SCons - a software construction tool Release Notes This is SCons, a tool for building software (and other files). SCons is implemented in Python, and its "configuration files" are actually Python scripts, allowing you to use the full power of a real scripting language to solve build problems. You do not, however, need to know Python to use SCons effectively. Please go to http://www.scons.org/download.php to get the latest production release of SCons. So that everyone using SCons can help each other learn how to use it more effectively, please go to http://scons.org/lists.php#users to sign up for the scons-users mailing list. RELEASE 2.3.1.alpha.yyyymmdd - NEW DATE WILL BE INSERTED HERE Please consult the RELEASE.txt file for a summary of changes since the last release and consult the CHANGES.txt file for complete a list of changes since last release. This announcement highlights only the important changes. Please note the following important changes since release 2.2.0: -- SUPPORT FOR PYTHON VERSIONS BEFORE 2.7 IS NOW DEPRECATED ***IMPORTANT***: This release is the last version of SCons to support Python versions older than 2.7. This release will warn if you are running on Python 2.6 or older; future releases will probably not work at all, as we are moving toward supporting Python 3. Use --warn=no-python-version to suppress the warning if needed. -- A lot of python pre-2.4 compatibility code was removed in this release. 2.4 is the official floor for SCons, but this release will likely enforce it more rigidly. -- Spawning subprocesses on Windows should now be more reliable with -jN -- MSVC10 and MSVC11 support improved, and fixed MSVS11 solution generation. -- Various TeX/LaTeX builder improvements -- Support for versioned shared libs on Linux and Mac, via SHLIBVERSION and InstallVersionedLib. -- WiX builder updates Please note the following important changes since release 2.1.0: -- New gettext toolset for internationalization -- Support for Visual Studio 11 -- Support for Intel C/C++ compiler v12 on Linux and Mac -- LaTeX support for multibib, biblatex and biber Please note the following important changes since release 2.0.0: -- Support for Windows manifest generation -- SCons now searches sitewide dirs for site_scons -- Support for Latex bibunits package has been added along with support for tex files generated by other builders Please note the following important changes since release 1.3.0: -- SUPPORT FOR PYTHON VERSIONS PRIOR TO 2.4 HAS BEEN REMOVED Although SCons is still tested with Python 2.3, use of Python versions prior to 2.4 is deprecated. -- DEPRECATED FEATURES WILL GENERATE MANDATORY WARNINGS IN 2.0.0 In keeping with our deprecation cycle, the following deprecated features will still be supported in 2.0.0 but will generate mandatory, non-disableable warnings: -- The overrides= keyword argument to the Builder() call. -- The scanner= keyword argument to the Builder() call. -- The BuildDir() function and env.BuildDir() method. -- The env.Copy() method. -- The SourceSignatures() function and env.SourceSignatures() method. -- The TargetSignatures() function and env.TargetSignatures() method. -- The Sig module (now an unnused stub). -- The --debug=dtree, --debug=stree and --debug=tree options. -- The --debug=nomemoizer option. -- The Options object and the related BoolOption(), EnumOption(), ListOption(), PackageOption() and PathOption() functions. The mandatory warnings will be issued in order to make sure users of 1.3.0 notice *prior* to the release of SCons 2.0.0, that these features will be removed. In SCons 2.0.0 these features will no longer work at all, and will instead generate specific fatal errors when anyone tries to use them. Please note the following important changes since release 1.2.0: -- MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO VERSION/ARCH DETECTION HAS CHANGED The way SCons detects Visual Studio on Windows has changed in 1.3. By default, it should now use the latest installed Visual Studio version on your machine, and compile for 32 or 64 bits according to whether your OS is 32 or 64 bits (32/64 bit Python makes no difference). Two new variables control Visual Studio: MSVC_VERSION and TARGET_ARCH. These variables ONLY take effect when passed to the Environment() constructor; setting them later has no effect. To use a non-default Visual Studio version, set MSVC_VERSION to e.g. "8.0" or "7.1". Setting it to "xxx" (or any nonexistent value) will make it print out the valid versions on your system. To use a non-default architecture, set TARGET_ARCH to "x86" or "x86_64" (various synonyms are accepted). Note that if you use MSVS_VERSION to build Visual Studio projects from your SConstructs, MSVS_VERSION must be set to the same version as MSVC_VERSION. Support for HOST_OS,HOST_ARCH,TARGET_OS, TARGET_ARCH has been added to allow specifying different target arch than the host system. This is only supported for Visual Studio/Visual C++ at this time. -- Support for Latex glossaries and acronyms has been added -- VISUAL C/C++ PRECOMPILED HEADERS WILL BE REBUILT Precompiled header files built with Visual C/C++ will be rebuilt after upgrading from 1.2.0 to a later release. This rebuild is normal and will occur because the command line defined by the $PCHCOM construction variable has had the $CCFLAGS variable added, and has been rearranged to put the "/Fo" output flag towards the beginning of the line, consistent with the related command lines for $CCCOM, $CXXCOM, etc. -- CHANGES TO SOME LINKER COMMAND LINES WILL CAUSE RELINKING Changes to the command line definitions for the Microsoft link.exe linker, the OS/2 ilink linker and the Phar Lap linkloc linker will cause targets built with those tools be to be rebuilt after upgrading from 1.2.0 to a later release. This relink is normal and will occur because the command lines for these tools have been redefined to remove unnecessary nested $( and $) character strings. -- MSVS_USE_MFC_DIRS and MSVS_IGNORE_IDE_PATHS are obsoleted and have no effect. Please note the following important changes since release 1.1.0: -- THE $CHANGED_SOURCES, $CHANGED_TARGETS, $UNCHANGED_SOURCES AND $UNCHANGED_TARGETS VARIABLES WILL BECOME RESERVED A future release (probably 1.3.0) will make the construction variable names $CHANGED_SOURCES, $CHANGED_TARGETS, $UNCHANGED_SOURCES and $UNCHANGED_TARGETS into reserved construction variable names controlled by SCons itself (like the current $SOURCE, $TARGETS, etc.). Setting these variable names in the current release will generate a warning but still set the variables. When they become reserved variable names, they will generate a different warning message and attempts to set these variables will be ignored. SCons configurations that happen to use these variable names should be changed to use different variable names, in order to ensure that the configuration continues to work with future versions of SCons. -- THE Options OBJECT AND RELATED FUNCTIONS NOW GENERATE WARNINGS Use of the Options object, and related functions BoolOption(), EnumOption(), ListOption(), PackageOption() and PathOption() were announced as deprecated in release 0.98.1. Since then, however, no warning messages were ever implemented for the use of these deprecated functions. By default, release 1.2.0 prints warning messages when these deprecated features are used. Warnings about all deprecated features may be suppressed by using the --warn=no-deprecated command-line option: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated Or by using the appropriate SetOption() call in any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated') You may optionally disable just warnings about the deprecation of the Options object and its related functions as follows: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated-options') The current plan is for these warnings to become mandatory (non-suppressible) in release 1.3.0, and for the use of Options and its related functions to generate errors in release 2.0. Please note the following important changes since release 0.98.4: -- scons.bat NOW RETURNS THE REAL SCONS EXIT STATUS The scons.bat script shipped with SCons used to exit with a status of 1 when it detected any failed (non-zero) exit status from the underlying Python execution of SCons itself. The scons.bat script now exits with the actual status returned by SCons. -- SCONS NOW WARNS WHEN TRYING TO LINK C++ AND FORTRAN OBJECT FILES Some C++ toolchains do not understand Fortran runtimes and create unpredictable executables when linking C++ and Fortran object files together. SCons now issues a warning if you try to link C++ and Fortran object files into the same executable: scons: warning: Using $CXX to link Fortran and C++ code together. This may generate a buggy executable if the '/usr/bin/gcc' compiler does not know how to deal with Fortran runtimes. The warning may be suppressed with either the --warning=no-link or --warning=no-fortran-cxx-mix command line options, or by adding either of the following lines to a SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-link') SetOption('warn', 'no-fortran-cxx-mix') Please note the following important changes since release 0.98: -- SCONS NO LONGER SETS THE GNU TOOLCHAIN -fPIC FLAG IN $SHCXXFLAGS The GNU toolchain support in previous versions of SCons would add the -fPIC flag to the $SHCXXFLAGS construction variable. The -fPIC flag has now been removed from the default $SHCXXFLAGS setting. Instead, the $SHCXXCOM construction variable (the default SCons command line for compiling shared objects from C++ source files) has been changed to add the $SHCCFLAGS variable, which contains the -fPIC flag. This change was made in order to make the behavior of the default C++ compilation line including $SHCCFLAGS consistent with the default C compilation line including $CCFLAGS. This change should have no impact on configurations that use the default $SHCXXCOM command line. It may have an impact on configurations that were using the default $SHCXXFLAGS value *without* the $SHCCFLAGS variable to get the -fPIC flag into a custom command line. You can fix these by adding the $SHCCFLAGS to the custom command line. Adding $SHCCFLAGS is backwards compatible with older SCons releases, although it might cause the -fPIC flag to be repeated on the command line if you execute it on an older version of SCons that sets -fPIC in both the $SHCCLAFGS and $SHCXXFLAGS variables. Duplicating the -fPIC flag on the g++ command line will not cause any compilation problems, but the change to the command line may cause SCons to rebuild object files. -- FORTRAN NOW COMPILES .f FILES WITH gfortran BY DEFAULT The Fortran Tool modules have had a major overhaul with the intent of making them work as-is for most configurations. In general, most configurations that use default settings should not see any noticeable difference. One configuration that has changed is if you have both a gfortran and g77 compiler installed. In this case, previous versions of SCons would, by default, use g77 by default to compile files with a .f suffix, while SCons 0.98.1 will use the gfortran compiler by default. The old behavior may be preserved by explicitly initializing construction environments with the 'g77' Tool module: env = Environment(tools = ['g77', 'default']) The above code is backwards compatible to older versions of SCons. If you notice any other changes in the behavior of default Fortran support, please let us know so we can document them in these release notes for other users. Please note the following important changes since release 0.97.0d20071212: -- SUPPORT FOR PYTHON VERSIONS BEFORE 2.2 IS NOW DEPRECATED SCons now prints the following warning when it is run by any Python 1.5, 2.0 or 2.1 release or sub-release: scons: warning: Support for pre-2.2 Python (VERSION) is deprecated. If this will cause hardship, contact dev@scons.tigris.org. You may disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the option "--warn=no-deprecated" to the command line or to the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated Using '--warn=no-deprecated' is compatible with earlier versions of SCons. You may also, as of this version of SCons, disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated') You may disable only the specific warning about running under a deprecated Python version by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-python-version') The warning may also be suppressed on the command line: $ scons --warn=no-python-version Or by specifying the --warn=no-python-version option in the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable. Using SetOption('warn', ...), and the 'no-python-version' command-line option for suppressing this specific warning, are *not* backwards-compatible to earlier versions of SCons. -- THE env.Copy() METHOD IS NOW OFFICIALLY DEPRECATED The env.Copy() method is now officially deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Using the env.Copy() method now generates the following message: scons: warning: The env.Copy() method is deprecated; use the env.Clone() method instead. You may disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the option "--warn=no-deprecated" to the command line or to the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated Using '--warn=no-deprecated' is compatible with earlier versions of SCons. You may also, as of this version of SCons, disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated') You may disable only the specific warning about the deprecated env.Copy() method by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated-copy') The warning may also be suppressed on the command line: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated-copy Or by specifying the --warn=no-deprecated-copy option in the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable. Using SetOption('warn', ...), and the 'no-deprecated-copy' command-line option for suppressing this specific warning, are *not* backwards-compatible to earlier versions of SCons. -- THE --debug=dtree, --debug=stree AND --debug=tree OPTIONS ARE DEPRECATED The --debug=dtree, --debug=stree and --debug=tree methods are now officially deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Using these options now generate a warning message recommending use of the --tree=derived, --tree=all,status and --tree=all options, respectively. You may disable these warnings, and all warnings about deprecated features, by adding the option "--warn=no-deprecated" to the command line or to the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated Using '--warn=no-deprecated' is compatible with earlier versions of SCons. -- THE TargetSignatures() AND SourceSignatures() FUNCTIONS ARE DEPRECATED The TargetSignatures() and SourceSignatures() functions, and their corresponding env.TargetSignatures() and env.SourceSignatures() methods, are now officially deprecated and will be be removed in a future release. Using ahy of these functions or methods now generates a message similar to the following: scons: warning: The env.TargetSignatures() method is deprecated; convert your build to use the env.Decider() method instead. You may disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the option "--warn=no-deprecated" to the command line or to the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated Using '--warn=no-deprecated' is compatible with earlier versions of SCons. You may also, as of this version of SCons, disable all warnings about deprecated features by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated') You may disable only the specific warning about the use of TargetSignatures() or SourceSignatures() by adding the following to any SConscript file: SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated-target-signatures') SetOption('warn', 'no-deprecated-source-signatures') The warnings may also be suppressed on the command line: $ scons --warn=no-deprecated-target-signatures --warn=no-deprecated-source-signatures Or by specifying these options in the $SCONSFLAGS environment variable. Using SetOption('warn', ...), or the command-line options for suppressing these warnings, is *not* backwards-compatible to earlier versions of SCons. -- File(), Dir() and Entry() NOW RETURN A LIST WHEN THE INPUT IS A SEQUENCE Previously, if these methods were passed a list, the list was substituted and stringified, then passed as a single string to create a File/Dir/Entry Node. This rarely if ever worked with more than one element in the list. They now return a list of Nodes when passed a list. One case that works differently now is a passing in a single-element sequence; that formerly was stringified (returning its only element) and then a single Node would be returned. Now a single-element list containing the Node will be returned, for consistency. -- THE env.subst() METHOD NOW RETURNS A LIST WHEN THE INPUT IS A SEQUENCE The env.subst() method now returns a list with the elements expanded when given a list as input. Previously, the env.subst() method would always turn its result into a string. This behavior was changed because it interfered with being able to include things like lists within the expansion of variables like $CPPPATH and then have SCons understand that the elements of the "internal" lists still needed to be treated separately. This would cause a $CPPPATH list like ['subdir1', 'subdir'] to show up in a command line as "-Isubdir1 subdir". -- THE Jar() BUILDER NOW USES THE Java() BUILDER CLASSDIR BY DEFAULT By default, the Jar() Builder will now use the class directory specified when the Java() builder is called. So the following input: classes = env.Java('classes', 'src') env.Jar('out.jar', classes) Will cause "-C classes" to be passed the "jar" command invocation, and the Java classes in the "out.jar" file will not be prefixed "classes/". Explicitly setting the $JARCHDIR variable overrides this default behavior. The old behavior of not passing any -C option to the "jar" command can be preserved by explicitly setting $JARCHDIR to None: env = Environment(JARCHDIR = None) The above setting is compatible with older versions of SCons. Please note the following important changes since release 0.97.0d20070918: -- SCons REDEFINES PYTHON open() AND file() ON Windows TO NOT PASS ON OPEN FILE HANDLES TO CREATED PROCESSES On Windows systems, SCons now redefines the Python open() and file() functions so that, if the Python Win32 extensions are available, the file handles for any opened files will *not* be inherited by subprocesses, such as the spawned compilers and other tools invoked to build the software. This prevents certain race conditions where a file handle for a file opened by Python (either in a Python function action, or directly in a SConscript file) could be inherited and help open by a subprocess, interfering with the ability of other processes to create or modify the file. In general, this should not cause problems for the vast majority of configurations. The only time this would be a problem would be in the unlikely event that a process spawned by SCons specifically *expected* to use an inherited file handle opened by SCons. If the Python Win32 extensions are not installed or are an earlier version that does not have the ability to disable file handle inheritance, SCons will print a warning message when the -j option is used. The warning message may be suppressed by specifying --warn=no-parallel-support. Please note the following important changes since release 0.97.0d20070809: -- "content" SIGNATURES ARE NOW THE DEFAULT BEHAVIOR The default behavior of SCons is now to use the MD5 checksum of all file contents to decide if any files have changed and should cause rebuilds of their source files. This means that SCons may decide not to rebuild "downstream" targets if a a given input file is rebuilt to the exact same contents as the last time. The old behavior may preserved by explicity specifying: TargetSignatures("build") In any of your SConscript files. -- TARGETS NOW IMPLICITLY DEPEND ON THE COMMAND THAT BUILDS THEM For all targets built by calling external commands (such as a compiler or other utility), SCons now adds an implicit dependency on the command(s) used to build the target. This will cause rebuilds of all targets built by external commands when running SCons in a tree built by previous version of SCons, in order to update the recorded signatures. The old behavior of not having targets depend on the external commands that build them can be preserved by setting a new $IMPLICIT_COMMAND_DEPENDENCIES construction variable to a non-True value: env = Environment(IMPLICIT_COMMAND_DEPENDENCIES = 0) or by adding Ignore() calls for any targets where the behavior is desired: Ignore('/usr/bin/gcc', 'foo.o') Both of these settings are compatible with older versions of SCons. -- CHANGING SourceSignature() MAY CAUSE "UNECESSARY" REBUILDS If you change the SourceSignature() value from 'timestamp' to 'MD5', SCons will now rebuild targets that were already up-to-date with respect to their source files. This will happen because SCons did not record the content signatures of the input source files when the target was last built--it only recorded the timestamps--and it must record them to make sure the signature information is correct. However, the content of source files may have changed since the last timestamp build was performed, and SCons would not have any way to verify that. (It would have had to open up the file and record a content signature, which is one of the things you're trying to avoid by specifying use of timestamps....) So in order to make sure the built targets reflect the contents of the source files, the targets must be rebuilt. Change the SourceSignature() value from 'MD5' to 'timestamp' should correctly not rebuild target files, because the timestamp of the files is always recorded. In previous versions of SCons, changing the SourceSignature() value would lead to unpredictable behavior, usually including rebuilding targets. -- THE Return() FUNCTION NOW ACTUALLY RETURNS IMMEDIATELY The Return() function now immediately stops processing the SConscript file in which it appears and returns the values of the variables named in its arguments. It used to continue processing the rest of the SConscript file, and then return the values of the specified variables at the point the Return() function was called. The old behavior may be requested by adding a "stop=False" keyword argument to the Return() call: Return('value', stop=False) The "stop=" keyword argument is *not* compatible with SCons versions 0.97.0d20070809 or earlier. Please note the following important changes since release 0.97: -- env.CacheDir() NOW ONLY AFFECTS CONSTRUCTION ENVIRONMENT TARGETS The env.CacheDir() method now only causes derived files to be retrieved from the specified cache directory for targets built with the specified specified construction environment ("env"). Previously, any call to env.CacheDir() or CacheDir() would modify a global setting and cause all built targets to be retrieved from the specified cache directory. This behavior was changed so that env.CacheDir() would be consistent with other construction environment methods, which only affect targets built with the specified construction environment. The old behavior of changing the global behavior may be preserved by changing any env.CacheDir() calls to: CacheDir('/path/to/cache/directory') The above change is backwards-compatible and works in all earlier versions of SCons that support CacheDir(). -- INTERPRETATION OF SUFFIX-LESS SOURCE ARGUMENTS HAS CHANGED The interpretation of source arguments (files) without suffixes has changed in one specific configuration. Previously, if a Builder had a src_suffix specified (indicating that source files without suffixes should have that suffix appended), the suffix would only be applied to suffix-less source arguments if the Builder did *not* have one or more attached source Builders (that is, the Builder was not a "multi-stage" Builder). So in the following configuration: build_foo = Builder(src_suffix = '.foo') build_bar = Builder(src_suffix = '.bar', src_builder = build_bar) env = Environment(BUILDERS = { 'Foo' : build_foo, 'Boo' : build_bar, }) env.Foo('tgt1', 'src1') env.Bar('tgt2', 'src2') SCons would have expected to find a source file 'src1.foo' for the env.Foo() call, but a source file 'src2' for the env.Bar() call. This behavior has now been made consistent, so that the two above calls would expect source files named 'src1.foo' and 'src2.bar', respectively. Note that, if genuinely desired, the old behavior of building from a source file without a suffix at all (when the Builder has a src_suffix *and* a src_builder) can be specified explicity by turning the string into a File Node directly: env.Bar('tgt2', File('src2')) The above use of File() is backwards-compatible and will work on earlier versions of SCons. -- THE DEFAULT EXECUTION PATH FOR Solaris HAS CHANGED On Solaris systems, SCons now adds the "/opt/SUNWspro/bin" directory to the default execution $PATH variable before the "/usr/ccs/bin" directory. This was done to reflect the fact that /opt/SUNWspro/ is the default for SUN tools, but it may cause a different compiler to be used if you have compilers installed in both directories. -- GENERATED config.h FILES NOW SAY "#define HAVE_{FEATURE} 1" When generating a "config.h" file, SCons now defines values that record the existence of a feature with a "1" value: #define HAVE_FEATURE 1 Instead of printing the line without a "1", as it used to: #define HAVE_FEATURE This should not cause any problems in the normal use of "#ifdef HAVE_{FEATURE}" statements interpreted by a C preprocessor, but might cause a compatibility issue if a script or other utility looks for an exact match of the previous text. Please note the following planned, future changes: -- THE Options OBJECT AND RELATED FUNCTIONS WILL BE DEPRECATED The Options object is being replaced by a new Variables object, which uses a new Variables.AddVariable() method where the previous interface used Options.AddOptions(). Similarly, the following utility functions are being replaced by the following similarly-named functions: BoolOption() BoolVariable() EnumOption() EnumVariable() ListOption() ListVariable() PackageOption() PackageVariable() PathOption() PathVariable() And also related, the options= keyword argument when creating construction environments with the Environment() functions is being replaced with a variables= keyword argument. In some future release a deprecation warning will be added to existing uses of the Options object, its methods, the above utility functions, and the options= keyword argument of the Environment() function. At some point after the deprecation warning is added, the Options object, related functions and options= keyword argument will be removed entirely. You can prepare for this by changing all your uses of the Options object and related functions to the Variables object and the new function names, and changing any uses of the options= keyword argument to variables=. NOTE: CONVERTING TO USING THE NEW Variables OBJECT OR THE RELATED *Variable() FUNCTIONS, OR USING THE NEW variable= KEYWORD ARGUMENT, IS NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE TO VERSIONS OF SCons BEFORE 0.98. YOUR SConscript FILES WILL NOT WORK ON EARLIER VERSIONS OF SCons AFTER MAKING THIS CHANGE. If you change SConscript files in software that you make available for download or otherwise distribute, other users may try to build your software with an earlier version of SCons that does not have the Variables object or related *Variable() functions. We recommend preparing for this in one of two ways: -- Make your SConscript files backwards-compatible by modifying your calls with Python try:-except: blocks as follows: try: vars = Variables('custom.py', ARGUMENTS) vars.AddVariables( BoolVariable('WARNINGS', 'cmopile with -Wall', 1), EnumVariable('DEBUG', 'debug version', 'no' allowed_values=('yes', 'no', 'full'), map={}, ignorecase=0), ListVariable('SHAREDLIBS', 'libraries to build shared', 'all', names = list_of_libs), PackageVariable('X11', 'use X11 from here', '/usr/bin/X11'), PathVariable('QTDIR', 'root of Qt', qtdir), ) except NameError: vars = Options('custom.py', ARGUMENTS) vars.AddOptions( BoolOption('WARNINGS', 'cmopile with -Wall', 1), EnumOption('DEBUG', 'debug version', 'no' allowed_values=('yes', 'no', 'full'), map={}, ignorecase=0), ListOption('SHAREDLIBS', 'libraries to build shared', 'all', names = list_of_libs), PackageOption('X11', 'use X11 from here', '/usr/bin/X11'), PathOption('QTDIR', 'root of Qt', qtdir), ) Additionally, you can check for availability of the new variables= keyword argument as follows: try: env = Environment(variables=vars) except TypeError: env = Environment(options=vars) (Note that we plan to maintain the existing Options object name for some time, to ensure backwards compatibility, so in practice it may be easier to just continue to use the old name until you're reasonably sure you won't have people trying to build your software with versions of SCons earlier than 0.98.1.) -- Use the EnsureSConsVersion() function to provide a descriptive error message if your SConscript files are executed by an earlier version of SCons: EnsureSConsVersion(0, 98, 1) -- THE BuildDir() METHOD AND FUNCTION WILL BE DEPRECATED The env.BuildDir() method and BuildDir() function are being replaced by the new env.VariantDir() method and VariantDir() function. In some future release a deprecation warning will be added to existing uses of the env.BuildDir() method and BuildDir() function. At some point after the deprecation warning, the env.Builder() method and BuildDir() function will either be removed entirely or have their behavior changed. You can prepare for this by changing all your uses of the env.BuildDir() method to env.VariantDir() and uses of the global BuildDir() function to VariantDir(). If you use a named keyword argument of "build_dir" when calling env.BuildDir() or BuildDir(): env.BuildDir(build_dir='opt', src_dir='src') The keyword must be changed to "variant_dir": env.VariantDir(variant_dir='opt', src_dir='src') NOTE: CHANGING USES OF env.BuildDir() AND BuildDir() to env.VariantDir() AND VariantDir() IS NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE TO VERSIONS OF SCons BEFORE 0.98. YOUR SConscript FILES WILL NOT WORK ON EARLIER VERSIONS OF SCons AFTER MAKING THIS CHANGE. If you change SConscript files in software that you make available for download or otherwise distribute, other users may try to build your software with an earlier version of SCons that does not have the env.VariantDir() method or VariantDir() fnction. We recommend preparing for this in one of two ways: -- Make your SConscript files backwards-compatible by including the following code near the beginning of your top-level SConstruct file: import SCons.Environment try: SCons.Environment.Environment.VariantDir except AttributeError: SCons.Environment.Environment.VariantDir = \ SCons.Environment.Environment.BuildDir -- Use the EnsureSConsVersion() function to provide a descriptive error message if your SConscript files are executed by an earlier version of SCons: EnsureSConsVersion(0, 98) -- THE SConscript() "build_dir" KEYWORD ARGUMENT WILL BE DEPRECATED The "build_dir" keyword argument of the SConscript function and env.SConscript() method are being replaced by a new "variant_dir" keyword argument. In some future release a deprecation warning will be added to existing uses of the SConscript()/env.SConscript() "build_dir" keyword argument. At some point after the deprecation warning, support for this keyword argument will be removed entirely. You can prepare for this by changing all your uses of the SConscript()/env.SConscript() 'build_dir" keyword argument: SConscript('src/SConscript', build_dir='opt') To use the new "variant_dir" keyword argument: SConscript('src/SConscript', variant_dir='opt') NOTE: USING THE NEW "variant_dir" KEYWORD IS NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE TO VERSIONS OF SCons BEFORE 0.98. YOUR SConscript FILES WILL NOT WORK ON EARLIER VERSIONS OF SCons AFTER MAKING THIS CHANGE. If you change SConscript files in software that you make available for download or otherwise distribute, other users may try to build your software with an earlier version of SCons that does not support the "variant_dir" keyword. If you can insist that users use a recent version of SCons that supports "variant_dir", we recommend using the EnsureSConsVersion() function to provide a descriptive error message if your SConscript files are executed by an earlier version of SCons: EnsureSConsVersion(0, 98) If you want to make sure that your SConscript files will still work with earlier versions of SCons, then your best bet is to continue to use the "build_dir" keyword until the support is removed (which, in all likelihood, won't happen for quite some time). -- SCANNER NAMES HAVE BEEN DEPRECATED AND WILL BE REMOVED Several internal variable names in SCons.Defaults for various pre-made default Scanner objects have been deprecated and will be removed in a future revision. In their place are several new global variable names that are now part of the publicly-supported interface: NEW NAME DEPRECATED NAME -------- ---------------------------- CScanner SCons.Defaults.CScan DSCanner SCons.Defaults.DScan SourceFileScanner SCons.Defaults.ObjSourceScan ProgramScanner SCons.Defaults.ProgScan Of these, only ObjSourceScan was probably used at all, to add new mappings of file suffixes to other scanners for use by the Object() Builder. This should now be done as follows: SourceFileScanner.add_scanner('.x', XScanner) -- THE env.Copy() METHOD WILL CHANGE OR GO AWAY ENTIRELY The env.Copy() method (to make a copy of a construction environment) is being replaced by the env.Clone() method. As of SCons 0.98, a deprecation warning has been added to current uses of the env.Copy() method. At some point in the future, the env.Copy() method will either be removed entirely or have its behavior changed. You can prepare for this by changing all your uses of env.Copy() to env.Clone(), which has the exact same calling arguments. NOTE: CHANGING USES OF env.Copy() TO env.Clone() WILL MAKE YOUR SConscript FILES NOT WORK ON VERSIONS OF SCons BEFORE 0.96.93. If you change SConscript files in software that you make available for download or otherwise distribute, other users may try to build your software with an earlier version of SCons that does not have the env.Clone() method. We recommend preparing for this in one of two ways: -- Make your SConscript files backwards-compatible by including the following code near the beginning of your top-level SConstruct file: import SCons.Environment try: SCons.Environment.Environment.Clone except AttributeError: SCons.Environment.Environment.Clone = \ SCons.Environment.Environment.Copy -- Use the EnsureSConsVersion() function to provide a descriptive error message if your SConscript files are executed by an earlier version of SCons: EnsureSConsVersion(0, 96, 93) -- THE CheckLib Configure TEST WILL CHANGE BEHAVIOR The CheckLib() Configure test appends the lib(s) to the Environment's LIBS list in 1.3 and earlier. In 1.3 there is a new CheckLib argument, append, which defaults to True to preserve the old behavior. In a future release, append will be changed to default to False, to conform with autoconf and user expectations, since it is usually used to build up library lists in a right-to-left way. SCons is developed with an extensive regression test suite, and a rigorous development methodology for continually improving that suite. Because of this, SCons is of sufficient quality that you can use it for real work. The interfaces in release 1.0 will *not* be knowingly changed in any new, future 1.x release. If an interface change should ever become necessary due to extraordinary circumstances, the change and an appropriate transition strategy will be documented in these RELEASE notes. As you use SCons, please heed the following: - Please report any bugs or other problems that you find to our bug tracker at our SourceForge project page: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=30337&atid=398971 We have a reliable bug-fixing methodology already in place and strive to respond to problems relatively quickly. - Documentation is spottier than we'd like. You may need to dive into the source code to figure out how to do something. Asking questions on the scons-users mailing list is also welcome. We will be addressing the documentation in upcoming releases, but would be more than glad to have your assistance in correcting this problem... :-) - The "SCons Design" documentation on the SCons web site is very out of date, as we made significant changes to portions of the interface as we figured out what worked and what didn't during the extensive beta implementation. The "SCons Design" document should be used only for historical purposes, or for just an extremely general understanding of SCons' architectural goals. - There may be performance issues. Improving SCons performance is an ongoing priority. If you still find the performance unacceptable, we would very much like to hear from you and learn more about your configuration so we can optimize the right things. - Error messages don't always exist where they'd be helpful. Please let us know about any errors you ran into that would have benefitted from a (more) descriptive message. KNOWN PROBLEMS IN THIS RELEASE: For a complete list of known problems, consult the SCons Issue Tracker at tigris.org: http://scons.tigris.org/project_issues.html - Support for parallel builds (-j) does not work on WIN32 systems prior to *official* Python release 2.2 (not 2.2 pre-releases). Prior to Python 2.2, there is a bug in Python's Win32 implementation such that when a thread spawns an external command, it blocks all threads from running. This breaks the SCons multithreading architecture used to support -j builds. We have included a patch file, os_spawnv_fix.diff, that you can use if you you want to fix your version of Python to support parallel builds in SCons. - Again, the "SCons Design" documentation on the SCons web site is out of date. Take what you read there with a grain of salt. - On Win32 systems, you must put a space between the redirection characters < and >, and the specified files (or construction variable expansions): command < $SOURCE > $TARGET If you don't supply a space (for example, "<$SOURCE"), SCons will not recognize the redirection. - MSVC .res files are not rebuilt when icons change. - The -c option does not clean up .sconsign files or directories created as part of the build, and also does not clean up SideEffect files (for example, Visual Studio .pdb files). - When using multiple Repositories, changing the name of an include file can cause an old version of the file to be used. - There is currently no way to force use of a relative path (../*) for directories outside the top-level SConstruct file. - The Jar() Builder will, on its second or subsequent invocation, package up the .sconsign files that SCons uses to track signatures. You can work around this by using the SConsignFile() function to collect all of the .sconsign information into a single file outside of the directory being packaged by Jar(). - SCons does not currently have a way to detect that an intermediate file has been corrupted from outside and should be rebuilt. - Unicode characters in path names do not work in all circumstances. - SCons does not currently automatically check out SConstruct or SConscript files from SCCS, RCS or BitKeeper. - No support yet for the following planned command-line options: -d -e -l --list-actions --list-derived --list-where -o --override -p -r -R -w --write-filenames -W --warn-undefined-variables Thank you for your interest, and please let us know how we can help improve SCons for your needs. Steven Knight knight at baldmt dot com http://www.baldmt.com/~knight/ With plenty of help from the SCons Development team: Chad Austin Charles Crain Bill Deegan Steve Leblanc Greg Noel Gary Oberbrunner Anthony Roach Greg Spencer Christoph Wiedemann __COPYRIGHT__ __FILE__ __REVISION__ __DATE__ __DEVELOPER__