RE: Remark 2: Desired feature: Conscript-uptodate targets

[Gary Oberbrunner]

>>>>> "SK" == Steven Knight <address@hidden> writes:

  SK> On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, Eric Brown wrote:
  >> I've also been looking at how to do 'post-build' things in Cons (e.g.,
  >> building setup programs, sending email based on the status of the build)
  >> that have to be done after the programs are built.  
  >> 
  >> I would also like to figure out a better way to do this within Cons.

I always do this from my shell script that runs cons.  Cons does
return error status if the build failed.  However, I agree it would be
nice if we could detect whether everything was already up-to-date or
not (i.e. whether cons "did anything"), in which case I wouldn't have
to do my post-build stuff (in my case it's building the setup program
and copying stuff around, sometimes making a CD image, whatever).

So I've also been thinking about something like Marcello's
AfterBuildAll idea, which would add a shell string (or perl code ref,
excellent suggestion Steven), to a list of things to be done at the
end.  The list would be run only if the build succeeded and something
was done.  If I had this, I don't think I'd even need my wrapper shell
script.

But perhaps, as Steven says, I only think I need this because I'm
lazy: if I'd integrate all of what I consider "post-build" stuff into
cons with proper targets and dependencies, I probably wouldn't need
any of this.  Except... email-sending is one of those things that you
really shouldn't have to add a dependency on every final target for.
And determining the dependencies for building the setup program can be
a real nightmare.  If you miss one, your setup program could be built
before the last target! So those two seem to be a good case for
AfterBuildAll.  Maybe once I dig myself out from under my current
pile, I'll take a look at it.

-- 
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Gary Oberbrunner                address@hidden
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