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

From: Bjørn Roald (bjorn_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-06 12:22:27

Kevin Heifner wrote:
> 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.
>   
Great :-)  I may help out a bit if needed.
>   
>>>> 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.
>   
I can understand that as it would complicate MPC itself.

-- 
Bjørn Roald