source: branches/libc-0.6/src/emx/build.txt@ 2498

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                       The Modular Building System (MoBuS)

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The goal of the build system
----------------------------

MoBuS was projected with several goals in mind:

- Simplicity of use. Most makefile magic should go in a few relatively
  complex central makefiles, simplifying the 'end-user' makefiles.
  In fact, the build system is simple enough for use without even
  looking into these docs.

- Universality. This makefile system can be easily used in any projects,
  just by copying root makefiles and creating a few .smak files.

- Flexibility. Simplicity should not make impossible to write complex
  building rules, especially since our primary goal is the OS/2 C runtime,
  which is a very complex thing per se.

- Modularity. New building modules should be added and old removed without
  even having to touch the root makefiles. The build system should adapt
  automatically to every change.

- Multi-option. The ability to build same file with several sets of
  options (e.g. -Zmt and -pg), which implies a separate output directory for
  every flavour of output files.

- Portability. This is a secondary target, though the build subsystem can
  be easily used in other operating systems (a few modifications still have
  to be made first, e.g. including a platform-specific .smak file which
  would set up every platform-specific aspect).


Glossary of terms used in MoBuS
-------------------------------

target - a particular executable, library and so on.

module - a set of targets, unified by a common functionality
  (example: targets emxomf.exe, emxomfar.exe, emxomfld.exe,
  emxaout.exe, listomf.exe are parts of module emxomf).

persistent variable - a make variable that does not change its value
  radically (e.g. some persistent variables can be appended to but never
  assigned a totally different value). For example CFLAGS is a persistent
  variable; submakefiles could append something to CFLAGS (which is a bad
  idea anyways since it will unpredictably affect all modules) but this
  doesn't change its contents radically.

local variable - a temporary variable used in some section of makefile
  and then can be reused for anything other. For easier reading such
  variables are prefixed by '.', e.g. ".LOCAL" is a local variable,
  while "LOCAL" is a persistent variable. When you reference local
  variables it is highly advised to use the ':=' assignment rather
  than '=' since when using ':=' the assigned value is expanded
  immediately.

builder - a special submakefile that defines all the rules required
  to build some target. Their name starts with 'mk', for example mkexe.smak
  prepares everything needed to build a .exe target and so on.


Using MoBuS
-----------

Every time you start 'make', MoBuS searches all subdirectories for files
ending with '.smak' (smak stands for 'Sub-Makefile': I have chosen .smak
instead of .mak because EM already used .mak extension for his makefiles
and they would conflict with MoBuS).

Every submakefile defines a number of special variables that control the
build process for a specific target. After they are given values, you usually
include one of the builders (we'll list them later) that prepares
everything required for the actual building. Most of these variables are
cleared to avoid their value to be incidentally passed to another submakefile
(which is almost certainly not what you want). If you don't want this to happen,
you can assign any value to the special variable .TKEEP. Here is the full list
of variables that control the build process:

.INSDIR - (optional) directory inside the installation tree for targets.
  For example, it could be 'bin/' (without quotes), or 'lib/st/' and so on.
  This variable is NOT cleared after the inclusion of builders since
  you may want many targets to be placed in the same install directory,
  and you would have to redefine .INSDIR before every target.

.MODULE - The name of current module. As explained above, a module can consist
  of many submakefiles, and is a minimal build unit.

.MDESC - (optional) module description. This is displayed when you type
  'make help' in the module list section.

.MDEP - (optional) module dependencies. This is useful if current module
  requires another module to be built first (e.g. a library). It usually
  contains the name of another module (e.g. .MDEP := os2).

.TARGET - The name of target (e.g. executable or library file name without dir).
  For example: .TARGET := myfile.exe

.TKIND - (optional) The kind of target. It can consist of up to three
  components, the first one defines the object file format (omf or aout,
  if not defined defaults to omf), the second can be 'prof' to build in
  profiling mode.
  Example: .TKIND := omf prof

.TKVAR - (optional) The variant of target. This is handy if one need to build
  the same sources several times with different flags.
  Exampel: .TKVAR := tcpipv4

.TDEP - Dependencies for target (not built from a source file). For example,
  this could be a library built in another module, or a pre-compiled library.
  A special sequence @O@ in $(.TDEP) is replaced with the base directory for
  object files (for example, out/dbg/aout-st-prof/).

.TSRC - The list of source files for this target. They should never be
  absolute paths, since object file names are created by prefixing source
  file directory with output directory (e.g. src/emxbind/emxbind.c will be
  compiled to $(OUT)src/emxbind/emxbind.o).

.TCF - The C compiler flags for C files listed in .TSRC.
.TCF.srcfile - You can define some specific C compiler flags for just one
  source file (for example .TCF.src/emx/ld/ld.c=-D__SOMETHING)

.TSF - Assembler flags for all .s files listed in .TSRC
.TSF{.srcfile} - Assembler (.s) flags for GAS for a specific source file.

.TAF - Assembler (MASM or ML) flags for all .asm files listed in .TSRC
.TAF{.srcfile} - Assembler flags for a specific .asm file listed in .TSRC.

.TLDF - Target-specific linker flags (for linked targets such as .exe
  and .dll files).

.TKEEP - If defined, all .XXX variables will be not undefined. This can be
  used if you want to share some of the .XXX variables between several targets
  (for example .TSRC). WARNING: Take care they accidentaly to not be passed
  to another submakefile!

After you assign values to above liste variables, you can include one of the
following builders:

mkexe.smak - this builder treats .TARGET as a executable. It defines all
  rules required for building all object files and then linking them together
  to form a executable.

mklib.smak - this builder creates a library. It defines all rules required
  for building all object files and then runs the librarian which binds all
  object files together in a single library. Besides, if the file format is
  a.out, it also defines a target called '$(.MODULE)@omf' (e.g. for module
  zzz it also defines a module called zzz@omf) which will build the OMF
  library from its a.out counterpart by using emxomf.

Here is a simple example of a submakefile that will build a simple helloworld
executable:

--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------
# $Id: build.txt 885 2003-12-08 05:42:10Z bird $

.MODULE := helloworld
.MDESC  := Build a helloworld executable
.INSDIR := bin/

.TARGET := helloworld.exe
.TSRC   := $(wildcard src/helloworld/*.c)
include mkexe.smak
--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------8<--------


Understanding build system
--------------------------

First of all, it would be nice to have handy the GNU Make manual before
starting to look into the makefiles. They use complex expressions, and it
would be hard to understand them without knowing how GNU Make works.

The core of the build system are: the root Makefile and several .smak files
The root makefile does the following:

- Defines the build environment (tools, flags and so on)
- Searches for all submakefiles (.smak files) and includes them.
- Defines the rule for displaying a help (when you run make without
  arguments).
- Defines the rule for re-building the 'build rules file'. The later
  is a collection of rules of the traditional form:

  sometarget: somesource
        commands-to-execute

  and is placed in a auto-built .smak files in the output directory.
- Defines the rule for auto-creating output directories. The
  submakefiles appends the output directories they need to the
  variable TARGDIRS.
- Defines the install: target which should create a complete
  distribution tree.

The base directory for output files is assigned to the variable OUT.
In general, directory names through the makefiles have a forward slash
appended (first, for easy visual separation of directory names and second,
for simpler usage, e.g. $(OUT)myfile.o rather than $(OUT)/myfile.o).

Every target can be of a specific 'kind', e.g. to require a specific
pre-defined set of compiler flags. When compiling multiple kinds of object
files from a single source file they are put under different output directories
(e.g. single-threaded OMF object files go into $(OUT)/omf-st/ directory while
multi-threaded a.out object files with profiling go into $(OUT)/aout-prof/
directory). This way, you can have several targets that are built from the
same source files with different compilation options.