Problems with generator() and/or custom

Tom Schutter

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Feb 11, 2018, 7:44:20 PM2/11/18

to The Meson Build System

I am trying to figure out how to use generator() and/or custom_target().

I have an IDL compiler that reads a .idl file and generates a .h file. Each .idl file is also paired with a .user-created .c file. That .c file (and others) include the generated .h file.

I created a generator like this:

  idl2c = generator(
    idl2c_exe,
    output: ['@BASENAME@.h'],
    arguments: ['-O@BUILD_DIR@', '@INPUT@']
  )

The idea would be to have lines like this in my build.meson files:

  idl2c.process('foo.idl', 'bar.idl', 'baz.idl', <and more>)

But that does not do anything, I believe that is because nothing depends upon the output from idl2c.process(). I have tried creating a custom_target that uses idl2c.process() but have gotten nowhere.

In addition, the doc says that each output will be created in a target-private directory @BUILD_DIR@. But I need this output to be in a non-target-private directory so that all of the .c files can locate the generated .h file.

There are hundreds of .idl files, so I do not want to create a custom_target for each one.

Where do I go from here?

Jussi Pakkanen

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Feb 12, 2018, 4:27:32 AM2/12/18

to Tom Schutter, The Meson Build System

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 2:44 AM, Tom Schutter <tschu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The idea would be to have lines like this in my build.meson files:
> idl2c.process('foo.idl', 'bar.idl', 'baz.idl', <and more>)

You need to put the output of that command to the target where you
want to use the files. So something like:

gen_srcs = idl2c.process(...)
executable('mytarget', 'main.c', gen_srcs)