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| -rw-r--r-- | libbuild2/context.hxx | 24 |
1 files changed, 23 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/libbuild2/context.hxx b/libbuild2/context.hxx index 24aca82..25a0672 100644 --- a/libbuild2/context.hxx +++ b/libbuild2/context.hxx @@ -494,10 +494,32 @@ namespace build2 // symbolic - make a symbolic link. // hard - make a hard link. // copy - make a copy. - // overwrite - copy over but don't remove on clean (committed gen code). + // overwrite - copy over but don't remove on clean. // // Note that it can be set by a matching rule as a rule-specific variable. // + // Note also that the overwrite mode was originally meant for handling + // pregenerated source code. But in the end this did not pan out for + // the following reasons: + // + // 1. This would mean that the pregenerated and regenerated files end up + // in the same place (e.g., depending on the develop mode) and it's + // hard to make this work without resorting to a conditional graph. + // + // This could potentially be addressed by allowing backlink to specify + // a different location (similar to dist). + // + // 2. This support for pregenerated source code would be tied to forwarded + // configurations. + // + // Nevertheless, there may be a kernel of an idea here in that we may be + // able to provide a built-in "post-copy" mechanism which would allow one + // to have a pregenerated setup even when using non-ad hoc recipes + // (currently we just manually diff/copy stuff at the end of a recipe). + // (Or maybe we should stick to ad hoc recipes with post-diff/copy and + // just expose a mechanism to delegate to a different rule, which we + // already have). + // // [string] target visibility // const variable* var_backlink; |