Orbit - Package Manager - Specification/ideas

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-07-19 03:58, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> 3. Orb invokes the build process to build foo (BTW, how is that "how to
> build" commandline string  specified in the orbspec? The closest thing I see
> is the "build" field, but it looks like that's just the name of the tool
> used. An actual command line string is going to be needed.)

Yes, it's the name of the build tool to invoke. By default it has 
support for a couple of build tools and knows how to invoke them. Example:

To invoke Make it would just be "make". To invoke DSSS it would be "dsss 
build".

In addition to that the "build" field accepts a variable argument list 
with arguments to the build tool. Example:

build :make, "-f foo.mak"

Would invoke "make -f foo.mak".

One of the known build tools is "shell" which basically lets you run 
arbitrary commands. Example:

build :shell, "./build_my_app.sh"
build :shell, "rdmd --build-only main.d".

> What about projects that don't use "{project_root}" as the include
> directory? My projects, for instance, typically use "{project_root}/src".

Actually I don't think this will be a problem. The working directory 
when installing a package will look the same as the project directory 
where you created the package.

Example:

1. You have all source files in "{project_root}/src". When you build the 
package, from "{project_root}", it will create a "src" directory in the 
package and all you source files will be in this directory.

2. When the package is to be installed the package manager extracts the 
package and you will have the "src" folder in the working directory/a 
temp directory.

3. The package manager will execute the build command from the working 
directory. So the build system you have chosen just needs to find the 
"src" folder relative to the working directory.

Lets take Make as an example, because it's a tool that exists and we 
know how it works. Either you have the makefile in the working directory 
(the original place was the project root). Or it will be in the "src" 
directory.

This is how the orbspec will look like when the makefile is in the root 
folder:

build :make

Or when the makefile is in the "src" folder:

build :make, "-f src/makefile"

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg