scons_gd/scons/doc/user/command-line.xml
2022-10-15 16:06:26 +02:00

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<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE sconsdoc [
<!ENTITY % scons SYSTEM "../scons.mod">
%scons;
<!ENTITY % builders-mod SYSTEM "../generated/builders.mod">
%builders-mod;
<!ENTITY % functions-mod SYSTEM "../generated/functions.mod">
%functions-mod;
<!ENTITY % tools-mod SYSTEM "../generated/tools.mod">
%tools-mod;
<!ENTITY % variables-mod SYSTEM "../generated/variables.mod">
%variables-mod;
]>
<chapter id="chap-command-line"
xmlns="http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0 http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0/scons.xsd">
<title>Controlling a Build From the Command Line</title>
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<para>
&SCons; provides a number of ways
for you as the writer of the &SConscript; files
to give you (and your users)
the ability to control the build execution.
The arguments that can be specified on
the command line are broken down into three types:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Options</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Command-line options always begin with
one or two <literal>-</literal> (hyphen) characters.
&SCons; provides ways for you to examine
and set options values from within your &SConscript; files,
as well as the ability to define your own
custom options.
See <xref linkend="sect-command-line-options"></xref>, below.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Variables</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Any command-line argument containing an <literal>=</literal>
(equal sign) is considered a variable setting with the form
<varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>.
&SCons; provides direct access to
all of the command-line variable settings,
the ability to apply command-line variable settings
to &consenvs;,
and functions for configuring
specific types of variables
(Boolean values, path names, etc.)
with automatic validation of the specified values.
See <xref linkend="sect-command-line-variables"></xref>, below.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Targets</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Any command-line argument that is not an option
or a variable setting
(does not begin with a hyphen
and does not contain an equal sign)
is considered a target that the you
are telling &SCons; to build.
&SCons; provides access to the list of specified targets,
as well as ways to set the default list of targets
from within the &SConscript; files.
See <xref linkend="sect-command-line-targets"></xref>, below.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<section id="sect-command-line-options">
<title>Command-Line Options</title>
<para>
&SCons; has many <firstterm>command-line options</firstterm>
that control its behavior.
An &SCons; command-line option
always begins with one or two hyphen (<literal>-</literal>)
characters.
</para>
<section>
<title>Not Having to Specify Command-Line Options Each Time: the &SCONSFLAGS; Environment Variable</title>
<para>
You may find yourself using
the same command-line options every time
you run &SCons;.
For example, you might find it saves time
to specify <userinput>-j 2</userinput>
to have &SCons; run up to two build commands in parallel.
To avoid having to type <userinput>-j 2</userinput> by hand
every time,
you can set the external environment variable
&SCONSFLAGS; to a string containing
<option>-j 2</option>, as well as any other
command-line options that you want &SCons; to always use.
&SCONSFLAGS; is an exception to the usual rule that
&SCons; itself avoids looking at environment variables from the
shell you are running.
</para>
<para>
If, for example,
you are using a POSIX shell such as <command>bash</command>
or <command>zsh</command>
and you always want &SCons; to use the
<option>-Q</option> option,
you can set the &SCONSFLAGS;
environment as follows:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_SCONSFLAGS">
<file name="SConstruct">
def b(target, source, env):
pass
def s(target, source, env):
return " ... [build output] ..."
a = Action(b, strfunction=s)
env = Environment(BUILDERS={'A': Builder(action=a)})
env.A('foo.out', 'foo.in')
</file>
<file name="foo.in">
foo.in
</file>
</scons_example>
<scons_output example="commandline_SCONSFLAGS" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>export SCONSFLAGS="-Q"</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command environment="SCONSFLAGS=-Q">scons</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
For &csh;-style shells on POSIX systems
you can set the &SCONSFLAGS; environment variable as follows:
</para>
<screen>
$ <userinput>setenv SCONSFLAGS "-Q"</userinput>
</screen>
<para>
For the Windows command shell (<command>cmd</command>)
you can set the &SCONSFLAGS; environment variable as follows:
</para>
<screen>
C:\Users\foo> <userinput>set SCONSFLAGS="-Q"</userinput>
</screen>
<para>
To set &SCONSFLAGS; more permanently you can add the
setting to the shell's startup file on POSIX systems,
and on Windows you can use the
<literal>System Properties</literal> control panel applet
to select <literal>Environment Variables</literal>
and set it there.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Getting Values Set by Command-Line Options: the &GetOption; Function</title>
<para>
&SCons; provides the &f-link-GetOption; function
to get the values set by the various command-line options.
</para>
<para>
One use case for &GetOption; is to check whether or not
the <option>-h</option> or <option>--help</option> option
has been specified.
Normally, &SCons; does not print its help text
until after it has read all of the SConscript files,
because it's possible that help text has been added
by some subsidiary SConscript file deep in the
source tree hierarchy.
Of course, reading all of the SConscript files
takes extra time.
If you know that your configuration does not define
any additional help text in subsidiary SConscript files,
you can speed up displaying the command-line help
by using the &GetOption; function to load the
subsidiary SConscript files only if
the <option>-h</option> or <option>--help</option> option
has <emphasis>not</emphasis> been specified like this:
</para>
<sconstruct>
if not GetOption('help'):
SConscript('src/SConscript', export='env')
</sconstruct>
<para>
In general, the string that you pass to the
&f-GetOption; function to fetch the value of a command-line
option setting is the same as the "most common" long option name
(beginning with two hyphen characters),
although there are some exceptions.
The list of &SCons; command-line options
and the &f-GetOption; strings for fetching them,
are available in the
<xref linkend="sect-command-line-option-strings"></xref> section,
below.
</para>
<para>
&f-GetOption; can be used to retrieve the values of options
defined by calls to &f-link-AddOption;. A &f-GetOption; call
must appear after the &f-AddOption; call for that option.
If the &f-AddOption; call supplied a <parameter>dest</parameter>
keyword argument, a string with that name is what to pass
as the argument to &f-GetOption;, otherwise it is a
(possibly modified) version of the first long option name -
see &f-link-AddOption;.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Setting Values of Command-Line Options: the &SetOption; Function</title>
<para>
You can also set the values of &SCons;
command-line options from within the &SConscript; files
by using the &f-link-SetOption; function.
The strings that you use to set the values of &SCons;
command-line options are available in the
<xref linkend="sect-command-line-option-strings"></xref> section,
below.
</para>
<para>
One use of the &SetOption; function is to
specify a value for the <option>-j</option>
or <option>--jobs</option> option,
so that you get the improved performance
of a parallel build without having to specify the option by hand.
A complicating factor is that a good value
for the <option>-j</option> option is
somewhat system-dependent.
One rough guideline is that the more processors
your system has,
the higher you want to set the
<option>-j</option> value,
in order to take advantage of the number of CPUs.
</para>
<para>
For example, suppose the administrators
of your development systems
have standardized on setting a
<envar>NUM_CPU</envar> environment variable
to the number of processors on each system.
A little bit of Python code
to access the environment variable
and the &SetOption; function
provides the right level of flexibility:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_SetOption">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
import os
num_cpu = int(os.environ.get('NUM_CPU', 2))
SetOption('num_jobs', num_cpu)
print("running with -j %s" % GetOption('num_jobs'))
</file>
<file name="foo.in">
foo.in
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
The above snippet of code
sets the value of the <option>--jobs</option> option
to the value specified in the
<varname>NUM_CPU</varname> environment variable.
(This is one of the exception cases
where the string is spelled differently from
the from command-line option.
The string for fetching or setting the <option>--jobs</option>
value is <parameter>num_jobs</parameter>
for historical reasons.)
The code in this example prints the <parameter>num_jobs</parameter>
value for illustrative purposes.
It uses a default value of <literal>2</literal>
to provide some minimal parallelism even on
single-processor systems:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_SetOption" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
But if the <envar>NUM_CPU</envar>
environment variable is set,
then use that for the default number of jobs:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_SetOption" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>export NUM_CPU="4"</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command environment="NUM_CPU=4">scons -Q</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
But any explicit
<option>-j</option> or <option>--jobs</option>
value you specify on the command line is used first,
regardless of whether or not
the <envar>NUM_CPU</envar> environment
variable is set:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_SetOption" suffix="3">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -j 7</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>export NUM_CPU="4"</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command environment="NUM_CPU=4">scons -Q -j 3</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
</section>
<section id="sect-command-line-option-strings">
<title>Strings for Getting or Setting Values of &SCons; Command-Line Options</title>
<para>
The strings that you can pass to the &f-link-GetOption;
and &f-link-SetOption; functions usually correspond to the
first long-form option name
(that is, name beginning with two hyphen characters: <literal>--</literal>),
after replacing any remaining hyphen characters
with underscores.
</para>
<para>
&SetOption; is not currently supported for
options added with &AddOption;.
</para>
<para>
The full list of strings and the variables they
correspond to is as follows:
</para>
<informaltable>
<tgroup cols="2" align="left">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>String for &GetOption; and &SetOption;</entry>
<entry>Command-Line Option(s)</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><literal>cache_debug</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--cache-debug</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>cache_disable</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--cache-disable</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>cache_force</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--cache-force</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>cache_show</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--cache-show</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>clean</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-c</option>,
<option>--clean</option>,
<option>--remove</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>config</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--config</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>directory</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-C</option>,
<option>--directory</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>diskcheck</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--diskcheck</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>duplicate</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--duplicate</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>file</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-f</option>,
<option>--file</option>,
<option>--makefile </option>,
<option>--sconstruct</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>help</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-h</option>,
<option>--help</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>ignore_errors</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--ignore-errors</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>implicit_cache</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--implicit-cache</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>implicit_deps_changed</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--implicit-deps-changed</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>implicit_deps_unchanged</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--implicit-deps-unchanged</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>interactive</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--interact</option>,
<option>--interactive</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>keep_going</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-k</option>,
<option>--keep-going</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>max_drift</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--max-drift</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>no_exec</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-n</option>,
<option>--no-exec</option>,
<option>--just-print</option>,
<option>--dry-run</option>,
<option>--recon</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>no_site_dir</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--no-site-dir</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>num_jobs</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-j</option>,
<option>--jobs</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>profile_file</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--profile</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>question</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-q</option>,
<option>--question</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>random</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--random</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>repository</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-Y</option>,
<option>--repository</option>,
<option>--srcdir</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>silent</literal></entry>
<entry><option>-s</option>,
<option>--silent</option>,
<option>--quiet</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>site_dir</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--site-dir</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>stack_size</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--stack-size</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>taskmastertrace_file</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--taskmastertrace</option></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><literal>warn</literal></entry>
<entry><option>--warn</option> <option>--warning</option></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</section>
<section>
<title>Adding Custom Command-Line Options: the &AddOption; Function</title>
<para>
&SCons; also allows you to define your own
command-line options with the &f-link-AddOption; function.
The &AddOption; function takes the same arguments
as the <function>add_option</function> method
from the standard Python library module <emphasis>optparse</emphasis>.
<footnote>
<para>
The &AddOption; function is,
in fact, implemented using a subclass
of <classname>optparse.OptionParser</classname>.
</para>
</footnote>
</para>
<para>
Once you add a custom command-line option
with the &AddOption; function,
the value of the option (if any) is immediately available
using the standard &f-link-GetOption; function.
The argument to &f-GetOption; must be the name of the
variable which holds the option.
If the <parameter>dest</parameter>
keyword argument to &AddOption; is specified, the value is the
variable name.
given. If not given, it is the name
(without the leading hyphens) of the first long option name
given to &AddOption;
after replacing any remaining hyphen characters
with underscores, since hyphens are not legal in Python
identifier names.
</para>
<para>
&SetOption; is not currently supported for
options added with &AddOption;.
<!--
(The value can also be set using &SetOption;,
although that's not very useful in practice
because a default value can be specified in
directly in the &AddOption; call.)
-->
</para>
<para>
One useful example of using this functionality
is to provide a <option>--prefix</option> to help describe
where to install files:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_AddOption">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
AddOption(
'--prefix',
dest='prefix',
type='string',
nargs=1,
action='store',
metavar='DIR',
help='installation prefix',
)
env = Environment(PREFIX=GetOption('prefix'))
installed_foo = env.Install('$PREFIX/usr/bin', 'foo.in')
Default(installed_foo)
</file>
<file name="foo.in">
foo.in
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
The above code uses the &GetOption; function
to set the <varname>$PREFIX</varname>
&consvar; to a
value you specify with a command-line
option of <option>--prefix</option>.
Because <varname>$PREFIX</varname>
expands to a null string if it's not initialized,
running &SCons; without the
option of <option>--prefix</option>
installs the file in the
<filename>/usr/bin/</filename> directory:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_AddOption" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -n</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
But specifying <option>--prefix=/tmp/install</option>
on the command line causes the file to be installed in the
<filename>/tmp/install/usr/bin/</filename> directory:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_AddOption" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -n --prefix=/tmp/install</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<note>
<para>
Option-arguments separated from long options by whitespace,
rather than by an <literal>=</literal>, cannot be correctly
resolved by &SCons;.
While <option>--input=ARG</option>
is clearly opt followed by arg, for <option>--input ARG</option>
it is not possible to tell without instructions whether
<parameter>ARG</parameter> is an argument belonging to the
<parameter>input</parameter> option or a positional argument.
&SCons; treats positional arguments as either
command-line build options or command-line targets
which are made available for use in an &SConscript;
(see the immediately following sections for details).
Thus, they must be collected before &SConscript; processing
takes place. Since &AddOption; calls, which provide
the processing instructions to resolve any ambiguity,
happen in an &SConscript;,
&SCons; does not know in time
for options added this way, and unexpected things happen,
such as option-arguments assigned as targets and/or exceptions
due to missing option-arguments.
</para>
<para>
As a result, this usage style should be avoided when invoking
&scons;. For single-argument
options, use the <option>--input=ARG</option> form on the
command line. For multiple-argument options
(<parameter>nargs</parameter> greater than one),
set <parameter>nargs</parameter> to one in
&AddOption; calls and either: combine the option-arguments into one word
with a separator, and parse the result in your own code
(see the built-in <option>--debug</option> option, which
allows specifying multiple arguments as a single comma-separated
word, for an example of such usage); or allow the option to
be specified multiple times by setting
<literal>action='append'</literal>. Both methods can be
supported at the same time.
</para>
</note>
</section>
</section>
<section id="sect-command-line-variables">
<title>Command-Line <varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable> Build Variables</title>
<para>
You may want to control various aspects
of your build by allowing
<varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>
values to be specified on the command line.
For example, suppose you want to be able to
build a debug version of a program
by running &SCons; as follows:
</para>
<screen>
% <userinput>scons -Q debug=1</userinput>
</screen>
<para>
&SCons; provides an &ARGUMENTS; dictionary
that stores all of the
<varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>
assignments from the command line.
This allows you to modify
aspects of your build in response
to specifications on the command line.
(Note that unless you want to require
a variable <emphasis>always</emphasis>
be specified you probably want to use
the Python dictionary <methodname>get</methodname> method,
which allows you to designate a default value
to be used if there is no specification
on the command line.)
</para>
<para>
The following code sets the &cv-link-CCFLAGS; &consvar;
in response to the <varname>debug</varname>
flag being set in the &ARGUMENTS; dictionary:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_ARGUMENTS">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
debug = ARGUMENTS.get('debug', 0)
if int(debug):
env.Append(CCFLAGS='-g')
env.Program('prog.c')
</file>
<file name="prog.c">
prog.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
This results in the <varname>-g</varname>
compiler option being used when
<literal>debug=1</literal>
is used on the command line:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ARGUMENTS" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q debug=0</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q debug=0</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q debug=1</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q debug=1</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
&SCons; keeps track of the precise command line used to build each object file,
and as a result can determine that the object and executable files
need rebuilding when the value of the <parameter>debug</parameter>
argument has changed.
</para>
<para>
The &ARGUMENTS; dictionary has two minor drawbacks.
First, because it is a dictionary,
it can only store one value for each specified keyword,
and thus only "remembers" the last setting
for each keyword on the command line.
This makes the &ARGUMENTS; dictionary
less than ideal if you want to allow
specifying multiple values
on the command line for a given keyword.
Second, it does not preserve
the order in which the variable settings
were specified,
which is a problem if
you want the configuration to
behave differently in response
to the order in which the build
variable settings were specified on the command line.
</para>
<para>
To accomodate these requirements,
&SCons; provides an &ARGLIST; variable
that gives you direct access to
<varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>
settings on the command line,
in the exact order they were specified,
and without removing any duplicate settings.
Each element in the &ARGLIST; variable
is itself a two-element list
containing the keyword and the value
of the setting,
and you must loop through,
or otherwise select from,
the elements of &ARGLIST; to
process the specific settings you want
in whatever way is appropriate for your configuration.
For example,
the following code lets you
add to the &CPPDEFINES; &consvar;
by specifying multiple
<varname>define=</varname>
settings on the command line:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_ARGLIST">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
cppdefines = []
for key, value in ARGLIST:
if key == 'define':
cppdefines.append(value)
env = Environment(CPPDEFINES=cppdefines)
env.Object('prog.c')
</file>
<file name="prog.c">
prog.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Yields the following output:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ARGLIST" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q define=FOO</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q define=FOO define=BAR</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Note that the &ARGLIST; and &ARGUMENTS;
variables do not interfere with each other,
but rather provide slightly different views
into how you specified
<varname>variable</varname>=<replaceable>value</replaceable>
settings on the command line.
You can use both variables in the same
&SCons; configuration.
In general, the &ARGUMENTS; dictionary
is more convenient to use,
(since you can just fetch variable
settings through &Python; dictionary access),
and the &ARGLIST; list
is more flexible
(since you can examine the
specific order in which
the command-line variable settings were given).
</para>
<section>
<title>Controlling Command-Line Build Variables</title>
<para>
Being able to use a command-line build variable like
<literal>debug=1</literal> is handy,
but it can be a chore to write specific Python code
to recognize each such variable,
check for errors and provide appropriate messages,
and apply the values to a &consvar;.
To help with this,
&SCons; provides a &Variables; class to
define such build variables easily,
and a mechanism to apply the
build variables to a &consenv;.
This allows you to control how the build variables affect
&consenvs;.
</para>
<para>
For example, suppose that you want to set
a &RELEASE; &consvar; on the
command line whenever the time comes to build
a program for release,
and that the value of this variable
should be added to the command line
with the appropriate define
to pass the value to the C compiler.
Here's how you might do that by setting
the appropriate value in a dictionary for the
&cv-link-CPPDEFINES; &consvar;:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Variables1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables(None, ARGUMENTS)
vars.Add('RELEASE', default=0)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'RELEASE_BUILD': '${RELEASE}'})
env.Program(['foo.c', 'bar.c'])
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="bar.c">
bar.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
This &SConstruct; file first creates a &Variables; object
which uses the values from the command-line options dictionary &ARGUMENTS;
(the <literal>vars=Variables(None, ARGUMENTS)</literal> call).
It then uses the object's &Add;
method to indicate that the &RELEASE;
variable can be set on the command line, and that
if not set the default value is <literal>0</literal>.
The newly created &Variables; object
is passed to the &Environment; call
used to create the &consenv;
using a &variables; keyword argument.
This then allows you to set the
&RELEASE; build variable on the command line
and have the variable show up in
the command line used to build each object from
a C source file:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Variables1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=1</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Historical note: In old &SCons; (prior to 0.98.1),
these build variables were known as "command-line build options."
At that time, class was named &Options;
and the predefined functions to construct options were named
&BoolOption;, &EnumOption;, &ListOption;,
&PathOption;, &PackageOption; and &AddOptions; (contrast
with the current names in
<xref linkend="sect-build-variable-functions"></xref>, below).
You may encounter these names in older
&SConscript; files, wiki pages, blog entries, StackExchange
articles, etc.
These old names no longer work, but a mental substitution
of <quote>Variable</quote> for <quote>Option</quote>
allows the concepts to transfer to current usage models.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Providing Help for Command-Line Build Variables</title>
<para>
To make command-line build variables most useful,
you ideally want to provide
some help text to describe the available variables
when the you ask for help (run <userinput>scons -h</userinput>).
You can write this text by hand,
but &SCons; provides some assistance.
Variables objects provide a
&GenerateHelpText; method the
generate text that describes
the various variables that
have been added to it. The default text includes
the help string itself plus other information
such as allowed values.
(The generated text can also be customized by
replacing the <methodname>FormatVariableHelpText</methodname>
method).
You then pass the output from this method to
the &Help; function:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Variables_Help">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables(None, ARGUMENTS)
vars.Add('RELEASE', help='Set to 1 to build for release', default=0)
env = Environment(variables=vars)
Help(vars.GenerateHelpText(env))
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
&SCons; now displays some useful text
when the <option>-h</option> option is used:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Variables_Help" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -h</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
You can see the help output shows the default value
as well as the current actual value of the build variable.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Reading Build Variables From a File</title>
<para>
Being able to to specify the
value of a build variable on the command line
is useful,
but can still become tedious
if you have to specify the variable
every time you run &SCons;.
To make this easier,
you can provide customized build variable settings
in a local file by providing a
file name when the
&Variables; object is created:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Variables_custom_py_1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add('RELEASE', help='Set to 1 to build for release', default=0)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'RELEASE_BUILD': '${RELEASE}'})
env.Program(['foo.c', 'bar.c'])
Help(vars.GenerateHelpText(env))
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="bar.c">
bar.c
</file>
<file name="custom.py">
RELEASE = 1
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
This then allows you to control the &RELEASE;
variable by setting it in the &custom_py; file:
</para>
<scons_example_file example="commandline_Variables_custom_py_1" name="custom.py"></scons_example_file>
<para>
Note that this file is actually executed
like a Python script.
Now when you run &SCons;:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Variables_custom_py_1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
And if you change the contents of &custom_py; to:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Variables_custom_py_2">
<file name="SConstruct">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add('RELEASE', help='Set to 1 to build for release', default=0)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'RELEASE_BUILD': '${RELEASE}'})
env.Program(['foo.c', 'bar.c'])
Help(vars.GenerateHelpText(env))
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="bar.c">
bar.c
</file>
<file name="custom.py" printme="1">
RELEASE = 0
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
The object files are rebuilt appropriately
with the new variable:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Variables_custom_py_2" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Finally, you can combine both methods with:
</para>
<screen>
vars = Variables('custom.py', ARGUMENTS)
</screen>
<para>
where values in the option file &custom_py; get overwritten
by the ones specified on the command line.
</para>
</section>
<section id="sect-build-variable-functions">
<title>Pre-Defined Build Variable Functions</title>
<para>
&SCons; provides a number of convenience functions
that provide ready-made behaviors
for various types of command-line build variables.
These functions all return a tuple which is ready
to be passed to the &Add; or &AddVariables; method call.
You are of course free to define your own behaviors
as well.
</para>
<section>
<title>True/False Values: the &BoolVariable; Build Variable Function</title>
<para>
It is often handy to be able to specify a
variable that controls a simple Boolean variable
with a &true; or &false; value.
It would be even more handy to accomodate
different preferences for how to represent
&true; or &false; values.
The &BoolVariable; function
makes it easy to accomodate these
common representations of
&true; or &false;.
</para>
<para>
The &BoolVariable; function takes three arguments:
the name of the build variable,
the default value of the build variable,
and the help string for the variable.
It then returns appropriate information for
passing to the &Add; method of a &Variables; object, like so:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_BoolVariable">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(BoolVariable('RELEASE', help='Set to build for release', default=0))
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'RELEASE_BUILD': '${RELEASE}'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
With this build variable in place,
the &RELEASE; variable can now be enabled by
setting it to the value <literal>yes</literal>
or <literal>t</literal>:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_BoolVariable" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=yes foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<scons_output example="commandline_BoolVariable" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=t foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Other values that equate to &true; include
<literal>y</literal>,
<literal>1</literal>,
<literal>on</literal>
and
<literal>all</literal>.
</para>
<para>
Conversely, &RELEASE; may now be given a &false;
value by setting it to
<literal>no</literal>
or
<literal>f</literal>:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_BoolVariable" suffix="3">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=no foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<scons_output example="commandline_BoolVariable" suffix="4">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=f foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Other values that equate to &false; include
<literal>n</literal>,
<literal>0</literal>,
<literal>off</literal>
and
<literal>none</literal>.
</para>
<para>
Lastly, if you try to specify
any other value,
&SCons; supplies an appropriate error message:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_BoolVariable" suffix="5">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q RELEASE=bad_value foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
</section>
<section>
<title>Single Value From a Selection: the &EnumVariable; Build Variable Function</title>
<para>
Suppose that you want to allow
setting a &COLOR; variable
that selects a background color to be
displayed by an application,
but that you want to restrict the
choices to a specific set of allowed colors.
You can set this up quite easily
using the &EnumVariable; function,
which takes a list of &allowed_values;
in addition to the variable name,
default value,
and help text arguments:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_EnumVariable">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
EnumVariable(
'COLOR',
help='Set background color',
default='red',
allowed_values=('red', 'green', 'blue'),
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'COLOR': '"${COLOR}"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
Help(vars.GenerateHelpText(env))
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
You can now explicitly set the &COLOR; build variable
to any of the specified allowed values:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=red foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=blue foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=green foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
But, importantly,
an attempt to set &COLOR;
to a value that's not in the list
generates an error message:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=magenta foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
This example can also serve to further illustrate help
generation: the help message here picks up not only the
<parameter>help</parameter> text, but augments it with
information gathered from <parameter>allowed_values</parameter>
and <parameter>default</parameter>:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable" suffix="3">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -h</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
The &EnumVariable; function also provides a way
to map alternate names to allowed values.
Suppose, for example, you want to allow
the word <literal>navy</literal> to be used as a synonym for
<literal>blue</literal>.
You do this by adding a &map; dictionary
that maps its key values
to the desired allowed value:
</para>
<scons_example name="EnumVariable_map">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
EnumVariable(
'COLOR',
help='Set background color',
default='red',
allowed_values=('red', 'green', 'blue'),
map={'navy': 'blue'},
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'COLOR': '"${COLOR}"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Now you can supply
<literal>navy</literal> on the command line,
and &SCons; translates that into <literal>blue</literal>
when it comes time to use the &COLOR;
variable to build a target:
</para>
<scons_output example="EnumVariable_map" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=navy foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
By default, when using the &EnumVariable; function,
the allowed values are case-sensitive:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable" suffix="4">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=Red foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=BLUE foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=nAvY foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
The &EnumVariable; function can take an additional
&ignorecase; keyword argument that,
when set to <literal>1</literal>,
tells &SCons; to allow case differences
when the values are specified:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_EnumVariable_ic1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
EnumVariable(
'COLOR',
help='Set background color',
default='red',
allowed_values=('red', 'green', 'blue'),
map={'navy': 'blue'},
ignorecase=1,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'COLOR': '"${COLOR}"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Which yields the output:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable_ic1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=Red foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=BLUE foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=nAvY foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=green foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Notice that an &ignorecase; value of <literal>1</literal>
preserves the case-spelling supplied,
only ignoring the case for matching.
If you want &SCons; to translate the names
into lower-case,
regardless of the case used by the user,
specify an &ignorecase; value of <literal>2</literal>:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_EnumVariable_ic2">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
EnumVariable(
'COLOR',
help='Set background color',
default='red',
allowed_values=('red', 'green', 'blue'),
map={'navy': 'blue'},
ignorecase=2,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'COLOR': '"${COLOR}"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Now &SCons; uses values of
<literal>red</literal>,
<literal>green</literal> or
<literal>blue</literal>
regardless of how those values are spelled
on the command line:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_EnumVariable_ic2" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=Red foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=nAvY foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLOR=GREEN foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
</section>
<section>
<title>Multiple Values From a List: the &ListVariable; Build Variable Function</title>
<para>
Another way in which you might want to control a build variable is to
specify a list of allowed values, of which one or more can be chosen
(where &EnumVariable; allows exactly one value to be chosen).
&SCons; provides this through the &ListVariable; function.
If, for example, you want to be able to set a
&COLORS; variable to one or more of the allowed values:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_ListVariable">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
ListVariable(
'COLORS', help='List of colors', default=0, names=['red', 'green', 'blue']
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'COLORS': '"${COLORS}"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
You can now specify a comma-separated list of allowed values,
which get translated into a space-separated
list for passing to the build commands:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ListVariable" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLORS=red,blue foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLORS=blue,green,red foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
In addition, the &ListVariable; function
lets you specify explicit keywords of
&all; or &none;
to select all of the allowed values,
or none of them, respectively:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ListVariable" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLORS=all foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLORS=none foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
And, of course, an illegal value
still generates an error message:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ListVariable" suffix="3">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q COLORS=magenta foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
You can use this last characteristic as a way to enforce at least
one of your valid options being chosen by specifying the valid
values with the <parameter>names</parameter> parameter and then
giving a value not in that list as the <parameter>default</parameter>
parameter - that way if no value is given on the command line,
the default is chosen, &SCons; errors out as this is invalid.
The example is, in fact, set up that way by using
<literal>0</literal> as the default:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_ListVariable" suffix="4">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
This technique works for &EnumVariable; as well.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Path Names: the &PathVariable; Build Variable Function</title>
<para>
&SCons; provides a &PathVariable; function
to make it easy to create a build variable
to control an expected path name.
If, for example, you need to
define a preprocessor macro
that controls the location of a
configuration file:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PathVariable">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
PathVariable(
'CONFIG', help='Path to configuration file', default='__ROOT__/etc/my_config'
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'CONFIG_FILE': '"$CONFIG"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/etc/my_config">
/opt/location
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/usr/local/etc/other_config">
/opt/location
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
This allows you to
override the &CONFIG; build variable
on the command line as necessary:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_PathVariable" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q CONFIG=__ROOT__/usr/local/etc/other_config foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
By default, &PathVariable; checks to make sure
that the specified path exists and generates an error if it
doesn't:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_PathVariable" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q CONFIG=__ROOT__/does/not/exist foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
&PathVariable; provides a number of methods
that you can use to change this behavior.
If you want to ensure that any specified paths are,
in fact, files and not directories,
use the &PathVariable_PathIsFile; method as the validation function:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PathIsFile">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
PathVariable(
'CONFIG',
help='Path to configuration file',
default='__ROOT__/etc/my_config',
validator=PathVariable.PathIsFile,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'CONFIG_FILE': '"$CONFIG"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/etc/my_config">
/opt/location
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Conversely, to ensure that any specified paths are
directories and not files,
use the &PathVariable_PathIsDir; method as the validation function:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PathIsDir">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
PathVariable(
'DBDIR',
help='Path to database directory',
default='__ROOT__/var/my_dbdir',
validator=PathVariable.PathIsDir,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'DBDIR': '"$DBDIR"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/var/my_dbdir">
/opt/location
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
If you want to make sure that any specified paths
are directories,
and you would like the directory created
if it doesn't already exist,
use the &PathVariable_PathIsDirCreate; method as the validation function:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PathIsDirCreate">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
PathVariable(
'DBDIR',
help='Path to database directory',
default='__ROOT__/var/my_dbdir',
validator=PathVariable.PathIsDirCreate,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'DBDIR': '"$DBDIR"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/var/my_dbdir">
/opt/location
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Lastly, if you don't care whether the path exists,
is a file, or a directory,
use the &PathVariable_PathAccept; method
to accept any path you supply:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PathAccept">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables('custom.py')
vars.Add(
PathVariable(
'OUTPUT',
help='Path to output file or directory',
default=None,
validator=PathVariable.PathAccept,
)
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'OUTPUT': '"$OUTPUT"'})
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
</section>
<section>
<title>Enabled/Disabled Path Names: the &PackageVariable; Build Variable Function</title>
<para>
Sometimes you want to give
even more control over a path name variable,
allowing them to be explicitly enabled or disabled
by using <literal>yes</literal> or <literal>no</literal> keywords,
in addition to allowing supplying an explicit path name.
&SCons; provides the &PackageVariable;
function to support this:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_PackageVariable">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables("custom.py")
vars.Add(
PackageVariable("PACKAGE", help="Location package", default="__ROOT__/opt/location")
)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={"PACKAGE": '"$PACKAGE"'})
env.Program("foo.c")
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/opt/location">
/opt/location
</file>
<file name="__ROOT__/usr/local/location">
/opt/location
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
When the &SConscript; file uses the &PackageVariable; function,
you can still use the default
or supply an overriding path name,
but you can now explicitly set the
specified variable to a value
that indicates the package should be enabled
(in which case the default should be used)
or disabled:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_PackageVariable" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q PACKAGE=__ROOT__/usr/local/location foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q PACKAGE=yes foo.o</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q PACKAGE=no foo.o</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Adding Multiple Command-Line Build Variables at Once</title>
<para>
Lastly, &SCons; provides a way to add
multiple build variables to a &Variables; object at once.
Instead of having to call the &Add; method
multiple times, you can call the &AddVariables;
method with the build variables to be added to the object.
Each build variable is specified
as either a tuple of arguments,
or as a call to one of the pre-defined
functions for pre-packaged command-line build variables,
which returns such a tuple. Note that an individual tuple
cannot take keyword arguments in the way that a call to
&Add; or one of the build variable functions can.
The order of variables given to &AddVariables; does not
matter.
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_AddVariables_1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables()
vars.AddVariables(
('RELEASE', 'Set to 1 to build for release', 0),
('CONFIG', 'Configuration file', '/etc/my_config'),
BoolVariable('warnings', help='compilation with -Wall and similiar', default=1),
EnumVariable(
'debug',
help='debug output and symbols',
default='no',
allowed_values=('yes', 'no', 'full'),
map={},
ignorecase=0,
),
ListVariable(
'shared',
help='libraries to build as shared libraries',
default='all',
names=list_of_libs,
),
PackageVariable(
'x11', help='use X11 installed here (yes = search some places)', default='yes'
),
PathVariable('qtdir', help='where the root of Qt is installed', default=qtdir),
)
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Handling Unknown Command-Line Build Variables: the &UnknownVariables; Function</title>
<para>
Humans, of course,
occasionally misspell variable names in their command-line settings.
&SCons; does not generate an error or warning
for any unknown variables specified on the command line,
because it can not reliably tell
whether a given "misspelled" variable is
really unknown and a potential problem or not.
After all, you might be processing arguments directly
using &ARGUMENTS; or &ARGLIST; with some Python
code in your &SConscript; file.
</para>
<para>
If, however, you are using a &Variables; object to
define a specific set of command-line build variables
that you expect to be able to set,
you may want to provide an error
message or warning of your own
if a variable setting is specified
that is <emphasis>not</emphasis> among
the defined list of variable names known to the &Variables; object.
You can do this by calling the &UnknownVariables;
method of the &Variables; object to get the
settings &Variables; did not recognize:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_UnknownVariables">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
vars = Variables(None)
vars.Add('RELEASE', help='Set to 1 to build for release', default=0)
env = Environment(variables=vars, CPPDEFINES={'RELEASE_BUILD': '${RELEASE}'})
unknown = vars.UnknownVariables()
if unknown:
print("Unknown variables: %s" % " ".join(unknown.keys()))
Exit(1)
env.Program('foo.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
The &UnknownVariables; method returns a dictionary
containing the keywords and values
of any variables specified on the command line
that are <emphasis>not</emphasis>
among the variables known to the &Variables; object
(from having been specified using
the &Variables; object's &Add; method).
The example above,
checks whether the dictionary
returned by &UnknownVariables; is non-empty,
and if so prints the Python list
containing the names of the unknown variables
and then calls the &Exit; function
to terminate &SCons;:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_UnknownVariables" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q NOT_KNOWN=foo</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Of course, you can process the items in the
dictionary returned by the &UnknownVariables; function
in any way appropriate to your build configuration,
including just printing a warning message
but not exiting,
logging an error somewhere,
etc.
</para>
<para>
Note that you must delay the call of &UnknownVariables;
until after you have applied the &Variables; object
to a &consenv;
with the <parameter>variables=</parameter>
keyword argument of an &Environment; call: the variables
in the object are not fully processed until this has happened.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section id="sect-command-line-targets">
<title>Command-Line Targets</title>
<section>
<title>Fetching Command-Line Targets: the &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; Variable</title>
<para>
&SCons; provides a &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; variable
that lets you fetch the list of targets that were
specified on the command line.
You can use the targets to manipulate the
build in any way you wish.
As a simple example,
suppose that you want to print a reminder
whenever a specific program is built.
You can do this by checking for the
target in the &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; list:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
if 'bar' in COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS:
print("Don't forget to copy `bar' to the archive!")
Default(Program('foo.c'))
Program('bar.c')
</file>
<file name="foo.c">
foo.c
</file>
<file name="bar.c">
foo.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Now, running &SCons; with the default target
works as usual,
but explicity specifying the &bar; target
on the command line generates the warning message:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q bar</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Another practical use for the &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; variable
might be to speed up a build
by only reading certain subsidiary &SConscript;
files if a specific target is requested.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Controlling the Default Targets: the &Default; Function</title>
<para>
You can control
which targets &SCons; builds by default - that is,
when there are no targets specified on the command line.
As mentioned previously,
&SCons; normally builds every target
in or below the current directory unless you
explicitly specify one or more targets
on the command line.
Sometimes, however, you may want
to specify that only
certain programs, or programs in certain directories,
should be built by default.
You do this with the &Default; function:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Default1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
hello = env.Program('hello.c')
env.Program('goodbye.c')
Default(hello)
</file>
<file name="hello.c">
hello.c
</file>
<file name="goodbye.c">
goodbye.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
This &SConstruct; file knows how to build two programs,
&hello; and &goodbye;,
but only builds the
&hello; program by default:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Default1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q goodbye</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Note that, even when you use the &Default;
function in your &SConstruct; file,
you can still explicitly specify the current directory
(<literal>.</literal>) on the command line
to tell &SCons; to build
everything in (or below) the current directory:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Default1" suffix="2">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q .</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
You can also call the &Default;
function more than once,
in which case each call
adds to the list of targets to be built by default:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Default2">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
prog1 = env.Program('prog1.c')
Default(prog1)
prog2 = env.Program('prog2.c')
prog3 = env.Program('prog3.c')
Default(prog3)
</file>
<file name="prog1.c">
prog1.c
</file>
<file name="prog2.c">
prog2.c
</file>
<file name="prog3.c">
prog3.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Or you can specify more than one target
in a single call to the &Default; function:
</para>
<programlisting>
env = Environment()
prog1 = env.Program('prog1.c')
prog2 = env.Program('prog2.c')
prog3 = env.Program('prog3.c')
Default(prog1, prog3)
</programlisting>
<para>
Either of these last two examples
build only the
<application>prog1</application>
and
<application>prog3</application>
programs by default:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Default2" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q .</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
You can list a directory as
an argument to &Default;:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Default3">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
env.Program(['prog1/main.c', 'prog1/foo.c'])
env.Program(['prog2/main.c', 'prog2/bar.c'])
Default('prog1')
</file>
<directory name="prog1"></directory>
<directory name="prog2"></directory>
<file name="prog1/main.c">
int main() { printf("prog1/main.c\n"); }
</file>
<file name="prog1/foo.c">
int foo() { printf("prog1/foo.c\n"); }
</file>
<file name="prog2/main.c">
int main() { printf("prog2/main.c\n"); }
</file>
<file name="prog2/bar.c">
int bar() { printf("prog2/bar.c\n"); }
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
In which case only the target(s) in that
directory are built by default:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Default3" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q .</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Lastly, if for some reason you don't want
any targets built by default,
you can use the Python <constant>None</constant>
variable:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_Default4">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
prog1 = env.Program('prog1.c')
prog2 = env.Program('prog2.c')
Default(None)
</file>
<file name="prog1.c">
prog1.c
</file>
<file name="prog2.c">
prog2.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Which would produce build output like:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_Default4" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q .</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<section>
<title>Fetching the List of Default Targets: the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; Variable</title>
<para>
&SCons; provides a &DEFAULT_TARGETS; variable
that lets you get at the current list of default targets
specified by calls to the &Default; function or method.
The &DEFAULT_TARGETS; variable has
two important differences from the &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; variable.
First, the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; variable is a list of
internal &SCons; nodes,
so you need to convert the list elements to strings
if you want to print them or look for a specific target name.
You can do this easily by calling the <function>str</function>
on the elements in a list comprehension:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_DEFAULT_TARGETS_1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
prog1 = Program('prog1.c')
Default(prog1)
print("DEFAULT_TARGETS is %s" % [str(t) for t in DEFAULT_TARGETS])
</file>
<file name="prog1.c">
prog1.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
(Keep in mind that all of the manipulation of the
&DEFAULT_TARGETS; list takes place during the
first phase when &SCons; is reading up the &SConscript; files,
which is obvious if
you leave off the <option>-Q</option> flag when you run &SCons;:)
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_DEFAULT_TARGETS_1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
Second,
the contents of the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; list changes
in response to calls to the &Default; function,
as you can see from the following &SConstruct; file:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_DEFAULT_TARGETS_2">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
prog1 = Program('prog1.c')
Default(prog1)
print("DEFAULT_TARGETS is now %s" % [str(t) for t in DEFAULT_TARGETS])
prog2 = Program('prog2.c')
Default(prog2)
print("DEFAULT_TARGETS is now %s" % [str(t) for t in DEFAULT_TARGETS])
</file>
<file name="prog1.c">
prog1.c
</file>
<file name="prog2.c">
prog2.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Which yields the output:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_DEFAULT_TARGETS_2" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
<para>
In practice, this simply means that you
need to pay attention to the order in
which you call the &Default; function
and refer to the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; list,
to make sure that you don't examine the
list before you have added the default targets
you expect to find in it.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Fetching the List of Build Targets, Regardless of Origin: the &BUILD_TARGETS; Variable</title>
<para>
You have already seen the
&COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS; variable,
which contains a list of targets specified on the command line,
and the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; variable,
which contains a list of targets specified
via calls to the &Default; method or function.
Sometimes, however,
you want a list of whatever targets
&SCons; tries to build,
regardless of whether the targets came from the
command line or a &Default; call.
You could code this up by hand, as follows:
</para>
<sconstruct>
if COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS:
targets = COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS
else:
targets = DEFAULT_TARGETS
</sconstruct>
<para>
&SCons;, however, provides a convenient
&BUILD_TARGETS; variable
that eliminates the need for this by-hand manipulation.
Essentially, the &BUILD_TARGETS; variable
contains a list of the command-line targets,
if any were specified,
and if no command-line targets were specified,
it contains a list of the targets specified
via the &Default; method or function.
</para>
<para>
Because &BUILD_TARGETS; may contain a list of &SCons; nodes,
you must convert the list elements to strings
if you want to print them or look for a specific target name,
just like the &DEFAULT_TARGETS; list:
</para>
<scons_example name="commandline_BUILD_TARGETS_1">
<file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
prog1 = Program('prog1.c')
Program('prog2.c')
Default(prog1)
print("BUILD_TARGETS is %s" % [str(t) for t in BUILD_TARGETS])
</file>
<file name="prog1.c">
prog1.c
</file>
<file name="prog2.c">
prog2.c
</file>
</scons_example>
<para>
Notice how the value of &BUILD_TARGETS;
changes depending on whether a target is
specified on the command line - &BUILD_TARGETS;
takes from &DEFAULT_TARGETS;
only if there are no &COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS;:
</para>
<scons_output example="commandline_BUILD_TARGETS_1" suffix="1">
<scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q prog2</scons_output_command>
<scons_output_command>scons -Q -c .</scons_output_command>
</scons_output>
</section>
</section>
</chapter>