20 Tools to "make" or "build" Software
Description
This article is from the Configuration Management Tools FAQ, by Dave Eaton dwe@arde.com with numerous contributions by others.
20 Tools to "make" or "build" Software
While these are not "CM" tools in the general sense, the make or build
function is an intimate part of the overall CM process. Some
commercial CM tools include their own make or build capability. There
are also stand-alone commercial build tools available, but those are
beyond the scope of this FAQ. The tools listed here all have source
which is freely available and these tools have been mentioned in
articles posted on this newsgroup. Please follow the pointers to the
specific tool information.
Ant
Ant is a Java based build tool which is different from other "make"
type tools. Ant is extended using Java classes rather than shell
commands. Instead of writing shell commands and the configuration
files are XML based calling out a target tree where various tasks get
executed rather than Makefiles. For more information, see the Web site
at http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/.
Bake
Bake is an intelligent Open Source build tool for developers. Its
features include: "automagic dependency information gathering" and it
is released under the WERKEN PUBLIC LICENSE (WPL), an Open Source
license. Additional information may be found at
http://bake.werken.com/.
Bras
Rule Based Command Execution: http://bras.berlios.de/ It is written in
Tcl, so no compilation is required. Its rules include a Tcl-syntax so
that commands associated with rules may contain control structures.
BuildRef
This toolset manages references between baseline builds when compiling
large software projects that consist of multiple smaller projects. It
is listed with other utilities at:
http://www.sander.cupertino.ca.us/source.html
Cons
A software construction system: http://www.dsmit.com/cons/ CONS is a
Perl5-based replacement for MAKE, though it is not compatible with
make. Reportedly, it has a number of capabilities not found in other
software construction systems, including make. CONS supports building
on both UNIX operating systems and Windows NT. CONS is distributed
under a license similar to the BSD license. An FAQ is available at
http://www.baldmt.com/cons-faq/
Cook
A software build tool: http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/cook.html
Cook is a tool for constructing files. It is given a set of files to
create, and recipes of how to create them. The source distribution is
self configuring using a GNU Autoconf generated configure script.
Jam
Make(1) Redux: http://www.perforce.com/jam/jam.html Jam/MR is a
make(1) replacement that makes building simple things simple and
building complicated things manageable. The Jam/MR source code is
freely available from Perforce Software, and comes with no warranty,
guarantee, or user support.
Odin
Not a CM tool, but according to author Geoffrey Clemm, Odin is a
simpler, more reliable, and more powerful replacement for Make. It is
designed to combine the simplicity and elegance of the original Make
program with the power of the latest super-Makes. Some of Odin's
features include:
* building several variants concurrently from a single source tree
* parallel builds on multiple remote hosts
* persistent dependency database with incremental update
* building directly from arbitrary versions of RCS and SCCS files,
without requiring checkout of working copy
* complete separation between build rules and system definitions
Odin is distributed under the GNU General Public License. The source
code and reference manual for Odin can be retrieved via anonymous ftp
from ftp://ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/distribs/odin/ You can subscribe to
the Odin mailing list (odin@cs.colorado.edu) by sending a "subscribe
odin" mail message to odin-request@cs.colorado.edu.
SCons
SCons is a software construction tool (build tool, or alternative to
Make) implemented in Python, based on the winning design in the
Software Carpentry build tool competition (in turn based on the Cons
build tool). A web site is available at: http://www.scons.org/.
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