Merged revisions 2136-2200,2202-2290,2292-2301 via svnmerge from

http://scons.tigris.org/svn/scons/branches/core

........
  r2145 | stevenknight | 2007-07-17 09:15:12 -0500 (Tue, 17 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Don't put null strings (from variable expansion) in a path list.
  (They get turned into the current directory on later expansion.)
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  r2146 | stevenknight | 2007-07-17 10:47:39 -0500 (Tue, 17 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Add support for optional arguments on command-line long options
  by specifying nargs='?'.
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  r2149 | stevenknight | 2007-07-17 15:22:24 -0500 (Tue, 17 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Remove left-over Optik mentions.
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  r2150 | stevenknight | 2007-07-17 15:39:34 -0500 (Tue, 17 Jul 2007) | 4 lines

  Add a $SWIGPATH variable for finding SWIG dependencies, with
  $SWIGINC{PREFIX,SUFFIX} for adding them to the command line.
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  r2154 | stevenknight | 2007-07-18 20:05:31 -0500 (Wed, 18 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix variable misspellings in the doc added for $SWIGOUTPUT.
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  r2155 | stevenknight | 2007-07-18 20:07:28 -0500 (Wed, 18 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Add the Python eggs info file to the RPM packaging build.
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  r2156 | stevenknight | 2007-07-18 20:15:08 -0500 (Wed, 18 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Convert documentation from DocBook SGML to XML.
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  r2158 | stevenknight | 2007-07-19 17:16:19 -0500 (Thu, 19 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Conditionally add the .egg-info the RPM file list only if the distutils
  in the version of Python that rpmbuild will execute knows about them.
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  r2161 | stevenknight | 2007-07-19 19:12:29 -0500 (Thu, 19 Jul 2007) | 5 lines

  Capture a test case (contributed by Tilo Prutz) where instantiation of
  a private class causes javac to generate an additional anonymous inner
  class file.  (No solution yet, but there's no sense throwing away the
  preparatory work.)
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  r2162 | stevenknight | 2007-07-20 11:29:56 -0500 (Fri, 20 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Support passing a list of .java files as source to the Java() builder.
  (Leanid Nazdrynau)
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  r2163 | garyo | 2007-07-20 12:00:35 -0500 (Fri, 20 Jul 2007) | 1 line

  Fixed cut-n-paste error in Touch factory method doc in users guide.
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  r2167 | stevenknight | 2007-07-21 22:59:40 -0500 (Sat, 21 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Don't execute the SWIGOUTDIR test if swig isn't installed.
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  r2168 | stevenknight | 2007-07-21 23:14:17 -0500 (Sat, 21 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix the test's ability to run under a path name containing spaces.
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  r2171 | stevenknight | 2007-07-24 15:54:41 -0500 (Tue, 24 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Handle white space in key file names in the packaging build.
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  r2172 | stevenknight | 2007-07-24 21:41:15 -0500 (Tue, 24 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  More efficient copying of construction environments.
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  r2173 | stevenknight | 2007-07-25 10:56:02 -0500 (Wed, 25 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Update the SCons build for Subversion and general clean-up.
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  r2174 | stevenknight | 2007-07-25 11:35:16 -0500 (Wed, 25 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Suppress the [brackets] around a node in the --tree=prune output if
  the node is a source.
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  r2175 | stevenknight | 2007-07-25 12:52:18 -0500 (Wed, 25 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Commonize the skip_test() method and make its behavior configurable
  via a TESTCOMMON_PASS_SKIPS environment variable.
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  r2178 | stevenknight | 2007-07-25 21:43:47 -0500 (Wed, 25 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Add $JAVACLASSPATH and $JAVASOURCEPATH construction variables.  (Leanid
  Nazdrynau)
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  r2182 | stevenknight | 2007-07-30 12:10:20 -0500 (Mon, 30 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Refactor Builder suffix-adjusting into its own method, so we can
  (potentially) re-use it for Builders with attached source Builders.
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  r2183 | stevenknight | 2007-07-30 14:51:53 -0500 (Mon, 30 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  More efficient source-builder suffix matching.
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  r2184 | stevenknight | 2007-07-30 16:01:42 -0500 (Mon, 30 Jul 2007) | 4 lines

  Encapsulate initialization of the default FS object by an accessor
  function in SCons.Node.FS.  (This also gets rid of an unnecessary
  reference to SCons.Node.FS.default_fs in the LaTeX scanner.)
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  r2193 | stevenknight | 2007-07-30 18:24:07 -0500 (Mon, 30 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Fix interpretation of source arguments that have no suffix when the
  called Builder has both a src_suffix and a src_builder.
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  r2194 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 10:25:31 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Increase the number of tries for random output from three to ten.
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  r2195 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 10:52:28 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Skip the test gracefully if the zipfile module can't read the file it
  just wrote (which is the case for Python 2.1 on 64-bit systems).
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  r2196 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 13:06:21 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Move the "import zipfile" so it doesn't fail on Python <= 2.0.
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  r2197 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 14:51:50 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Commonize initialization of the various Java builders so they can be
  hooked up into a multi-stage Builder chain.  (Leanid Nazdrynau)
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  r2198 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 16:15:18 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 3 lines

  Fix use of ${TARGET.dir} and ${SOURCE.dir} expansions in $FORTRANMODDIR
  $JARCHDIR, $JARFLAGS, $LEXFLAGS, $SWIGFLAGS, $SWIGOUTDIR and $YACCFLAGS.
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  r2199 | stevenknight | 2007-07-31 16:25:48 -0500 (Tue, 31 Jul 2007) | 2 lines

  Remove left-over Trace() call.
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  r2202 | stevenknight | 2007-08-01 12:31:48 -0500 (Wed, 01 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Bail out via test.skip_test() if wix ("candle") isn't found.
  Put the main body of code flush left instead of under an if: block.
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  r2203 | stevenknight | 2007-08-01 15:35:55 -0500 (Wed, 01 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Fix Tool.packaging.rpm.package() so it doesn't always overwrite
  $RPMFLAGS with -ta.
  Set --buildroot in RPM packaging tests so they don't overwrite
  each other when run simultaneously.
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  r2204 | stevenknight | 2007-08-01 15:37:36 -0500 (Wed, 01 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix a nested scope issue with the internal build_sources() function.
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  r2205 | stevenknight | 2007-08-01 15:46:08 -0500 (Wed, 01 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Normalize (X out) the CreationDate field inside embedded, compressed
  PostScript streams within the generated PDF files.  Also normalize
  preceding Length field, since compression length is affected by different
  patterns of input, including the variable CreationDate value.
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  r2211 | stevenknight | 2007-08-02 08:52:06 -0500 (Thu, 02 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add the new modules from branches/packaging to the SCons packaging build.
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  r2212 | stevenknight | 2007-08-02 19:59:01 -0500 (Thu, 02 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix the JAVACLASSPATH test when javah isn't on the default $PATH.
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  r2214 | stevenknight | 2007-08-03 15:05:21 -0500 (Fri, 03 Aug 2007) | 4 lines

  Hook up the Java builders into a multi-step chain underneath a Java()
  pseudo-builder (wrapper) that examines its arguments and calls the
  appropriate underlying file-or-dir builder.
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  r2215 | stevenknight | 2007-08-03 15:49:58 -0500 (Fri, 03 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix for old Python versions:  use apply() instead of *args, **kw.
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  r2216 | stevenknight | 2007-08-03 16:49:31 -0500 (Fri, 03 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Hook up the SWIG builder as a source builder for .java files.
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  r2217 | stevenknight | 2007-08-03 17:28:19 -0500 (Fri, 03 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Don't use .endswith(), which didn't appear until later Python versions.
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  r2218 | stevenknight | 2007-08-03 17:29:38 -0500 (Fri, 03 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Replace tabs with spaces.
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  r2219 | stevenknight | 2007-08-04 08:06:23 -0500 (Sat, 04 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Initialize a loop-invariant lambda for matching .java suffixes outside
  the loop.
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  r2220 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 15:06:13 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Refactor parallel class-generation loops into one.
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  r2221 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 16:04:06 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Have the Java multi-step builder test actually check for generated files,
  and fix the generation of .java and .class file names, and interaction
  with the SWIG builder, so that the files are generated in the correct
  place.
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  r2222 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 16:45:05 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Fix dependencies on SWIG-generated .java files so they don't have to
  be built in multiple passes.
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  r2226 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 18:00:22 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix SWIG when used with BuildDir().
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  r2227 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 22:15:55 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  User's guide updates:
  - Make the multiple files example match its text.
  - Expand a truncated sentence about being able to use Python function actions
    in the Command() Builder.
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  r2228 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 23:25:18 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Don't generate an error if a #include file matches a same-named
  directory in $CPPPATH (or $FORTRANPATH, etc.).
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  r2229 | stevenknight | 2007-08-07 23:40:00 -0500 (Tue, 07 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix a code example.  (Gary Oberbrunner)
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  r2230 | stevenknight | 2007-08-08 00:05:43 -0500 (Wed, 08 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Capture a test case to make sure AddPostAction() doesn't interfere
  with normal linking.  (Matt Doar, Gary Oberbrunner)
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  r2233 | stevenknight | 2007-08-08 14:15:44 -0500 (Wed, 08 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix documentation typo in a construction variable cross-reference.
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  r2234 | stevenknight | 2007-08-08 17:03:25 -0500 (Wed, 08 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Changes to SCons packaging to support checkpoint releases.
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  r2235 | stevenknight | 2007-08-09 10:10:01 -0500 (Thu, 09 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Sidestep false negatives on heavily loaded systems.
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  r2236 | garyo | 2007-08-09 11:16:26 -0500 (Thu, 09 Aug 2007) | 1 line

  Allow unpackaged files (e.g. *.pyo) to exist in the build dir without being packaged in the RPM.  Without this, on some systems the rpmbuild may error out.
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  r2237 | stevenknight | 2007-08-09 11:27:56 -0500 (Thu, 09 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Fix test/SWIG/build-dir.py so it works on old Python versions without
  distutils.sysconfig.
  Instead of just cutting-and-pasting initialization code from other
  SWIG tests, centralize it in some new TestSCons methods.
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  r2238 | garyo | 2007-08-09 11:30:58 -0500 (Thu, 09 Aug 2007) | 1 line

  Use docbook 4.3 instead of 4.4 for the XML doctype since some older(?) jade parsers can't handle new 4-byte Unicode chars in the 4.4 version of isogrk4.ent.
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  r2240 | stevenknight | 2007-08-09 16:35:06 -0500 (Thu, 09 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  User's Guide updates (post packaging changes).
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  r2243 | stevenknight | 2007-08-10 10:31:51 -0500 (Fri, 10 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Fix the User's Guide build to use openjade, and to accomodate a change
  in the name of the main generated file (book1.html => index.html).
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  r2245 | stevenknight | 2007-08-10 11:09:16 -0500 (Fri, 10 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Update the {CHANGES,RELEASE}.txt datestamp lines.
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  r2253 | stevenknight | 2007-08-10 16:21:54 -0500 (Fri, 10 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Fix the wix Tool module's ability to handle null entries in $PATH.
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  r2261 | stevenknight | 2007-08-11 23:08:12 -0500 (Sat, 11 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Remove unnecessary files (.svnt/*, .{ae,cvs}ignore, www/*) from the
  scons-src packages.
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  r2262 | stevenknight | 2007-08-11 23:24:49 -0500 (Sat, 11 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add missing __revision__ lines.
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  r2263 | stevenknight | 2007-08-11 23:33:42 -0500 (Sat, 11 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Skip the test if the MANIFEST file hasn't been built.
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  r2264 | stevenknight | 2007-08-11 23:36:30 -0500 (Sat, 11 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add recent compatibility modules to the relevant exceptions lists.
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  r2265 | stevenknight | 2007-08-11 23:39:00 -0500 (Sat, 11 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Update __VERSION__ strings in the QMTest/*.py modules, so that packaging
  tests (src/test_*.py) will pass after builds of checkpoint releases.
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  r2266 | stevenknight | 2007-08-12 07:36:19 -0500 (Sun, 12 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add a comment about why we construct the __VERSION__ string at run time.
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  r2267 | stevenknight | 2007-08-12 07:42:30 -0500 (Sun, 12 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Avoid reading the MANIFEST file twice.  (Courtesy review by Greg Noel.)
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  r2268 | stevenknight | 2007-08-12 08:14:53 -0500 (Sun, 12 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Shift Install() and InstallAs() from being documented as functions
  to being documented as Builders.
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  r2269 | garyo | 2007-08-13 08:49:52 -0500 (Mon, 13 Aug 2007) | 1 line

  Tests: Skip some more Java tests if javac is not installed on the test machine so they don't get marked as failing.
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  r2270 | garyo | 2007-08-13 11:09:39 -0500 (Mon, 13 Aug 2007) | 1 line

  Fixed typo in test (shows up on non-Linux platforms).
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  r2271 | garyo | 2007-08-13 14:09:05 -0500 (Mon, 13 Aug 2007) | 4 lines

  Test portability fixes for Darwin/OSX and IRIX.
  This does not make all the tests pass on those OSes,
  but it takes care of some of the more obvious errors that
  I have time for right now.  More to come.
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  r2272 | stevenknight | 2007-08-13 15:33:29 -0500 (Mon, 13 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Tab => space fix.
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  r2273 | stevenknight | 2007-08-13 15:33:52 -0500 (Mon, 13 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Test for swig, too, which is used to build from the .i file.
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  r2277 | garyo | 2007-08-14 10:40:00 -0500 (Tue, 14 Aug 2007) | 8 lines

  Test portability on IRIX: test/Actions/pre-post creates target file
  before building target, then IRIX CC does not chmod +x afterwards.
  I think this change is safe on all OSes.

  test/AS/ml.py: I think this is only supposed to be run on win32
  (not skipped only on win32); the sense of the skip test was backwards.
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  r2278 | stevenknight | 2007-08-14 11:04:40 -0500 (Tue, 14 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add -tt when running tests, to catch inconsistent tab usage.
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  r2279 | stevenknight | 2007-08-14 14:00:43 -0500 (Tue, 14 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Minor refactor of logic in File.retrieve_from_cache().
........
  r2280 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 01:11:40 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Refactor CacheDir support into its own module.
........
  r2281 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 07:24:51 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Move the cachepath() method from FS.File to the CacheDir class.
........
  r2282 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 08:31:34 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Python 1.5.2 fix in the new Null class.
........
  r2283 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 10:45:53 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Refactor CacheDir unit tests to:
  - restore functionality that was dropped in the transition;
  - commonize creation of test Nodes and other (mock) objects
  - separate CacheDir tests from tests of CacheDir through Node.FS.File.
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  r2284 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 11:46:38 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Replace the Executor.Null.NullEnvironment object with a real Null object,
  so it will absorb the CacheDir method calls as well.
........
  r2285 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 11:52:57 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 5 lines

  Add a get_CacheDir() method to a construction environment, which will
  be used to fetch per-environment CacheDir specifications.  (Right now
  all calls to it still just return the one attached to underlying default
  FS object.)
........
  r2286 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 15:15:46 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Support per-construction-environment configuration of CacheDir().
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  r2287 | stevenknight | 2007-08-15 15:33:04 -0500 (Wed, 15 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Move the tests of CacheDir()-related command-line options into test/CacheDir.
........
  r2293 | stevenknight | 2007-08-16 11:14:49 -0500 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Add the Package() builder description to the documentation build,
  fixing the XML so that it will build.
........
  r2294 | stevenknight | 2007-08-16 12:51:19 -0500 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Reorganize packaging documentation:  alphabetize the variable definitions
  (and function names), document Tag() as a function, not a builder.
........
  r2296 | stevenknight | 2007-08-16 12:55:01 -0500 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  Add a build command.
........
  r2300 | stevenknight | 2007-08-16 16:49:13 -0500 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007) | 2 lines

  First cut at documenting packaging variables.
........
  r2301 | stevenknight | 2007-08-16 16:51:21 -0500 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007) | 3 lines

  Construct the .src.rpm and .arch.rpm file names independnetly, not
  by trying to massage one into the other.
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1 files changed, 551 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/user/simple.xml b/doc/user/simple.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5ef430
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/user/simple.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,551 @@
+<!--
+
+  __COPYRIGHT__
+
+  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
+  a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
+  "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
+  without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
+  distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
+  permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
+  the following conditions:
+
+  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
+  in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
+  KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
+  WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
+  NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
+  LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
+  OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
+  WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
+
+-->
+
+ <para>
+
+ In this chapter,
+ you will see several examples of
+ very simple build configurations using &SCons;,
+ which will demonstrate how easy
+ it is to use &SCons; to
+ build programs from several different programming languages
+ on different types of systems.
+
+ </para>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Building Simple C / C++ Programs</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   Here's the famous "Hello, World!" program in C:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <programlisting>
+      int
+      main()
+      {
+          printf("Hello, world!\n");
+      }
+   </programlisting>
+
+   <para>
+
+   And here's how to build it using &SCons;.
+   Enter the following into a file named &SConstruct;:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <programlisting>
+      Program('hello.c')
+   </programlisting>
+
+   <para>
+
+   This minimal configuration file gives
+   &SCons; two pieces of information:
+   what you want to build
+   (an executable program),
+   and the input file from
+   which you want it built
+   (the <filename>hello.c</filename> file).
+   &b-link-Program; is a <firstterm>builder_method</firstterm>,
+   a Python call that tells &SCons; that you want to build an
+   executable program.
+
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+
+   That's it.  Now run the &scons; command to build the program.
+   On a POSIX-compliant system like Linux or UNIX,
+   you'll see something like:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      % <userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
+      cc -o hello hello.o
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   On a Windows system with the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler,
+   you'll see something like:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      C:\><userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cl /nologo /c hello.c /Fohello.obj
+      link /nologo /OUT:hello.exe hello.obj
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   First, notice that you only need
+   to specify the name of the source file,
+   and that &SCons; correctly deduces the names of
+   the object and executable files to be built
+   from the base of the source file name.
+
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+
+   Second, notice that the same input &SConstruct; file,
+   without any changes,
+   generates the correct output file names on both systems:
+   <filename>hello.o</filename> and <filename>hello</filename>
+   on POSIX systems,
+   <filename>hello.obj</filename> and <filename>hello.exe</filename>
+   on Windows systems.
+   This is a simple example of how &SCons;
+   makes it extremely easy to
+   write portable software builds.
+
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+
+   (Note that we won't provide duplicate side-by-side
+   POSIX and Windows output for all of the examples in this guide;
+   just keep in mind that, unless otherwise specified,
+   any of the examples should work equally well on both types of systems.)
+
+   </para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Building Object Files</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   The &b-link-Program; builder method is only one of
+   many builder methods that &SCons; provides
+   to build different types of files.
+   Another is the &b-link-Object; builder method,
+   which tells &SCons; to build an object file
+   from the specified source file:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <programlisting>
+      Object('hello.c')
+   </programlisting>
+
+   <para>
+
+   Now when you run the &scons; command to build the program,
+   it will build just the &hello_o; object file on a POSIX system:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      % <userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   And just the &hello_obj; object file
+   on a Windows system (with the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler):
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      C:\><userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cl /nologo /c hello.c /Fohello.obj
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Simple Java Builds</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   &SCons; also makes building with Java extremely easy.
+   Unlike the &b-link-Program; and &b-link-Object; builder methods,
+   however, the &b-link-Java; builder method
+   requires that you specify
+   the name of a destination directory in which
+   you want the class files placed,
+   followed by the source directory
+   in which the <filename>.java</filename> files live:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <programlisting>
+     Java('classes', 'src')
+   </programlisting>
+
+   <para>
+
+   If the <filename>src</filename> directory
+   contains a single <filename>hello.java</filename> file,
+   then the output from running the &scons; command
+   would look something like this
+   (on a POSIX system):
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      % <userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      javac -d classes -sourcepath src src/hello.java
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   We'll cover Java builds in more detail,
+   including building Java archive (<filename>.jar</filename>)
+   and other types of file,
+   in <xref linkend="chap-java"></xref>.
+
+   </para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Cleaning Up After a Build</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   When using &SCons;, it is unnecessary to add special
+   commands or target names to clean up after a build.
+   Instead, you simply use the
+   <literal>-c</literal> or <literal>--clean</literal>
+   option when you invoke &SCons;,
+   and &SCons; removes the appropriate built files.
+   So if we build our example above
+   and then invoke <literal>scons -c</literal>
+   afterwards, the output on POSIX looks like:
+
+   </para>
+
+   
+
+   <screen>
+      % <userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
+      cc -o hello hello.o
+      scons: done building targets.
+      % <userinput>scons -c</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Cleaning targets ...
+      Removed hello.o
+      Removed hello
+      scons: done cleaning targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   And the output on Windows looks like:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      C:\><userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cl /nologo /c hello.c /Fohello.obj
+      link /nologo /OUT:hello.exe hello.obj
+      scons: done building targets.
+      C:\><userinput>scons -c</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Cleaning targets ...
+      Removed hello.obj
+      Removed hello.exe
+      scons: done cleaning targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   Notice that &SCons; changes its output to tell you that it
+   is <literal>Cleaning targets ...</literal> and
+   <literal>done cleaning targets.</literal>
+
+   </para>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>The &SConstruct; File</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   If you're used to build systems like &Make;
+   you've already figured out that the &SConstruct; file
+   is the &SCons; equivalent of a &Makefile;.
+   That is, the &SConstruct; file is the input file
+   that &SCons; reads to control the build.
+
+   </para>
+
+   <section>
+   <title>&SConstruct; Files Are Python Scripts</title>
+
+     <para>
+
+     There is, however, an important difference between
+     an &SConstruct; file and a &Makefile;:
+     the &SConstruct; file is actually a Python script.
+     If you're not already familiar with Python, don't worry.
+     This User's Guide will introduce you step-by-step
+     to the relatively small amount of Python you'll
+     need to know to be able to use &SCons; effectively.
+     And Python is very easy to learn.
+
+     </para>
+
+     <para>
+
+     One aspect of using Python as the
+     scripting language is that you can put comments
+     in your &SConstruct; file using Python's commenting convention;
+     that is, everything between a '#' and the end of the line
+     will be ignored:
+
+     </para>
+
+     <programlisting>
+        # Arrange to build the "hello" program.
+        Program('hello.c')    # "hello.c" is the source file.
+     </programlisting>
+
+     <para>
+
+     You'll see throughout the remainder of this Guide
+     that being able to use the power of a
+     real scripting language
+     can greatly simplify the solutions
+     to complex requirements of real-world builds.
+
+     </para>
+
+   </section>
+
+   <section>
+   <title>&SCons; Functions Are Order-Independent</title>
+
+     <para>
+
+     One important way in which the &SConstruct;
+     file is not exactly like a normal Python script,
+     and is more like a &Makefile;,
+     is that the order in which
+     the &SCons; functions are called in
+     the &SConstruct; file
+     does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
+     affect the order in which &SCons;
+     actually builds the programs and object files
+     you want it to build.<footnote>
+     <para>In programming parlance,
+     the &SConstruct; file is
+     <emphasis>declarative</emphasis>,
+     meaning you tell &SCons; what you want done
+     and let it figure out the order in which to do it,
+     rather than strictly <emphasis>imperative</emphasis>,
+     where you specify explicitly the order in
+     which to do things.
+     </para>
+     </footnote>
+     In other words, when you call the &b-link-Program; builder
+     (or any other builder method),
+     you're not telling &SCons; to build
+     the program at the instant the builder method is called.
+     Instead, you're telling &SCons; to build the program
+     that you want, for example,
+     a program built from a file named &hello_c;,
+     and it's up to &SCons; to build that program
+     (and any other files) whenever it's necessary.
+     (We'll learn more about how
+     &SCons; decides when building or rebuilding a file
+     is necessary in <xref linkend="chap-depends"></xref>, below.)
+ 
+     </para>
+ 
+     <para>
+
+     &SCons; reflects this distinction between
+     <emphasis>calling a builder method like</emphasis> &b-Program;>
+     and <emphasis>actually building the program</emphasis>
+     by printing the status messages that indicate
+     when it's "just reading" the &SConstruct; file,
+     and when it's actually building the target files.
+     This is to make it clear when &SCons; is
+     executing the Python statements that make up the &SConstruct; file,
+     and when &SCons; is actually executing the
+     commands or other actions to
+     build the necessary files.
+
+     </para>
+
+     <para>
+
+     Let's clarify this with an example.
+     Python has a <literal>print</literal> statement that
+     prints a string of characters to the screen.
+     If we put <literal>print</literal> statements around
+     our calls to the &b-Program; builder method:
+
+     </para>
+
+     <programlisting>
+       print "Calling Program('hello.c')"
+       Program('hello.c')
+       print "Calling Program('goodbye.c')"
+       Program('goodbye.c')
+       print "Finished calling Program()"
+     </programlisting>
+
+     <para>
+
+     Then when we execute &SCons;,
+     we see the output from the <literal>print</literal>
+     statements in between the messages about
+     reading the &SConscript; files,
+     indicating that that is when the
+     Python statements are being executed:
+
+     </para>
+
+     <screen>
+       % <userinput>scons</userinput>
+       scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+       Calling Program('hello.c')
+       Calling Program('goodbye.c')
+       Finished calling Program()
+       scons: done reading SConscript files.
+       scons: Building targets ...
+       cc -o goodbye.o -c goodbye.c
+       cc -o goodbye goodbye.o
+       cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
+       cc -o hello hello.o
+       scons: done building targets.
+     </screen>
+
+     <para>
+
+     Notice also that &SCons; built the &goodbye; program first,
+     even though the "reading &SConscript;" output
+     shows that we called <literal>Program('hello.c')</literal>
+     first in the &SConstruct; file.
+
+     </para>
+
+   </section>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Making the &SCons; Output Less Verbose</title>
+
+   <para>
+
+   You've already seen how &SCons; prints
+   some messages about what it's doing,
+   surrounding the actual commands used to build the software:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      C:\><userinput>scons</userinput>
+      scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+      scons: done reading SConscript files.
+      scons: Building targets ...
+      cl /nologo /c hello.c /Fohello.obj
+      link /nologo /OUT:hello.exe hello.obj
+      scons: done building targets.
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   These messages emphasize the
+   order in which &SCons; does its work:
+   all of the configuration files
+   (generically referred to as &SConscript; files)
+   are read and executed first,
+   and only then are the target files built.
+   Among other benefits, these messages help to distinguish between
+   errors that occur while the configuration files are read,
+   and errors that occur while targets are being built.
+
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+
+   One drawback, of course, is that these messages clutter the output.
+   Fortunately, they're easily disabled by using
+   the &Q; option when invoking &SCons;:
+
+   </para>
+
+   <screen>
+      C:\><userinput>scons -Q</userinput>
+      cl /nologo /c hello.c /Fohello.obj
+      link /nologo /OUT:hello.exe hello.obj
+   </screen>
+
+   <para>
+
+   Because we want this User's Guide to focus
+   on what &SCons; is actually doing,
+   we're going use the &Q; option
+   to remove these messages from the
+   output of all the remaining examples in this Guide.
+
+   </para>
+
+ </section>