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

[Steven Knight]

> Hi all, I would like to chime in and supplement my colleague Keith's 
> comments. If you don't "link" then you cannot do variant builds, am I 
> right?

Not without rolling the logic yourself in your Conscript files.  It
shouldn't require more than a moderate amount of Perl knowledge.

>        The way I see it, we want Cons to build our source tree and use 
> compiler options to redirect the output based on the variant build 
> directory ( build\debug\...\xxx.obj ). This seems to imply that Cons would 
> have to maintain two sets of .consign files ( one set in the source tree, 
> and one in the build tree ). My suspicion is that Cons wasn't designed for 
> this and cannot do this without a redesign.

You're correct, in so far as how the Link() method is coded.

>                                             If your filesystem supports 
> links, then it isn't a problem. We use clearcase (MVFS) which supports 
> links, but for controlled elements. The "build" dir is not a clearcase 
> controlled element, which begs the question, could it be?

Very good idea.  I asked the list sometime last whether anyone was using
Cons in a ClearCase environment.  No one answered, which might mean
you're the first lucky people to try to use Cons as a replacement for
clearmake.

I presume that there must be a ClearCase command that will link a new
controlled element to an existing controlled element.  Perhaps enhancing
Cons to exec "clearcase ln" instead of using Perl's internal link()
would do the trick?

> NTFS ( Win2k ) does support hardlinks for files only, but again we are 
> using the clearcase filesystem (MVFS).
> 
> We are trying our best to use Cons, but we cannot disrupt the workflow of 
> our developers. We are building drivers and applications for XP, clearcase 
> is our configuration managment system, and we use the DevStudio 
> environment for debugging. These facts are not going to change. I 
> appreciate the flexibility of other platforms and environments, but this 
> is our world.
> 
> Can anyone advise us as to whether we have any hope of getting Cons to do 
> what we want? Have we made the problem clear? 

Very clear.  You're running into several issues that have plagued Cons
for a long time, but which no one has taken the time to solve.  I think
the use of ClearCase is a new wrinkle, though.

I'd be glad to contribute some advice towards getting Cons to play
nicely with ClearCase.  Let me know off-line if you'd like to explore
this.

        --SK