Hi,

I'm having a bit of problem using stage.install to stage binaries and libraries in a project I'm working on. My basic problem is that I can't reliably install all libraries dependencies for the binaries in the project from the default build directory hierarchy (e.g., LIBNAME/gcc-default/debug/threading-multi ...). I realize there is an <install-dependencies> feature on stage.install that handles just this problem, but I'm running into the same problem I've seen posted previously on this and other lists...enabling that for the binaries leads to bjam never returning (I'm assuming it's due to the number of dependencies). The project is somewhat large...~16 binaries with 50 or so libraries with many dependencies between them. I know one potential answer to the problem is to reduce our dependencies, but that's not really an option for us. The dependencies are what they are. :-P

So, here's what I was trying as a work-around. I tried writing a rule to register an install target for a given target. The idea was then to make a rule that, given a target, would recursively lookup the installer for all dependent targets (and the provided target) and add the resultant install targets to a list. Then, generate an alias to all of the install targets that could be called to install everything. The problem I ran into was how to (in general) look up target sources / dependencies for a given target. Here's what I have so far:

----------- SNIP -----------

rule register-install-target ( target : install-target )
{
    if $(target) in $(.targets)
    {
        errors.error "Install target already registered for $(target)." ;
    }
    else
    {
        .install-targets.$(target) = $(install-target) ;
    }
}

rule get-install-targets ( targets * )
{
    local install-targets ;

    for target in $(targets)
    {
        # Possibly empty...ok
        local install-target = $(.install-targets.$(target)) ;

        install-targets += $(install-target) ;
    }

    return $(install-targets) ;
}

rule generate-install-alias ( name : target : extra-requirements * ) ;
{
    local all-install-targets = [ generate-install-alias-helper $(target) ] ;
    [ sequence.unique $(all-install-targets) ] ;

    # Haven't gotten to handling requirements yet...trying to get deps first...
    # TODO: Compare extra-requirements with usage requirements...should probably delegate to some abstract target functionality...

    # TODO: Handle requirements, usage-requirements, ... Get the deps to work first though.
    alias $(name) : $(all-install-targets) ;

    # TODO: Probably make it explicit in the calling module here too...
}

rule generate-install-alias-helper ( target ) ;
{
    local target-obj = [ targets.resolve-reference $(target) : [ project.current ] ] ;

    # Hmmm....where do I actually GET these from?
    local dep-refs = [ $(target-obj).dependencies ] ; # <-- doesn't work since we're a main-target object...where to get sources / dependencies???

    for dep in $(dep-refs)
    {
        local dep-type ; # <-- not sure how to get this for a given target object

        # Only care about library dependencies...
        if $(dep-type) in STATIC_LIB SHARED_LIB IMPORT_LIB
        {
            dep-refs += [ generate-install-alias-helper $(dep) ] ;
        }
    }

    dep-refs += $(target) ;

    return $(dep-refs) ;
}

----------- SNIP -----------

The above could be used as follows:

----------- SNIP -----------

exe hello-world
    : hello-world.cpp
      hello-world-lib
;

lib hello-world-lib
    : hello-world-lib.cpp
;

alias all
    : hello-world/<threading>multi
      hello-world/<threading>single
;

install hello-world-install
    : hello-world
    : <install-dependencies>off
      <install-type>EXE
;
explicit hellow-world-install ;

install hello-world-lib-install
    : hello-world-lib
    : <install-dependencies>off
      <install-type>LIB
;
explicit hellow-world-lib-install ;

register-install-target hello-world : hello-world-install ;
register-install-target hello-world-lib : hello-world-lib-install ;

generate-install-alias install-all : hello-world ;

----------- SNIP -----------

So, the two problems I ran into above are:
- How to get the sources / dependencies from a main-target object
- How to get the type for a target

And, more generally, does what I'm doing above even make sense. :)

NOTE: I don't claim to be a bjam expert. I only know what I've learned from newsgroups and poking around boost-build. So, before I bang my head against the wall anymore trying to do the above, I figured I'd try asking those who are more knowledgable. :)

Thanks in advance,
-Johnny