Re: [boost] MPC and Boost Build (was Boost and Google Summer of Code 2007)

From: Kevin Heifner (heifner_k_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-06 11:14:02

Jeff Garland wrote:
> Bjørn Roald wrote:
> 
>>> 2. Something is created that can generate MPC files from Jamfiles.
>>>   
>> This would be useful.  MPC itself does not need to be in the boost 
>> distro for this scheme to work.  All that is needed is that something 
>> can generate the .mpc files.  One natural choice would be an add-on to 
>> bbv2 since it already parses the Jamfiles.
> 
> Agree that this would be handy and would go over well with fans of boost 
> build.  If you took a particular library it would somehow have to get all the 
> rules from the tools/build/v2/*.jam files for a given environment to produce 
> the needed mpc information.  The potential problem I see is that MPC embeds 
> some of this same information in it's template files...so you might have to 
> 'templatize the mpc templates' so the nitty gritty details of toolset 
> configurations can be exposed.

OCI is going to take a look at developing a perl script that will 
convert Jamfiles to MPC files.

>>> 4. (added after reading the last section of the email)
>>>     Add Jamfile input file support to MPC.
>>>
>>>   
>> Yes, If the semantics of the information in .mpc files and Jamfiles are 
>> close, this may be feasible.  Would be fun to try it out anyway.  Think 
>> I need better understanding of the two file formats first.
> 
> MPC isn't a build system, so it's a bit different.  None-the-less all the 
> details of how to configure compile options and such need to be in the MPC and 
> Jamfiles.  Both MPC and Jam put this mostly behind the scenes with a good set 
> of defaults.  So, this also might be another valid approach.

After discussing this with Chad Elliott the main MPC developer we 
don't believe that this would be appropriate.

KevinH
-- 
Kevin Heifner  heifner @ ociweb.com  http://heifner.blogspot.com
           Object Computing, Inc. (OCI) www.ociweb.com