BashBuild

BashBuild is a minimalist build system, implemented entirely in a single file of shell script.

Why Another Build System?

There is clearly a large contingent of people who are dissatisfied with GNU Autotools, as evidenced by the proliferation of alternative build systems.

But people are still used to Autotools. If you regularly compile programs from source on Linux, you probably have make installed, and you are probably well used to the familiar ./configure && make && sudo make install process. Given this widespread familiarity, it seems like a waste to make people learn a whole new system just to compile a program.

BashBuild is vaguely modelled on GNU Autotools, in that it has a configure script, which generates a makefile, which compiles the program. It is completely different past that point. BashBuild requires only a handful of variables, and then gets out of the way to let you develop your program.

Why Shell Script?

BashBuild uses shell script for the same reason that authentic Autotools- generated shell scripts do:

Shell script is everywhere

It is perfectly understandable that a system might be lacking Perl, or Python, or Ruby, but it is simply unthinkable that a modern, general-use system could be found that lacks /bin/sh.

How Do I Use It?

Copy the configure script into your project directory. Modify the variables, setting at least the project name. Everything else is optional. Unused variables should be set equal to the null string.

The VERSION variable is currently unused, but may be used in future versions of BashBuild to generate a config.h file.

The SOURCES list, surprisingly, is a list of program source files. These files should be named relative to the directory holding the script.

The LIBRARIES variable holds a list of libraries the program should link to.

The OUTPUT variable can select between a shared library, a static library, or an executable. Any value other than shared or static will be interpreted as an executable.

The SUBPROJECTS variable lists subprojects contained in subdirectories. In this way, projects can contain subprojects, which will be recursively configured, compiled, and installed.

The LIBDIRS and INCDIRS variables specify nonstandard paths for libraries and include files.

The PREFIX variable specifies the default install root if none is provided.

The CCFLAGS and LDFLAGS variables specify additional arguments for the compiler and linker.

Once these variables have been set, building the project is as simple as running ./configure && make.