Changes§

v0.7.1§

2023-05-26

Bug fixes§

• When using the PKG_CONFIG_PATH specified by mopack, add it to any existing PKG_CONFIG_PATH from the environment
• Don't explicitly include default #include paths on CC-like compilers

---

v0.7.0§

2023-05-20

New features§

• Add support for resolving external package dependencies via mopack
• Add bfg9000 run command to allow executing other commands using the environment variables for a given build
• Add support for installing man pages
• Add --datadir and --mandir configuration options
• Create compile_commands.json when generating build scripts
• pkg-config executable can now be found by guessing based on other compilers
• Compiler and tool objects now have a found property to indicate if they were found on the system
• Add system flag to package() and pkg_config() to determine whether to treat include directories from packages as system directories
• Add bfg9000 generate-completion to generate shell-completion functions
• Add support for CLICOLOR and CLICOLOR_FORCE environment variables to control whether to display colors in terminal output

Breaking changes§

• Require Python 3.6+
• Qt dependencies are now specified via package('Qt', '<component>') rather than package('Qt<component>')
• bfg9000 no longer automatically installs patchelf on Linux systems

Bug fixes§

• Error reporting now shows the proper stack frames on Windows
• Fix detection of clang-cl compiler
• MinGW can now use libraries of the form name.lib
• Paths with basenames of . or .. are now treated as directories
• Improve support for detecting tool versions when generating MSBuild files
• Empty strings as command-line arguments (e.g. in command) are now properly quoted
• pkg-config .pc files now always use POSIX-like paths
• Fix display of the traceback in a bfg file when building from the build directory
• Replace packaging dependency with verspec for future stability

---

v0.6.0§

2020-09-12

New features§

• Add support for including multiple build.bfg (and options.bfg) files from subdirectories via submodule()
• Create -uninstalled variants of generated pkg-config .pc files and allow build scripts to use them internally
• Add opts.gui to generate graphical programs (important on Windows)
• Add opts.static to request static linking of libraries
• MSVC's runtime can now be selected by using a combination of opts.static and opts.debug
• MSVC linker now automatically links to default Windows libraries (kernel32.lib, etc)
• Link steps (executable, library, etc) now accept an extra_compile_deps argument to forward on to the compilation step
• Allow customizing install locations for specific files via the directory argument
• Iterables passed to default or install will include each element of the iterable in the appropriate build target
• info(), debug(), and warning() now take a variable number of arguments to print
• generated_source() steps are now automatically created as necessary for files passed to object_file(), if possible
• Add path_exists() builtin
• Paths with a trailing / are now treated as directory paths, and when passed to auto_file() will create a directory object
• Add support for compiling Windows .rc files
• Add support for setting the entry point for native binaries (C, C++, etc)
• The default list of excluded globs for find_files() can now be customized via project(find_exclude=[...])
• Try to find the right compiler to use for C-family languages by guessing based on other compilers in the family (e.g. if CXX=g++, guess that the C compiler is gcc)
• Add support for DESTDIR on Windows when installation paths don't include a drive letter
• Regenerating build files with the Ninja backend now uses the console pool, allowing realtime output and colored text

Breaking changes§

• Drop support for Python 2
• find_files() and find_paths() have been redesigned to support recursive globs
• pkg_config() now defaults to auto_fill=False
• resource_file() has been deprecated; use source_file() instead
• show_stack for info() and debug() must now be specified as a keyword argument
• directory, and header_directory now require uncommon arguments to be specified as keyword arguments
• Adding to existing environment variables in env.execute() and env.run() is now done via extra_env, not env/env_update

Bug fixes§

• copy_file() now works correctly when copying into a subdirectory on the Make backend
• extra_deps now works with copy_file()
• Calling exit() with a non-zero return code from a build.bfg file now causes configuration to fail
• Automatically-generated PCH source files (for MSVC compilers) are now placed in the same directory as the resulting PCH
• The contents of header directories in the build directory are now installed to the base include directory
• The install_name for libraries on macOS is now always an absolute path, instead of using @rpath-based paths prior to installation
• MSBuild backend can now build libraries with no source files that link to a whole-archive library
• Object files with unrecognized source languages can now be linked with the default linker for their object format
• .stamp files generated by the Make backend are now properly removed when running make clean
• Fix sudo prompt when installing to a system directory with the Ninja backend

---

v0.5.1§

2019-12-07

Bug fixes§

• Depfiles generated by compile steps are now properly included into Makefiles
• Include directories passed to via include and libraries passed via libs are now listed before those from packages when building
• Fix linking to shared libraries located in the source directory

---

v0.5.0§

2019-11-25

New features§

• Add generated_source() to allow generating source code from domain-specific languages
• Add support for lex, yacc, and Qt build tools (moc, rcc, uic)
• Add the ability to use placeholders for build_step() and command()
• Add an auto_file() function that infers the kind of file based on its extension; build_step() now uses this by default for outputs
• Add always_outdated argument to build_step()
• Add copy_file() and copy_files() functions
• default() now returns the files passed into it
• install() now returns the installed forms of the files passed into it
• Add safe_str() and safe_format() to help safely build command string
• Expose Path object to bfg scripts
• Add directory as an option for object_file(), generated_source(), copy_file(), and their list-variants
• Add lang and intermediate_dirs arguments to project() for modifying project-wide settings
• Add srcdir builtin to toolchain files

Breaking changes§

• find_files() redesigned and split into find_files() and find_paths(); simple cases should still work, but more complex uses will need adjusted
• pkg-config .pc files generated by bfg9000 no longer include rpath flags
• Explicitly passing lang to a build step now overrides the languages of any input files when determining the builder
• args and kwargs no longer supported for build_step(); use a lambda instead
• Options specified on the command line (e.g. install locations) now override settings in toolchain files
• Implicitly-defined object files (e.g. those generated by executable()) are placed in an intermediate directory; call project(intermediate_dirs=False) to disable this

Bug fixes§

• Include options.bfg in dist tarballs
• Fix escaping of ~ in Makefiles
• Symbolic links (e.g. from versioned shared libraries) are now properly installed as symlinks
• Generated header directories are now included as dependencies of compilation steps
• Default install locations are now based on the target platform instead of the host platform
• Shared libraries with soversions can now be used with pkg_config()

---

v0.4.1§

2019-07-05

Bug fixes§

• Fix using semantic options in global_options

---

v0.4.0§

2019-07-05

New features§

• 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

Breaking changes§

• 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'

Bug fixes§

• 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

---

v0.3.1§

2018-06-01

Bug fixes§

• Fix an issue with creating the build directory during the configuration process

---

v0.3.0§

2018-06-01

New features§

• 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

Breaking changes§

• 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

Bug fixes§

• 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

---

v0.2.0§

2016-06-26

New features§

• 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()

Breaking changes§

• Configuring a build is now performed by bfg9000 configure DIRECTORY
• header() renamed to header_file()
• env.compiler(lang) replaced by env.builder(lang).compiler
• env.linker(lang, mode) replaced by env.builder(lang).linker(mode)
• env.compiler(lang).flavor replaced by env.builder(lang).flavor

Bug fixes§

• 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

---

v0.1.1§

2016-01-21

• Fix an issue with installing the package from PyPI

---

v0.1.0§

2016-01-20

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