Beaver

Simple but capable build system and command runner for any project.

Beaver is a ruby library, which means your build scripts have the power of an entire language at their fingertips.

It is an excellent replacement for make/cmake.

As a cmake replacement

Project.new("MyProject", build_dir: "out")

C::Library.new(
    name: "MyLibrary",
    sources: ["lib/*.c"],
    include: "include"
)

C::Library.pkg_config("SDL2")

C::Executable.new(
    name: "my_exec",
    sources: "src/*.c",
    dependencies: ["MyLibrary", "SDL2"]
)

As a make replacement

OUT="out"
env :CC, "clang"

cmd :build do
    call :build_objects
    call :create_executable
end

cmd :build_objects, each("src/*.c"), out: proc { |f| File.join(OUT, f.path + ".o") } do |file, outfile|
    sh "#{CC} -c #{file} $(pkg-config sdl2 --cflags) -o #{outfile}"
end

cmd :create_executable, all(File.join(OUT, "*.o")), out: "my_exec" do |files, outfile|
    sh "#{CC} #{files} $(pkg-config sdl2 --libs) -o #{outfile}"
end

Installation

recommended way:

gem install beaver --source https://gem.jomy.dev -v "3.2.0"

Or through github packages (requires authentication):

gem install beaver --source "https://rubygems.pkg.github.com/jomy10"

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/jomy10/beaver
cd beaver
./build.sh build install

Documentation

In the docs directory, upload comes later.

Contributing

Feel free to open an issue regarding bugs or improvements. If you want to work on an improvement, you can do so by commenting on its issue and opening a pull request. Your help is much appreciated!

Adding project management for other languages than C is also welcome.

To test out the libary, use ./build.sh build install to build and install it a gem. You can use ./build.sh uninstall to remove the gem and ./build.sh clean to clean the project.

Running tests

Be sure to check your changes with tests. Add new ones if your change is not coverd by the current tests.

To run test, install minitest, and run:

bash build.sh test

on Windows (in powershell):

PWSH> .\build.ps1 test

or in the command prompt:

powersell.exe -command ".\build.ps1 test"

Questions

Feel free to ask any questions you may have by opening an issue.

FAQ

Why choose Beaver over make?

This project started as a more readable make replacement. I was getting frustrated by unreadable build tools. Beaver comes with all the features you'd expect from a make replacement.

Why choose Beaver over cmake?

Beaver takes an approach to project management that does not abstract away all knowledge of the clang/gcc compilers. It's easier to use and understand what's going on.

Why Ruby?

I picked ruby as I find it an excellent choice for build scrpts. It comes wth a rich standard library for working with files and has a magical syntax.

Sure, it's "slow", but the compiler is usually the bottleneck anyway in build scripts. Next to the nice syntax, it's also easy to parallelize tasks, which has been taken advantage of when compiling targets and running "each" commands.

License

This software is licensed under the MIT license.