Changes§

v0.4.1§

2019-07-05

2019-07-05

Compilers and linkers now support semantic options, abstracting away the differences between compiler flavors
Add support for cross-compilation
Toolchain files can be used to simplify setting up build configuration options
Add info, warn, and debug builtins to let build scripts print messages via bfg's logging system
whole_archive() now works with MSVC linkers
Add support for module-definition files when linking .exe or .dll files
Build steps now have a (customizable) friendly description when using the Ninja backend
Makefiles generated by bfg now have a clean target

MSVC builds now automatically set /EHsc to improve standards-compliance and mimic Visual Studio's default MSBuild configuration
Paths are now parsed in a platform-agnostic manner, which may cause issues for certain esoteric pathnames (e.g. POSIX paths that look like Windows paths)
env.platform has been split into env.host_platform and env.target_platform
MinGW now makes DLLs named <name>.dll instead of lib<name>.dll
Platform names are reworked; 'windows' is now 'winnt' and 'darwin' is 'macos'

Fix support for packaging as a Python Wheel
Default options for ar are now cr instead of cru to support versions of ar that default to deterministic builds
Fix building Java projects with OpenJDK 8+
Fix loading Boost packages from C:\Boost on Windows
Libraries are linked via their absolute paths where possible to help disambiguate libraries with the same name

2018-06-01

2018-06-01

Replace system_package() and pkgconfig_package() with a generic package resolver: package()
Add headers argument to package() to find header files and libs to specify library names if pkg-config lookup fails
Support Java/Scala
Add support for user-defined arguments
Add a library() function that builds shared and/or static libraries per the user's preference
Add support for generating pkg-config .pc files
Allow executing files that require an interpreter or other wrapper via command() or test()/test_driver() without explicitly specifying the wrapper; supports all languages buildable by bfg9000, plus Lua, Perl, Python, and Ruby
Add env.run(), env.execute(), and env.run_arguments() to simplify executing programs during configuration
Add a framework() function to specify macOS frameworks to use for a build
Improve detection of compiler flavors by checking version information
Automatically colorize clang/gcc output under Ninja
Add support for uninstalling builds
Add static_link_options to static_library() to specify options to pass to the static linker
Add a bfg9000 env command to print the environment variables used during configuration
Automatically request sudo elevation when installing builds to a system directory

directory() and header_directory() no longer automatically include all files within them (pass include='*' for the old behavior)
The include argument for compiling object files has been replaced by includes
When creating a static library, link_options now specifies options that will be forwarded along to the dynamic linker, rather than options for the static linker itself
The options argument for test()/test_driver() has been deprecated; add any options to the first argument (cmd) instead
test() no longer converts its first argument to a generic_file()
Splitting POSIX shell strings (used for compile and link options as well as environment vars on POSIX like CPPFLAGS) no longer parses escape characters

Improve logging of syntax errors in build.bfg files
Fix usage of nested shared libraries when linking with GNU ld (via -rpath-link)
Installing directories from the srcdir now correctly installs their contents to the installation root for that type (e.g. a header directory of foo/bar installs its contents to $includedir)
Fix generation of dependencies for the tests target
Improve escaping for paths when using Make on Windows (previously users had to escape backslashes themselves)
Fix an issue with quotation marks being stripped for some commands on Windows with the Ninja backend

2016-06-26

Support Objective C/C++
Partially support Fortran (simple projects work, but more complex things probably don't)
Improved error reporting
Warn users if necessary build tools can't be found by bfg9000
Automatically include runtime dependencies when installing a binary
Support @rpath on OS X
Allow fetching bfg's version from build.bfg files via bfg9000_version
Support versioning of shared libraries on POSIX systems
Support resolving packages via pkg-config
Locally-built static libraries now forward their options to binaries that link to them
whole_archive() now forwards its arguments on to static_library()
Use doppel for installing files instead of install(1)
Support command() and alias() rules under MSBuild
Add support for building a distribution of the sources (make dist)
Allow running custom build steps via build_step()

Fix fetching CFLAGS from the environment (it used to try CCFLAGS)
Fix execution context of build.bfg files; this caused strange issues with list/generator comprehensions

2016-01-21

2016-01-20

Initial release
Support for C and C++ builds on Linux, Mac, and Windows (MinGW included) via Make, Ninja, and MSBuild.