Use dub to create source lib and executables

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On 3/4/23 1:33 PM, Chris Piker wrote:
> Hi D
> 
> I normally work in a *nix environment, typically on server-side code.  
> For many projects I have gnu makefiles that build a small lib along with 
> command line utilities.
> 
> Up to now I've been creating a dub.json file for just the sourceLibrary, 
> and then putting embedded dub comments at the top of each of the utility 
> programs.  The utilities are built via `dub build --single` and a thin 
> makefile triggers all the dub commands.
> 
> This method is inefficient, and it won't work in a typical Windows dev 
> environment, so today I'm trying to remove gnu make from the picture.  
> Going back to basics, does anyone know of a clear example of how to 
> convert this simplified makefile into 1-N dub files?:
> 
> ```makefile
> # Build library + utility programs.
> # Lib sources are in "libsrc", 1-file programs in "utils"
> 
> # Implicit rule to make a utility program
> outdir/%:utils/%.d outdir/mylib.a
>      dmd -I libsrc -od=outdir -of=$@ $^
> 
> # Top level build rule for everything
> build:outdir/mylib.a outdir/prog1 outdir/prog2 | outdir
> 
> # Explicit rule to make output directory if not present
> outdir:
>      @if [ ! -e outdir ]; then mkdir outdir; fi
> 
> # Explicit build rule for the library
> outdir/mylib.a:libsrc/mod1.d libsrc/mod2.d
>      dmd -lib -od=outdir -of=$@ $^
> ```
> This is a paired down example since `make test` and `make install` 
> aren't present, but I hope the main ideas are apparent.
> 
> I've been at it now for about four hours, with lots of web-searches 
> (btw, thanks to schveiguy for getting me this far) but I haven't figured 
> out what hierarchy of dub constructs I need to create to order to get 
> the effect of the small make file above.
> 
> Thanks for considering the question,
> 
> 

If you mean that you have multiple subprojects inside your main dub 
project, my advice is to follow what other such projects do. I always 
look at vibe for my example.

dub isn't great when it comes to the "one true way" to specify this. You 
can actually create a dub subproject inside your dub file, or create dub 
files inside all your other subproject folders, and tag them as 
subprojects of the main project.

I've tried both ways, and I find the latter to be easier to deal with. 
This is what vibe does.

-Steve