[A-a-p-user] Re: thoughts on the :child command

[John W. <jr...@po...>]

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 12:07:39 +0100, Bram Moolenaar wrote:
> What you did with $Top works and I don't see a real problem with it.
> Except that it takes a bit of effort to make the paths relative (take
> $TOPDIR and replace each part with "..").  Does this happen often enough
> to add a feature in Aap for this?  I suppose it does.

I think it should be added mainly because it would be pretty easy to
implement in the recipe executive but really ugly to implement in a
recipe.  I'll try to submit a patch in the next few days.

> What would be good names for these variables?  $PARENTDIR sounds
> obvious, but $TOPDIR is confusing.  I think backwards compatibility is
> important, thus we can't change the existing $TOPDIR.  $TOPLEVELDIR?
> $STARTDIR?  $ROOTDIR?

I think anything with "TOP" in it would be prone to confusion with
$TOPDIR, and "ROOT" seems wrong, too, since it already has a meaning in
file system jargon.  How about $PARENTDIR for the directory of the
immediate parent, and $STARTDIR for the directory of the top-level recipe?

> An alternative would be to provide a function that turns $TOPDIR into
> a path with ".." parts.  But that will not be easy to understand.

I think just adding the directory variables would be the most direct
solution; plus a Python function would have to be called in each child
recipe to get the desired effect; I'm generally opposed to anything that
can't be cleanly factored out.

>> My next problem is that the shared library built in src/lib/child.aap
>> doesn't get added to the dependencies of the 'all' target.
> 
> This is a known bug, Adriaan also reported it.

Oops.  Thanks for the workaround.