Prebuild configurations for distributions

This is a useful feature if you want to make a part of workspace available for third party without changing the configuration.

There are two major use cases:

  • Only a few projects shall be closed source (e.g. to hide some algorithms)

  • Only a few projects shall be open source (e.g. if a supplier has integrate a library)

Both is possible with bake, but the current UI is optimized for the latter one.

Add in the Project.meta the following code:

Prebuild {
  Except main, config: Debug
  Except newLib, config: Debug
  Except setup, config: Release
}

It is possible to specify the Prebuild tags in all configurations, not only in the main configuration. Logically, they will be merged.

In the example above, no configurations will be built - except those three. The prebuild output is used directly.

To reference a configuration of the same project, omit the project name, e.g.:

Except config: Base

To reference all configuration of a project, omit the config name, e.g.:

Except newLib

This prebuild behaviour must be explicitly turned on by using the following the command line argument:

--prebuild

Note, that if objects files exist, the library will be built from existing object files (glob for *.o in appropriate build folder). If only the archive exists, the archive will be used without building it.

Typical workflow

  1. Compiling the workspace completely without prebuild feature.

  2. Executing a distribution script which copies all relevant files to a distribution directory. Make sure to add all header files of prebuilt libraries if they are needed for other non-prebuilt libraries. You may use the dependency files in the output directory for that script.

  3. In the distribution folder use “–prebuild” when compiling the workspace.