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Announcing 'build', Auto-Configuration In 1000 Lines Of Makefile (github.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the making-build dept.

Christophe de Dinechin created the XL programming language -- and as descubes he's also Slashdot reader #35,093. Today he shares his latest project, a simple makefile-based build system that he's split from ELFE/XL: Most open-source projects use tools such as autoconf and automake. For C and C++ projects, build is a make-based alternative that offers auto-configuration, build logs, colorization, testing and install targets, in about 1000 lines of makefile. A sample makefile looks like this:

BUILD=./
SOURCES=hello.cpp
PRODUCTS=hello.exe
CONFIG= <stdio.h> <iostream> clearenv libm
TESTS=product
include $(BUILD)rules.mk


2 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Like MakeXS by ozzee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have a similar make based build system called MakeXS. It's used in the Austria C++ project. It has similar features but my plan was to migrate away from make. Now that Google has released bazel I'm thinking of migrating to it instead.

  2. Re:Wrong tool! Focus on what we need! by johannesg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > Multiple versions locally that don't conflict

    That would be a god send if it was standardized across platforms: Win, Linux, OSX. Gee, how did *nix solve this problem? :-)

    Not? Compile something on one version of Linux, and pray it works on another. Sending a binary to a customer is just about plain impossible, it will never work on their system.

    I'm sure you guys all love the open source thing, and so do I. But my customers aren't that technical; they don't want to hear about compiler instructions, they want to get a binary they can use without worrying about anything... Copying it to the right location on the machine is about the toughest I can ask of them.

    >control over C++ ABI

    Agreed. Except the retarded C++ committee doesn't think this is important. Every C++ compiler can call C code generated by ANY compiler but you MUST only call a .lib compiled with the SAME compiler. It is utterly stupid that in 2017 there is STILL no support for an Application Binary Interface.

    Amen. As well as the stupid insistence that undefined behaviour is just fine and dandy (I understand it can only be avoided at great cost in some situations, but in others it can be trivially removed from the standard. Forget about that though...), as well as thinking that apparently 'switch' could only ever be used for things that could theoretically be implemented through jump tables... It's 2017, why can't I switch on strings or constexpr classes, at least?