[V2] Support of .idl files (second attempt or everybody ignores me :-))

From: Alexey Pakhunov (alexeypa_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-25 15:30:49

Ladies and gentlemen,

It seems my last message wasn't anyhow noticeable. So let me try again. :)

I have 90% percent ready support of midl compiler for msvc toolset. I 
have a small ideological problem and I believe you guys can solve it. 
And I hope that once it is solved my patch will be eventually committed.

So the question is should I simply provide a rule/actions that will be 
1-to-1 match with what midl.exe actually does. I.e. x.idl -> x_i.c, 
x_p.c, x_dlldata.c, x.h and x.tlb. So the developer will have to include 
produced sources manually.

Or should the additional logic will be implemented so, that produced 
files will be automatically wrapped by generated .c files and included 
to the build.

In the first case we get maximum flexibility and a bit of work for a 
developer (like we have with bison). In the second one - we'll get stuck 
with N standard project configurations.

So what is you opinion?

PS: Please refer to my previous mail for details.

> 
> Now I need an advise from experienced Boost.Build'ers. :-) I fill like
> I'm heading in a wrong direction. Instead of doing all the stuff above
> we can define simple rule (an corresponding actions) that describes
> exactly what midl.exe does. I.e.:
> 

Best regards,
Alexey Pakhunov.