution.
 #*************************************************************************
 
+# Regex to recognize variable names allowed in a RELEASE file
+my $MVAR = qr/[A-Za-z_] [A-Za-z_0-9-]*/x;
+
 #
 # Parse all relevent configure/RELEASE* files and includes
 #
@@ -58,17 +61,17 @@ sub readRelease {
         s/ \s+ $//x;            # Remove trailing whitespace
         next if m/^ \s* $/x;    # Skip blank lines
 
-        # Handle "<macro> = <path>" plus the := and ?= variants
-        my ($macro, $op, $val) = m/^ \s* (\w+) \s* ([?:]?=) \s* (.*) /x;
-        if ($macro ne '') {
-            $macro = 'TOP' if $macro =~ m/^ INSTALL_LOCATION /x;
-            if (exists $Rmacros->{$macro}) {
+        # Handle "<variable> = <path>" plus the := and ?= variants
+        my ($var, $op, $val) = m/^ \s* ($MVAR) \s* ([?:]?=) \s* (.*) /x;
+        if ($var ne '') {
+            $var = 'TOP' if $var =~ m/^ INSTALL_LOCATION /x;
+            if (exists $Rmacros->{$var}) {
                 next if $op eq '?=';
             } else {
-                push @$Rapps, $macro;
+                push @$Rapps, $var;
             }
             $val = expandMacros($val, $Rmacros) if $op eq ':=';
-            $Rmacros->{$macro} = $val;
+            $Rmacros->{$var} = $val;
             next;
         }
         # Handle "include <path>" and "-include <path>" syntax
@@ -85,35 +88,35 @@ sub readRelease {
 }
 
 #
-# Expand all (possibly nested) macros in a string
+# Expand all (possibly nested) variables in a string
 #
 sub expandMacros {
     my ($str, $Rmacros) = @_;
     # $Rmacros is a reference to a hash
 
-    while (my ($pre, $var, $post) = $str =~ m/ (.*) \$\( (\w+) \) (.*) /x) {
+    while (my ($pre, $var, $post) = $str =~ m/ (.*) \$\( ($MVAR) \) (.*) /x) {
         last unless exists $Rmacros->{$var};
         $str = $pre . $Rmacros->{$var} . $post;
     }
     return $str;
 }
 
 #
-# Expand all (possibly nested) macros in a dictionary
+# Expand all (possibly nested) variables in a dictionary
 #
 sub expandRelease {
     my ($Rmacros, $warn) = @_;
     # $Rmacros is a reference to a hash
     $warn = '' unless defined $warn;
 
-    while (my ($macro, $val) = each %$Rmacros) {
-        while (my ($pre,$var,$post) = $val =~ m/ (.*) \$\( (\w+) \) (.*) /x) {
-            warn "EPICS/Release.pm: Undefined macro \$($var) used $warn\n"
+    while (my ($relvar, $val) = each %$Rmacros) {
+        while (my ($pre,$var,$post) = $val =~ m/ (.*) \$\( ($MVAR) \) (.*) /x) {
+            warn "EPICS/Release.pm: Undefined variable \$($var) used $warn\n"
                 unless exists $Rmacros->{$var};
-            die "EPICS/Release.pm: Circular definition of macro $var $warn\n"
-                if $macro eq $var;
+            die "EPICS/Release.pm: Circular definition of variable $var $warn\n"
+                if $relvar eq $var;
             $val = $pre . $Rmacros->{$var} . $post;
-            $Rmacros->{$macro} = $val;
+            $Rmacros->{$relvar} = $val;
         }
     }
 }