Re: Minimal Boost.Jam

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-02 19:53:19

Alan Gutierrez wrote:
> * David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> [2005-01-02 12:19]:
>> 
>> Alan Gutierrez wrote:
>> 
>> > Maybe not Boost.Build.v2, maybe Jam. Where is Perforce/Jam in
>> > all this? This strikes me as a Socratic question and this process
>> > of learning Boost.Build is already Socratic enough.
>> > 
>> > Are the orignal Jam or Performce/Jam involved in Boost.Build?
>> 
>> The original Jam is Perforce/Jam. Boost.Jam is basically an old version
>> of Perforce/Jam plus many extensions and improvements. Since then
>> Perfoce has made many other changes to its Jam and the codebases have
>> diverged.
> 
> I know. I was being rethorical.

I don't know what to say. I was just trying to help and if you ask
questions I'll expect that you want to know the answer. Would you mind
clearly labelling the rhetorical ones so I can ignore them?

>> > I would like to create a minimal Boost.Jam file. One that
>> > generates no warnings.
> 
>> DEPENDS all : Jamfile ;
> 
>> will work.
> 
> Thank you. That's all I was looking for.

Okay. Be clear that Jamfile uses low-level Perforce Jam primitives. It
is not really a Boost.Build Jamfile...

>> > I'm asking a syntax question.
> 
>> It's not exactly a syntax answer. There's no special syntax as in
>> make for introducing a dependency. It's done by calling a builtin
>> rule. That is to say that colons are just argument separators in
>> Jam, nothing more.
> 
> I'm beginning to see how Jam creates dependencies. I don't have
> the vocabulary to describe it yet. There are types, they have
> rules for creation, and if one is missing... I'm watching the
> build process with --debug-generators on and it explains a lot.
>
> I've now managed to create my OS X bundle rule.

... and if you're watching generators, you're strictly in the BBv2
domain, at a much higher level than that of Boost.Jam. It actually
explains little or nothing about the way Jam creates dependencies.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com