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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. --> <!-- =head1 Invoking Cons The C<cons> command is usually invoked from the root of the build tree. A F<Construct> file must exist in that directory. If the C<-f> argument is used, then an alternate F<Construct> file may be used (and, possibly, an alternate root, since C<cons> will cd to F<Construct> file's containing directory). If C<cons> is invoked from a child of the root of the build tree with the C<-t> argument, it will walk up the directory hierarchy looking for a F<Construct> file. (An alternate name may still be specified with C<-f>.) The targets supplied on the command line will be modified to be relative to the discovered F<Construct> file. For example, from a directory containing a top-level F<Construct> file, the following invocation: % cd libfoo/subdir % cons -t target is exactly equivalent to: % cons libfoo/subdir/target If there are any C<Default> targets specified in the directory hierarchy's F<Construct> or F<Conscript> files, only the default targets at or below the directory from which C<cons -t> was invoked will be built. The command is invoked as follows: cons <arguments> , <construct-args> where I<arguments> can be any of the following, in any order: =over 10 =item I<target> Build the specified target. If I<target> is a directory, then recursively build everything within that directory. =item I<+pattern> Limit the F<Conscript> files considered to just those that match I<pattern>, which is a Perl regular expression. Multiple C<+> arguments are accepted. =item I<name>=<val> Sets I<name> to value I<val> in the C<ARG> hash passed to the top-level F<Construct> file. =item C<-cc> Show command that would have been executed, when retrieving from cache. No indication that the file has been retrieved is given; this is useful for generating build logs that can be compared with real build logs. =item C<-cd> Disable all caching. Do not retrieve from cache nor flush to cache. =item C<-cr> Build dependencies in random order. This is useful when building multiple similar trees with caching enabled. =item C<-cs> Synchronize existing build targets that are found to be up-to-date with cache. This is useful if caching has been disabled with -cc or just recently enabled with UseCache. =item C<-d> Enable dependency debugging. =item C<-f> <file> Use the specified file instead of F<Construct> (but first change to containing directory of I<file>). =item C<-h> Show a help message local to the current build if one such is defined, and exit. =item C<-k> Keep going as far as possible after errors. =item C<-o> <file> Read override file I<file>. =item C<-p> Show construction products in specified trees. No build is attempted. =item C<-pa> Show construction products and associated actions. No build is attempted. =item C<-pw> Show products and where they are defined. No build is attempted. =item C<-q> Make the build quiet. Multiple C<-q> options may be specified. A single C<-q> options suppress messages about Installing and Removing targets. Two C<-q> options suppress build command lines and target up-to-date messages. =item C<-r> Remove construction products associated with <targets>. No build is attempted. =item C<-R> <repos> Search for files in I<repos>. Multiple B<-R> I<repos> directories are searched in the order specified. =item C<-S> <pkg> Use the sig::<pkg> package to calculate. Supported <pkg> values include "md5" for MD5 signature calculation and "md5::debug" for debug information about MD5 signature calculation. If the specified package ends in <::debug>, signature debug information will be printed to the file name specified in the C<CONS_SIG_DEBUG> environment variable, or to standard output if the environment variable is not set. =item C<-t> Traverse up the directory hierarchy looking for a F<Construct> file, if none exists in the current directory. Targets will be modified to be relative to the F<Construct> file. Internally, C<cons> will change its working directory to the directory which contains the top-level F<Construct> file and report: cons: Entering directory `top-level-directory' This message indicates to an invoking editor (such as emacs) or build environment that Cons will now report all file names relative to the top-level directory. This message can not be suppressed with the C<-q> option. =item C<-v> Show C<cons> version and continue processing. =item C<-V> Show C<cons> version and exit. =item C<-wf> <file> Write all filenames considered into I<file>. =item C<-x> Show a help message similar to this one, and exit. =back And I<construct-args> can be any arguments that you wish to process in the F<Construct> file. Note that there should be a B<-,-> separating the arguments to cons and the arguments that you wish to process in the F<Construct> file. Processing of I<construct-args> can be done by any standard package like B<Getopt> or its variants, or any user defined package. B<cons> will pass in the I<construct-args> as B<@ARGV> and will not attempt to interpret anything after the B<-,->. % cons -R /usr/local/repository -d os=solaris +driver -,- -c test -f DEBUG would pass the following to cons -R /usr/local/repository -d os=solaris +driver and the following, to the top level F<Construct> file as B<@ARGV> -c test -f DEBUG Note that C<cons -r .> is equivalent to a full recursive C<make clean>, but requires no support in the F<Construct> file or any F<Conscript> files. This is most useful if you are compiling files into source directories (if you separate the F<build> and F<export> directories, then you can just remove the directories). The options C<-p>, C<-pa>, and C<-pw> are extremely useful for use as an aid in reading scripts or debugging them. If you want to know what script installs F<export/include/foo.h>, for example, just type: % cons -pw export/include/foo.h =head1 Selective builds Cons provides two methods for reducing the size of given build. The first is by specifying targets on the command line, and the second is a method for pruning the build tree. We'll consider target specification first. =head2 Selective targeting Like make, Cons allows the specification of ``targets'' on the command line. Cons targets may be either files or directories. When a directory is specified, this is simply a short-hand notation for every derivable product-,-that Cons knows about-,-in the specified directory and below. For example: % cons build/hello/hello.o means build F<hello.o> and everything that F<hello.o> might need. This is from a previous version of the B<Hello, World!> program in which F<hello.o> depended upon F<export/include/world.h>. If that file is not up-to-date (because someone modified F<src/world/world.h)>, then it will be rebuilt, even though it is in a directory remote from F<build/hello>. In this example: % cons build Everything in the F<build> directory is built, if necessary. Again, this may cause more files to be built. In particular, both F<export/include/world.h> and F<export/lib/libworld.a> are required by the F<build/hello> directory, and so they will be built if they are out-of-date. If we do, instead: % cons export then only the files that should be installed in the export directory will be rebuilt, if necessary, and then installed there. Note that C<cons build> might build files that C<cons export> doesn't build, and vice-versa. =head1 Build Pruning In conjunction with target selection, B<build pruning> can be used to reduce the scope of the build. In the previous peAcH and baNaNa example, we have already seen how script-driven build pruning can be used to make only half of the potential build available for any given invocation of C<cons>. Cons also provides, as a convenience, a command line convention that allows you to specify which F<Conscript> files actually get ``built''-,-that is, incorporated into the build tree. For example: % cons build +world The C<+> argument introduces a Perl regular expression. This must, of course, be quoted at the shell level if there are any shell meta-characters within the expression. The expression is matched against each F<Conscript> file which has been mentioned in a C<Build> statement, and only those scripts with matching names are actually incorporated into the build tree. Multiple such arguments are allowed, in which case a match against any of them is sufficient to cause a script to be included. In the example, above, the F<hello> program will not be built, since Cons will have no knowledge of the script F<hello/Conscript>. The F<libworld.a> archive will be built, however, if need be. There are a couple of uses for build pruning via the command line. Perhaps the most useful is the ability to make local changes, and then, with sufficient knowledge of the consequences of those changes, restrict the size of the build tree in order to speed up the rebuild time. A second use for build pruning is to actively prevent the recompilation of certain files that you know will recompile due to, for example, a modified header file. You may know that either the changes to the header file are immaterial, or that the changes may be safely ignored for most of the tree, for testing purposes.With Cons, the view is that it is pragmatic to admit this type of behavior, with the understanding that on the next full build everything that needs to be rebuilt will be. There is no equivalent to a ``make touch'' command, to mark files as permanently up-to-date. So any risk that is incurred by build pruning is mitigated. For release quality work, obviously, we recommend that you do not use build pruning (it's perfectly OK to use during integration, however, for checking compilation, etc. Just be sure to do an unconstrained build before committing the integration). --> <para> XXX </para> <section> <title>Command-Line Options</title> <para> XXX </para> </section> <section> <title>Getting at Command-Line Arguments</title> <para> XXX </para> </section> <section> <title>Selective Builds</title> <para> XXX </para> </section> <!-- <section> <title>Build Pruning</title> <para> XXX </para> </section> --> <section> <title>Overriding Construction Variables</title> <para> XXX </para> </section>