Re: How do I inhibit the copying of the source files to the build tree

[Steven Knight]

> We have a couple of issues that arrise out of Cons behavior where all
> the source files are copied to a separate build tree:
>
> By way of background, we are setting up a Cons build to replace an MS
> DevStudio based build.
> 1. Double clicking on error messages in the output window, to edit the
> source files, does not work well when doing a Cons build from within
> DevStudio.

This is unfortunately true.  My understanding (I'm not very conversant
with DevStudio) is that you get the build copy, not the original source
file, which means any changes you may make can get blown away by the
next build if you don't notice the difference.

> 2. Debugging from a Cons build does not make DevStudio very happy.
> When debugging you are not seeing the file from source tree, rather
> you are seeing the "link"ed copy of it. Devstudio does not care about
> htis, but it confuses the developer.  I am curious why we would be the
> first group to encounter this and think it was not good.  Is the real
> question "How can we support variant builds without using the "link"
> command?"

Probably the best way would be to roll the logic yourself.  Explicitly
compile your objects and executables in one or more separate variant
directories, leaving the source files in their original locations.

        @sources = ( 'src/f1.c', 'src/f2.c' );
        $env->Program('variant1/foo', @sources);
        $env->Program('variant2/foo', @sources);

(Actually, you'd probably have to do it explicitly via Objects calls so
that the object files end up in the variant build directory, too...)

> One possible solution for these problems would be to completely
> inhibit Cons from copying the source to the build tree.  Is this
> possible?

Unfortunately, this isn't possible with the Cons implementation of the
Link() method.  (At the risk of being considered off-topic:  SCons
does support the ability to build in a variant directory without
linking/copying in the source files.)

        --SK