NAME¶
ccbuild — Strict C++ developer's build utility
SYNOPSIS¶
ccbuild [options ] [command ]
DESCRIPTION¶
ccbuild is a build utility that will read C++ source. It collects all
source surrounding your local includes and links these to your main program.
Global include statements (#include <something>) are used to make sure
the compiler gets the right arguments. The link between compiler arguments and
these global includes is made using configuration files. These files contain
lines with a global header file name and the extra arguments the compiler
needs to find and use this file. The file name and arguments are separated by
tab character(s) or a space.
ccbuild reads these configuration files in
order. Only the first mention of a global header file in these files is used.
Usually only
./ccResolutions is used, but there are more possibilities.
See the section FILES for more information.
ccbuild will follow any local include (#include "something.hh")
to try to find more source code to compile. To keep
ccbuild from
following up on an include statement, separate the #-sign and the include
statement by a single space ("# include").
COMMANDS¶
- build [filename.cc]
- Build everything or the given source.
- lib [filename.cc]
- Collect all objects into an archive. If a version is given,
using --pversion, then a shared library is also build with symbolic links.
This currently forces the -fPIC argument addition. The name of your
library is given the name of the current directory or it's parent when the
current directory is called src.
-
- Example: create an empty .cc file which simply includes all
the local libraries, run ccbuild --pversion 0.0.1 lib
thatfile.cc
- clean [filename.cc]
- Clean everything or the given source.
- distclean
- Recursively remove all "o" directories after
removing all .md5 and .o files therein. And removes all .gch files.
- deps [filename.cc]
- List all files this source depends on. It lists three lines
separated by empty lines. The first contains the local dependencies, the
second the ignored headers (for the file) and the last contains all global
includes needed.
- dot [filename.cc]
- Generate dot graph files for sources on the stdout. If no
source file name is given, then for all binary targets in the local
directory a .dot file will be created. If the --verbose flag is
used the dot graph will also contain all object file names and their
dependencies and lists of ignored headers. Objects will be coloured light
grey, binary targets light blue, ignored headers by a red line.
- makefile [filename.cc]
- Generate a Makefile on stdout. If no file name is given, an
all rule will be generated. Otherwise only the rules for the given file
are generated.
- aap [filename.cc]
- Generate an A-A-P file on stdout. If the file name is not
given, an "all" rule will be added and all local binary targets
will be listed.
- check [filename.cc]
- Dsplay source status and file name on the stdout. Status
and source path are separated with a tab character. Status is either
"old" or "ok". When the --verbose flag is used,
another tab separated column will be inserted containing a two letter file
type ccbuild identifies it as. This file type is "bt",
"ot", "ih" or "hh" for binary target, object
target, internal header and header respectively.
- icmake [filename.cc]
- icmake slave mode. This will output the used
directories with one directory per line. If a CLASSES file already exists,
it will only output the class directories not mentioned in the CLASSES
file. If --verbose is given, all classes will be listed. The output
will not contain directories with only header files. Updating the CLASSES
is typically done by running: ccbuild icmake >> CLASSES
- resolve [filename.cc]
- Print all unresolved globals onto the stdout followed by a
tab character. These can be appended to the ccResolutions file using:
ccbuild resolve >> ccResolutions .
- md5 [filename.cc]
- MD5 sum all sources needed to compile all binary targets,
or the given source on stdout.
OPTIONS¶
Options are used to change the behaviour of the commands. Some options are
useless for some commands.
- -f --force-update
- Update everything by labelling everything as old.
- -h --help
- Get a list of options and commands.
- --gnutouch
- Touch files part of the GNU software standard. They will be
touched in ../ except when there is a directory called src in the current
directory, then the current directory will be used. This will touch
AUTHORS, NEWS, README, INSTALL, COPYING, TODO and ChangeLog.
- -s --no-act
- Simulate, don't really execute any writing commands.
- --compiler cmd
- Set the compiler command. The default is
"g++".
- -a --args argument
- Set these default compiler arguments, removing the standard
default arguments ("-Wall -g"). Multiple uses of this option are
concatenated with spaces.
- -C path
- Change directory before anything else.
- -p --precompile-ih
- Pre-compile only internal headers. This requires g++
version 3.4 up.
- --precompile-all
- Pre-compile both internal headers and normal headers. This
requires g++ version 3.4 up. When you use internal headers, this will only
slow you down. However, when you don't use internal headers, this
pre-compilation is all you've got.
- --brute
- Continue on compiler errors.
- --md5
- Use MD5 hashes to check for file changes. The hashes are
store in "o/filename.md5" for every file. These sums are
only stored after a clean exit from ccbuild (last line showing
"[WR] MD5 data") or a successful compilation.
- -I path
- Add this path to the local include search path of
ccbuild and the compiler (which will receive the same
argument).
- --recursive-include path
- This is just like -I, but for the given path and
every non-empty directory with a name other then "o". Make sure
you do not come to depend on this behaviour, that would be bad
practice.
- -l --highlight
- Highlight the output of the compiler using a red terminal
colour.
- --xof --exec-on-fail command
- Execute this command when the command (pre)compilation
returns anything but 0. The first argument given to the command will be
relative path to the file the command was executed on (which is either a
C++ source or header). If you don't want to use the file name, you can
append an echo command like "sleep 2; echo".
- --xop --exec-on-pass cmd
- This is the same as --exec-on-fail, except it only
works when the command returns 0. The first argument given to the command
will be the relative path to the file the command was executed on.
- --clearpc
- Clear the screen just before executing the command (clear
per command).
- --append cmd
- Append this to every command. This can be used to redirect
output or set up pipes for compiler output.
- --loop
- Loop the system with one second intervals. This only works
for the build command at the moment. All sources who are touched will be
reloaded. If a file is removed, the whole source tree is reloaded.
- --nodefargs
- Do not read the first line of ./ccResolutions for extra
arguments.
- --nodefres
- Do not load any ccResolutions files outside of
./ccResolutions. This can be used to create a monolithic ccResolutions
file or discover your project's dependencies with the resolve
command.
- --addres filename
- Load the given resolution file before any other.
- --pversion version
- Set the program version you are working on to
version. This is currently only used for the library command. When
defined, the library command can make a shared object (.so) and symbolic
links by using the version number. It should not contain any file system
special characters like slashes.
- --ar
- Archive the objects before linking. This should reduce the
binary size because it leaves out unused objects.
- --verbose
- Show commands and produce more output for dot and check
commands.
- -V --version
- Output version number on stdout and copyright/license on
stderr.
- --xml
- Output in XML where supported. Currently this is only the
check command.
- --nowarn
- Leave out most warnings.
- --batch
- Compile a batch of files with one g++ call before any other
compilation. This effectively disables any multi-threading, but may speed
things up for larger collections of small files. This process involves
creating a temporary directory in /tmp/ccbuild_batch.XXXX. The exact
behaviour of this option may change in the future based on performance
results and user experience.
- -j number_threads
- Set the maximum number of threads used during build. Only
available when OpenMP is enabled.
RESOLUTION CONFIGURATION¶
The ccResolutions file links global headers to compiler arguments. Every line
should be either empty, start with a comment character "#" or
contain a configuration line. A configuration line contains the name of the
global header, followed by one or more tab characters and then the additional
arguments needed when a source depends on this global header. The arguments
are POSIX shell expanded.
If the first line of the ccResolutions file starts with "#&", the
rest of this line is shell expanded and used and appended to the argument list
of
ccbuild.
EXAMPLES¶
Examples of program use.
- ccbuild resolve >> ccResolutions
- Add any of the unknown global headers to the ccResolutions
file. You can also use --nowarn to keep ccbuild quiet, but you will
have to think twice if you get compilation errors.
- ccbuild --brute
- Get back to development after a distclean. This will update
as much objects as will compile. Which will allow you to focus on the
errors in the next ccbuild call.
- ccbuild -p --compiler 'g++-3.4' --args -Wall --args
'-Wextra -ansi'
- Precompile internal headers using g++-3.4 and
highlight all compiler output (-l). Also give all compiler commands the
parameters "-Wall -Wextra -ansi".
- ccbuild -f --args -O3
- Recompiling your project for benchmarking tests. Forces the
update of all code (-f) and sets the compiler argument to -O3.
- ccbuild --verbose dot; dotty *.dot
- Graph the dependencies for all programs with colours. Then
view these using dotty. This can help you to discover irregular
dependencies and what test programs use.
- ccbuild --xof 'gedit'
- Try to compile the program and open the first file that
does not compile correctly. Open all error producing sources in gedit.
Very useful for when you change the interface of a class.
- ccbuild --compiler distcc -j 20
- Use 20 distcc compilers to compile the project.
- ccbuild --nodefargs -f --args '-Wall -Werror'
&& svn commit -m 'buildable backup'
- If all the sources are buildable without any warnings,
commit everything to the repository using subversion.
FILES¶
Configuration files used by
ccbuild
- ./ccResolutions[.USERNAME,.HOSTNAME,.KERNEL_NAME,.MACHINE,]
- Local configuration which is project specific. It will load
the first existing file of: ./ccResolutions.USERNAME,
./ccResolutions.HOSTNAME, ./ccResolutions.KERNEL_NAME,
./ccResolutions.MACHINE, ./ccResolutions. Hostname, kernel name and
machine can be found with uname -nsm.
- ~/.ccbuild/ccResolutions
- Global configuration file.
- ~/.ccbuild/ccResolutions.d
- The resolution configuration directory. All files in this
directory are considered configuration files.
CAVEATS¶
Don't place any file into
o directories, these will be removed when using
the distclean command. Also don't use files with the same basename, but
different C++ extensions, this will give problems with the objects created
(for example "add.cc" and "add.cpp" in the same
directory).
Currently there is no way to allow one object file to effect the command-line
parameters of another. This means that if all objects need a flag, you must
use the --args argument and cannot use a global header resolution line.
Examples of these flags that need to be defined everywhere are -pthreads,
-mthreads and -threads. Please read the g++ manual for more information on
usage of flags.
ccbuild seems to be incompatible with flex 2.5.4. That version of flex places an
int main function in the resulting scanner and there doesn't seem to be a way
to stop it from mentioning it. The result is that ccbuild will think that the
generated scanner is a test program for your class and won't link it into the
main program. A solution is to move to a newer version of flex or find a way
to remove the int main function from the resulting scanner file.
REPORTING BUGS¶
Report any issue with ccbuild at:
http://www.logfish.net/pr/ccbuild/
RESTRICTIONS¶
ccbuild will not follow or act on any include statements with a single space
between the #-sign and the include. So all include statements starting with
"# include" will be ignored, all other combinations will be
acted on. This is a feature, not a bug. In verbose mode (--verbose) these are
mentioned as warnings.
AUTHOR¶
A. Bram Neijt <bneijt@gmail.com>
SEE ALSO¶
pkg-config(1),
dotty(1),
make(1),
icmake(1), g++(1), aap(1),
svn(1)