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digitalmars.D.learn - Use dub to create source lib and executables

reply Chris Piker <chris hoopjump.com> writes:
Hi D

I normally work in a *nix environment, typically on server-side 
code.  For many projects I have gnu makefiles that build a small 
lib along with command line utilities.

Up to now I've been creating a dub.json file for just the 
sourceLibrary, and then putting embedded dub comments at the top 
of each of the utility programs.  The utilities are built via  
`dub build --single` and a thin makefile triggers all the dub 
commands.

This method is inefficient, and it won't work in a typical 
Windows dev environment, so today I'm trying to remove gnu make 
from the picture.  Going back to basics, does anyone know of a 
clear example of how to convert this simplified makefile into 1-N 
dub files?:

```makefile




outdir/%:utils/%.d outdir/mylib.a
     dmd -I libsrc -od=outdir -of=$  $^


build:outdir/mylib.a outdir/prog1 outdir/prog2 | outdir


outdir:
      if [ ! -e outdir ]; then mkdir outdir; fi


outdir/mylib.a:libsrc/mod1.d libsrc/mod2.d
     dmd -lib -od=outdir -of=$  $^
```
This is a paired down example since `make test` and `make 
install` aren't present, but I hope the main ideas are apparent.

I've been at it now for about four hours, with lots of 
web-searches (btw, thanks to schveiguy for getting me this far) 
but I haven't figured out what hierarchy of dub constructs I need 
to create to order to get the effect of the small make file above.

Thanks for considering the question,
Mar 04 2023
parent reply Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
On 3/4/23 1:33 PM, Chris Piker wrote:

 Hi D
 
 I normally work in a *nix environment, typically on server-side code.  
 For many projects I have gnu makefiles that build a small lib along with 
 command line utilities.
 
 Up to now I've been creating a dub.json file for just the sourceLibrary, 
 and then putting embedded dub comments at the top of each of the utility 
 programs.  The utilities are built via `dub build --single` and a thin 
 makefile triggers all the dub commands.
 
 This method is inefficient, and it won't work in a typical Windows dev 
 environment, so today I'm trying to remove gnu make from the picture.  
 Going back to basics, does anyone know of a clear example of how to 
 convert this simplified makefile into 1-N dub files?:
 
 ```makefile


 

 outdir/%:utils/%.d outdir/mylib.a
      dmd -I libsrc -od=outdir -of=$  $^
 

 build:outdir/mylib.a outdir/prog1 outdir/prog2 | outdir
 

 outdir:
       if [ ! -e outdir ]; then mkdir outdir; fi
 

 outdir/mylib.a:libsrc/mod1.d libsrc/mod2.d
      dmd -lib -od=outdir -of=$  $^
 ```
 This is a paired down example since `make test` and `make install` 
 aren't present, but I hope the main ideas are apparent.
 
 I've been at it now for about four hours, with lots of web-searches 
 (btw, thanks to schveiguy for getting me this far) but I haven't figured 
 out what hierarchy of dub constructs I need to create to order to get 
 the effect of the small make file above.
 
 Thanks for considering the question,
 
 


If you mean that you have multiple subprojects inside your main dub 
project, my advice is to follow what other such projects do. I always 
look at vibe for my example.

dub isn't great when it comes to the "one true way" to specify this. You 
can actually create a dub subproject inside your dub file, or create dub 
files inside all your other subproject folders, and tag them as 
subprojects of the main project.

I've tried both ways, and I find the latter to be easier to deal with. 
This is what vibe does.

-Steve
Mar 04 2023
parent reply Chris Piker <chris hoopjump.com> writes:
On Saturday, 4 March 2023 at 20:23:29 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:

 On 3/4/23 1:33 PM, Chris Piker wrote:

 If you mean that you have multiple subprojects inside your main 
 dub project, my advice is to follow what other such projects 
 do. I always look at vibe for my example.


I have been trying to do that for hours, and all I get is cryptic 
error messages from dub.  I've tried all in one top level 
dub.json, I've tried three dub.json files, one at the top level 
and one for each of lib and utilities.  The fact that dub 
considers the output of a project to only be a single lib, exc, 
etc. is quite restrictive and it means we have to have a target 
of "none" and then subprojects, which is cumbersome at best.

Maybe it's just the frustration talking, but it seems wrong that 
a build rule that is so trivial to construct using 1980s 
makefiles is so hard today.  If I wasn't trying to blend in I 
would have just given up a long time ago.

But thanks for mentioning vibe.d as an example I'll take a look.
Mar 04 2023
parent reply "Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole" <richard cattermole.co.nz> writes:
Yes dub was setup to cover the most common cases, but ignores when you 
have multiple outputs. Not ideal.

There is a PR to add build steps currently, which will help improve 
things, so there is work to make dub better at these less common use cases.

The simplest solution is to do one package per binary, then use a shell 
script to trigger them in succession, not great but a workable solution.
Mar 04 2023
parent Chris Piker <chris hoopjump.com> writes:
On Saturday, 4 March 2023 at 21:31:09 UTC, Richard (Rikki) Andrew 
Cattermole wrote:

 Yes dub was setup to cover the most common cases, but ignores 
 when you have multiple outputs. Not ideal.

 There is a PR to add build steps currently, which will help 
 improve things, so there is work to make dub better at these 
 less common use cases.

 The simplest solution is to do one package per binary, then use 
 a shell script to trigger them in succession, not great but a 
 workable solution.


It's interesting to hear that multiple outputs are rare for other 
developers.

So I was hoping to do away with shell scripts (or make) since dub 
is common on all systems, but alas it's not worth the effort, so 
I won't continue to try and make `"targetType":"none"` work.

By the way, do you know if there will be a dub "build-all" type 
command in the future?
Mar 04 2023