An open question to Rebuild users

Daniel Keep daniel.keep.lists at gmail.com
Thu Apr 19 06:36:15 PDT 2007


Gregor Richards wrote:
> Since many of the responses to this thread suggested that people don't
> understand why DSSS is useful above just a build tool like bud or
> rebuild. I've created a basic DSSS-by-example page, to describe why DSSS
> is useful, and what advantages it gives the user. It needs more work,
> but is a good start.
> 
> http://www.dsource.org/projects/dsss/wiki/DSSSByExample
> 
>  - Gregor Richards

OK, I think I've got a clearer idea of what DSSS is for now, although I
have a few questions:

1. What exactly does 'dsss install' do on Windows?  I mean, I realise
that linux has standard directories for libraries and binaries, but
where does it stick these things for Windows?

2. In addition, does 'dsss build' build everything all at once?  If so,
is there any way to specify that you only want a particular target built?

3. I use an awful lot of version statements to control tracing code,
experimental code, etc.  Can I pass version flags to the compiler from
the command line (I know about buildflags in the dsss.conf file, but I
don't want to have to edit that just to add some tracing code for a
quick run).

4. I also noticed the bit on special build steps prefixed by a '+': do
you trigger these from the command line like so: 'dsss build +foo'?

5. Related to the above, is there any way to add one of these special
build steps from another one (ie: chain them together)?

6. I realise this isn't in DSSS' job description, but do you have any
plans to add support for transforming files?  The major part of my work
at the moment deals with source files that need to be pre-processed
before being fed to the D compiler.  Having a build tool able to call
the processor on-demand only when it's needed would be a *massive*
help--about 80-90% of the current build time is just my crummy shell
script checking to make sure no source files need to be processed...

7. Can we Windows users get a list of what command-line programs DSSS
depends on?  I don't think I ever finished tracking down all the
utilities DSSS kept trying to call last time I tried to use it...

DSSS is actually looking pretty close to what I'm rigging up with bud at
the moment.  Plus, the whole net install thing is cool :P

	-- Daniel

-- 
int getRandomNumber()
{
    return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll.
              // guaranteed to be random.
}

http://xkcd.com/

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