Re: [BBv2] Patch, review needed - support of Microsoft .idl files for MSVC

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-16 08:56:08

Alexey Pakhunov wrote:
> Reece Dunn wrote:
> 
>>>import "../core/core.idl";
>>
>>Yes. I am importing them relatively like the above.
> 
> It is a problem of midl.exe itself. It does not handle relative paths 
> when importing.

:(

>>I suppose I could try adding an <include> to the project:
>>
>> myproject/Jamfile
>> project myproject : : requirements <include>. ;
> 
> It will work but only if you apply one more fix:
> 
> RCS file: /cvsroot/boost/boost/tools/build/v2/tools/common.jam,v
> [snip]
> midl.exe does not recognize '-I"..."' but recognizes '"-I..."'. :(

Great :). This also fixes an issue using your MIDL patch with my 
no-vcvars support when using response files.

>>More comments will follow when I have had a chance to review the patch.
> 
> Cool! I'm looking forward to it.

Here are some more comments on the patch:

[1] The change to
type.register MSTYPELIB : tlb : H ;
means that
tlb myidl : myidl.idl ;
becomes
mstypelib myidl : myidl.idl ;

This suggests that IDL are MS-specific targets. There are other IDL 
compilers - the Mozilla one; the WINE one; CORBA compilers and so on. 
Thus, mstypelib is too specific. Is there any reason for the change?

I would be happy with typelib as a name, or (to be consistent with exe 
and lib, tlb). I am not sure whether CORBA produces type libraries, so 
would another name be better? Note that I am not sure what this name 
would be.

[2] I am getting the following error:

midl : command line error MIDL1000 : missing source-file name

midl /nologo /Oicf /robust /win32 /tlb 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore.tlb" 
/h 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore.h" 
/iid 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore_i.c" 
/proxy 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore_proxy.c" 
/dlldata 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore_dlldata.c" 

@"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore.tlb.rsp" 
&& del /f 
"..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\core\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderCore.tlb.rsp"

This is because:

$(.IDL) /nologo /U$(UNDEFS) $(MIDLFLAGS) /tlb "$(<[1]:W)" /h 
"$(<[2]:W)" /iid "$(<[3]:W)" /proxy "$(<[4]:W)" /dlldata "$(<[5]:W)" 
@"$(RSP:W)" && $(RM) "$(RSP)"

doesn't specify the IDL file. The fix is:

$(.IDL) /nologo /U$(UNDEFS) $(MIDLFLAGS) "$(>:W)" ...
^^^^^^^^

This was present in your previous version, so I think you just missed 
it when building the patch.

[3] This is more a BBv2/bjam issue: when scanning for dependencies, it 
only scans one level deep, so doesn't pick up things like:

mycomobj.cpp
#include "stdafx.h"

stdafx.h
#include "myidl.h"

so myidl will be built after mycomobj!

[4] With the fix for issue [2] my IDL file builds fine. However, I have

feature character-set : narrow wide mbcs : composite ;
feature windows
: none
95 98 me
nt 2k xp 2k3 vista
pocketpc2003 smartphone2003
: propagated composite ;

which is causing problems, for given:

mstypelib ReaderCore : ReaderCore.idl ;

lib Reader.Core
:
main.cpp ...
:
<implicit-dependency>ReaderCore
<def-file>../../../../libs/res/comdll.def
<windows>nt
<link>shared
;

When building Reader.Core, it complains about being able to find 
ReaderCore.h. This is because the layout is:

release/character-set-wide/ReaderCore.h
release/character-set-wide/windows-nt/ReaderCore.h

This is because Reader.Core has <windows>nt, but ReaderCore doesn't. 
This suggests it isn't pulling in the include directory for ReaderCore 
like the initial version :(.

[5] When rebuiling the project, I am getting:

midl : command line error MIDL1020 : cannot open response file 
..\..\..\build\tools\speaker\reader\html\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderHTML.tlb.rsp 
Could Not Find 
F:\devel\build\tools\speaker\reader\html\msvc-7.1\release\character-set-wide\ReaderHTML.tlb.rsp

- Reece