Re: Support for shell variables in the EPICS build system

[Andrew Johnson <anj@aps.anl.gov>]

On Tuesday 09 December 2008 15:56:34 Remi Machet wrote:
>
> I am used to work on multiple projects at the same time and I have seen
> over the years that even on a single project, having multiple 'views' of
> a software can increase quite a lot productivity (like a base with extra
> printf and one other clean). I am trying to setup an EPICS environment
> that can do exactly that for myself.

You can turn off the checkRelease process for a module if you want it to be 
able to use a different support module than any related modules are using 
directly, such as switching to a different version of Base.  To do that edit 
the module's configure/Makefile and set CHECK_RELEASE to NO, change the 
configure/RELEASE file (or any file it includes) as needed, and then do 
a 'make rebuild' from the top directory of the module.

> I would suggest modifying convertRelease.pl to at least explicitly
> refuse using environment variables (ie : display an error message when
> one is found), because it can get extremely confusing for newbies (right
> now the variable is just replaced by '').

The following patch to Base will cause convertRelease.pl to output a warning 
whenever it attempts to expand an undefined variable.  If this helps I think 
it would be a worthwhile change to include -- thanks for the suggestion.

Index: src/tools/EPICS/Release.pm
===================================================================
--- src/tools/EPICS/Release.pm    29 Aug 2008 21:06:56 -0000      1.1.2.2
+++ src/tools/EPICS/Release.pm    9 Dec 2008 22:36:37 -0000
@@ -84,6 +84,8 @@ sub expandRelease {

     while (my ($macro, $path) = each %$Rmacros) {
         while (my ($pre,$var,$post) = $path =~ m/(.*)\$\((\w+?)\)(.*)/) {
+            warn "Undefined macro \$($var) used in RELEASE file\n"
+                unless exists $Rmacros->{$var};
             $path = $pre . $Rmacros->{$var} . $post;
             $Rmacros->{$macro} = $path;
         }


- Andrew
-- 
The best FOSS code is written to be read by other humans -- Harold Welte