Autotools and project dependencies

[thomas.moulard]

Hi!
I'm trying to generate a CodeBlocks workspace+projects from Autotools scripts.

It works fine for the "basic" cases, but if one have a more complex project, some Autotools "features" are quite difficult to translate:

1/ Autotools convenience libraries:

To simulate the convenience libraries (ie: non distributed static libraries used during the compilation process, for example to compile differents modules), I'm using the project's dependencies system of C::B.

For example, I've the following project:
myproject depends on libmyproject
libmyproject depends on core, graphic, audio

Each module is a project in C::B with dependencies.

Each subproject creates a static library.
The main project is linked against the static libraries which are produced by the sub-projects.

The problem is the following: when I modify a source file from a subproject, the static libraries are rebuilt but the main program is not relinked (ie: the binary is not updated).

I have to rebuilt the entire project to regenerate the binary which is very slow.

Is there a workaround to fix this problem?


2/ LIBADD

Autotools offers the possibility to merge several libraries with LIBADD.
With the previous example, it allows me to generate a libmyproject.a which contains the sublibraries.

This is a major issue because it solves a lot of problems due to mutual dependencies of the static libraries.

Is there a way to do it with CodeBlocks?


3/ Will be any effort to use Autotools instead of a simple Makefile in C::B?

It would be /IMHO/ a better solution to reuse the Autotools (libtool...) instead of developing yet-another-build-system. In my mind, a compilation chain and an IDE are two independant subjects.

Thank you!

[dje]

Hi !

I have to rebuilt the entire project to regenerate the binary which is very slow.

Isn't sufficient to type a space in the shortest cpp file to force the compilation of this single file and force the link instead of rebuilding the whole project ?
I have no answer for other questions.

Dje

[mandrav]

1) You have to add the library as an external dependency to the targets you want to be relinked when the library is changed ("Project->Properties->Build targets->[select target]->External dependencies" is the GUI dialog I mean).

2) Although I haven't tried this you could create a project (or a target, whatever) and add the sub-libraries to the project (so that they appear on the tree). Then for each library turn of the "compile" flag and turn on the "link" flag (right-click on a lib in the tree and click Properties).

Of course, it's possible to do the above stuff programmatically. The GUI dialogs were only mentioned as a visual aid for what I meant.