Re: [Boost-build] path.exists caching?

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-02-13 01:30:59

On Tuesday 12 February 2008 04:57:45 Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> Jurko Gospodnetiæ wrote:
> >    Hi Alex.
> > 
> >> I want bjam to automatically checkout missing dependancies.  I created a wrapper rule for 'exe' and 'lib' which checks if sources include libraries from a list of our libs and then checks if the directory exists and if not - checks it out from cvs.
> > 
> >    Hmmm, nice goal, and wiser developers might correct me if I am wrong, 
> > but I do not believe Boost Build (or Boost Jam, or make for that matter) 
> > was intended to be used in such a way that dynamically modifies its own 
> > scripts/rules while it works based on the very environment it changes.
> 
> (For the record: GNU make has implicit rules covering RCS and SCCS, that 
> allow it to check out source code from a repository. This is admittedly 
> quite arcane, but demonstrates that updating from a repository as part 
> of a build is indeed something that has been done before.)

Well, only if you go as far as to say that RCS is a 'repository' :-P.

This comes up pediodically. Now, the best way to implement random action
is the "notfile" rule -- you can use it to checkout anything you like.

The second question if to make Jamfiles notice that you've checked out 
something, and use it. I guess glob can use for that effect.

- Volodya