Re: GSMake intermediates in separate folder?

[Nicola Pero]

> Hi,
> 
>  any chance of adding the following to common.make?
> 
>    # Make sure all intermediate files go in a "build" folder so
>    # they don't clutter our window:
>    GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR = build
>    DERIVED_SRC= $(GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR)/$(DERIVED_SRC)
> 
> This will generate all intermediate files (obj, shared_obj, derived_src 
> etc.) in a separate "build" folder, which is less intrusive on the 
> user's folder hierarchy than having them all next to the makefile.
> 
> I chose the name "build" because that's what Apple's xCode (fka Project 
> Builder) calls its intermediates folder.

Thanks.

The support for a separate build directory is there and works for usual
projects, but some of the more complicated stuff is not finished, -- so
complicated projects, particularly when autoconf is used at the same time
-- most notably gnustep-base -- won't compile with a separate build dir
yet.  If autoconf is involved, usually it is harder to make things work
together and changes to the way the autoconf files are organized is (IIRC)  
going to be required.  I didn't finish (actually, I didn't start) doing
that for gnustep-base, so it's not finished yet.

For this reason is probably not a good idea to use a separate build dir by
default, since it wouldn't always work. :-)

Btw of course if we were to use a separate build dir by default, the stock
commands would be quite different, we probably set GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR to
'build' only at the very first top-level invocation, and DERIVED_SRC is
already automatically set properly when GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR is set.

--

I suppose if you want to use a build dir in all your projects, you will be 
stuck running

make GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR=build

that might be annoying, so maybe make an alias for that -

alias m='make GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR=build'

then you just type 'm' to run 'make GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR=build'.

The reason I'd suggest making a separate alias from 'make' is that you
might still occasionally want to use 'make' without GNUSTEP_BUILD_DIR set, 
eg when compiling gnustep-base.

Anyway, that's just a suggestion, you probably have your own way of using 
aliases or shells. :-)

--

Thanks for your comments