Uploaded image for project: 'Qbs ("Cubes")'
  1. Qbs ("Cubes")
  2. QBS-584

properly support private dependencies

    XMLWordPrintable

Details

    Description

      currently, Depends inside Export represent the link-time dependencies of the exported module literally. this is suboptimal:

      • the specification is a redundant subset of the Product's Depends, which is unnecessarily verbose, and harder to maintain and tool
      • it actually doesn't work: for the product type to be easily switchable (say, choosing on the command line whether to build a library statically or dynamically), the declaration of the dependencies of the Product itself must be complete, irrespective of how the linker needs to be invoked to build it.
        • static libraries don't actually use their Depends, but forward them directly to their Export
        • dynamic libraries link against their Depends
          • there must be a flag to specify how these are forwarded to the Export
            • public dependencies on other dynamic libs (which become part of the library's link interface) are exported, so they are added as an -L/-l pair by the user
            • private dependencies on other dynamic libs also need to be exported, because some platforms (linux and bb10 at least) may need -rpath-link to resolve transitive dependencies
        • applications also export their dependencies on dlls (privately), as they must be known when launching the application (see QBS-583)

      one possible approach is to "tag" dependencies with a property:

      Product {
          Depends {
              name: "foo"
              //exported: false // the default
          }
          Depends {
              name: "bar"
              exported: true   // "export" is a reserved word
              // publicly: true   // alternative name, think "depends publicly"
          }
      }
      

      a probably better approach is to nest the exported dependencies into the exports themselves. this mixes well with products that export multiple sub-products, as we do in qt itself:

      Product {
          // equivalent of QT_PRIVATE += multimedia
          Depends {
              name: "multimedia"
          }
          Export {
              name: "qt.location"
              // equivalent of QT += gui
              Depends {
                  name: "qt.gui"
              }
          }
          Export {
              name: "qt.location_private"
              // equivalent of QT_FOR_PRIVATE += quick
              Depends {
                  name: "qt.quick"
              }
          }
      }
      

      note that using this option would mean that the exported Modules would have to actually contain Export items to properly declare the type of their Depends.

      Attachments

        Issue Links

          No reviews matched the request. Check your Options in the drop-down menu of this sections header.

          Activity

            People

              Unassigned Unassigned
              buddenha Oswald Buddenhagen
              Votes:
              7 Vote for this issue
              Watchers:
              10 Start watching this issue

              Dates

                Created:
                Updated:

                Gerrit Reviews

                  There are no open Gerrit changes