[BuildTools] [Coin-tlc] Help with build system

[Matěj Týč]

On Sat, 2010-06-05 at 13:09 +0200, Stefan Vigerske wrote:
> Hi,
> > 
> > I understand that there is a working solution, this is great. I also
> > don't doubt that this is a valid solution, but I also see that it has
> > certain cons.
> > For our "customers", this would mean that they need to have pkg-config
> > set up and working if they want to use this kind of installation.
> 
> No, point 3 is about the case where there is no pkg-config
> (and dependences are not installed yet).
> 
> > Since this is an installation for "poor people", who don't have anything
> > (= at least in terms of dependencies :-), maybe neither they have
> > pkg-config, who knows.
> > And for possible future COIN developers, they might wonder why
> > pkg-config solution was used here when a shell solution might do the job
> > as well with relatively less effort.
> 
> But at last we do shell scripting if pkg-config is not there:
> https://projects.coin-or.org/BuildTools/browser/trunk/coin.m4#L3898

I see. I am going to post my stuff to the tracker so it does not get
lost and we can move on to another tasks like the battle plan for gnulib
integration.
I think that there is a somewhat simpler solution of our problems, but
since those problems are actually solved now, it is not a priority. 

> > Anyway, I couldn't help myself and I have made a demo of a sh
> > implementation. Don't take me wrong, I don't try to compete with you, I
> > just like minimalistic approach :-)
> > http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=LzGEMwEN
> > By "getting rid of those situations" I meant situations when a certain
> > COIN library libA requires libB headers in order to be useful. I think
> > that such situation occurs now, there was some discussion concerning
> > this earlier.
> 
> I think something like the script you propose could be integrated into
> the fallback macro around, so that it also follows dependencies.
> But instead of projects having to creating a new file with INCLUDE_DIRS
> and DEPENDENCIES variables, it should just take this information from
> the xxx-uninstalled.pc file. I still don't see why to replicate this
> information in two files. :-)

My idea was that you use somewhat simpler .sh files rather than
those .pc files so those uninstalled.pc stuff would not be needed any
more.

> > See http://list.coin-or.org/pipermail/buildtools/2010-May/000149.html 2.
> > I believe the main purpose of making config_xxx.h available...
> > 
> > I don't think that all-inclusive tarball is a bad thing, at least not
> > when COIN is not packaged by one's favourite distribution... It can be
> > such a big relief for lazy users :-)
> 
> I agree.
> But one may wanna change it such that from the big tarball one does the
> whole configure+make+make test+make install for one project after the other.

That would be easy for us, but it would not make things very different
from downloading all tarballs separatelly :-) I am an optimist, I think
that we will manage to do it in a smart way. In the worst case, we could
make a shell script that would build and install all the stuff for the
user.

> Stefan
Matej