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Python based Build System

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Jon Voigt Tøttrup edited this page Jun 15, 2018 · 3 revisions

"I'm never writing another goddarn make-file!" - Jon V. Tøttrup, June 2018

The PBS offers a different kind of flexibility that a make file does not: the PBS is able to dynamically determine the build-order for our C project, based on the executable we want to build. Since every test-module must be compiled to a single individual program, a make file would end up being rather elaborate. This is not a problem when using the PBS.

Using the PBS

The PBS currently takes two parameters: a path to a .c-file containing a main-function and the name of the binary to create. It requires python3 in order to run. The PBS can be run with bash using the command python3 build_c.py <main file> <output path>. The result of running this command is a binary located at the output-path. Currently, the PBS uses the gcc compiler, along with the compiler-flag -Wall which enables all warnings.

Inner workings

The PBS consists of simply the build_c.py file in the root of our project. This file contains 75 lines of python code. The code currently reads through the given .c-file marked as main and gathers the paths to that file's dependencies. The dependencies of these dependencies are then added and this process is recursively repeated until we've added all the dependencies. Once all dependencies have been gathered, the build order is created by adding the source-files' dependencies in post-order.

Possible expansions

It could be nice if the PBS could:

  • Build .dll / .lib files as well, instead of just binaries.

  • Build several test-programs and bundle them into a single script / executable.

  • Possibility of 'flattening' the source code to a single .c-file for submitting to grading systems, such as code-judge.

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