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+<!--
+
+ __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>
+
+ It's often very useful to be able to give
+ users some help that describes the
+ specific targets, build options, etc.,
+ that can be used for your build.
+ &SCons; provides the &Help; function
+ to allow you to specify this help text:
+
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>
+ Help("""
+ Type: 'scons program' to build the production program,
+ 'scons debug' to build the debug version.
+ """)
+ </programlisting>
+
+ <para>
+
+ (Note the above use of the Python triple-quote syntax,
+ which comes in very handy for
+ specifying multi-line strings like help text.)
+
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+
+ When the &SConstruct; or &SConscript; files
+ contain such a call to the &Help; function,
+ the specified help text will be displayed in response to
+ the &SCons; <literal>-h</literal> option:
+
+ </para>
+
+ <screen>
+ % <userinput>scons -h</userinput>
+ scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+ scons: done reading SConscript files.
+
+ Type: 'scons program' to build the production program,
+ 'scons debug' to build the debug version.
+
+ Use scons -H for help about command-line options.
+ </screen>
+
+ <para>
+
+ The &SConscript; files may contain
+ multiple calls to the &Help; function,
+ in which case the specified text(s)
+ will be concatenated when displayed.
+ This allows you to split up the
+ help text across multiple &SConscript; files.
+ In this situation, the order in
+ which the &SConscript; files are called
+ will determine the order in which the &Help; functions are called,
+ which will determine the order in which
+ the various bits of text will get concatenated.
+
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+
+ Another use would be to make the help text conditional
+ on some variable.
+ For example, suppose you only want to display
+ a line about building a Windows-only
+ version of a program when actually
+ run on Windows.
+ The following &SConstruct; file:
+
+ </para>
+
+ <programlisting>
+ env = Environment()
+
+ Help("\nType: 'scons program' to build the production program.\n")
+
+ if env['PLATFORM'] == 'win32':
+ Help("\nType: 'scons windebug' to build the Windows debug version.\n")
+ </programlisting>
+
+ <para>
+
+ Will display the completely help text on Windows:
+
+ </para>
+
+ <screen>
+ C:\><userinput>scons -h</userinput>
+ scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+ scons: done reading SConscript files.
+
+ Type: 'scons program' to build the production program.
+
+ Type: 'scons windebug' to build the Windows debug version.
+
+ Use scons -H for help about command-line options.
+ </screen>
+
+ <para>
+
+ But only show the relevant option on a Linux or UNIX system:
+
+ </para>
+
+ <screen>
+ % <userinput>scons -h</userinput>
+ scons: Reading SConscript files ...
+ scons: done reading SConscript files.
+
+ Type: 'scons program' to build the production program.
+
+ Use scons -H for help about command-line options.
+ </screen>
+
+ <para>
+
+ If there is no &Help; text in the &SConstruct; or
+ &SConscript; files,
+ &SCons; will revert to displaying its
+ standard list that describes the &SCons; command-line
+ options.
+ This list is also always displayed whenever
+ the <literal>-H</literal> option is used.
+
+ </para>