SconsRecipes

This is the place to share tips, examples, and short scripts.

The SCons ManPage also contains a number of quick examples.

See the Examples section towards the bottom of the page.

Table of Contents

[TOC]

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Scons : Extending and getting info

• SconsVersion: how to retrieve the version of scons from your script
• WrapperFunctions: you want to wrap up a bit of SCons and python as a new Environment method without modifying scons itself
• An ExportImportShortcutHack.

Command-Line Arguments and Help

• ArgumentQuoting in actions
• UsingCommandLineArguments: Using ARGUMENTS
• AutomaticHelpFromAliases: technique for injecting helper functions into environment and wrapping Alias() to get Help() automatically

Configuration

• SconsAutoconf: How to add autoconf functionality to your scons builds.
• Autoconf recipes: a few autoconf macro implementations.
• GenerateConfig: generating a config.h file
• SavingVariablesToAFile - saving the value of some variables to a file and loading them back
• UpdateOnlySomeVariables - Update some variables in an environment without overwriting changes to others.

Targets

• GetTargets: you want to look at the targets the user entered
• PhonyTargets: A close approximation of a target that is always built
• DependsAndAliases: How to ensure Alias() work correctly with Depends()

Install & Uninstall Targets

• InstallTargets: writing install and uninstall targets
• InstallationPrefix
• PlatformIndependedInstallationTool

Clean Targets

• CustomCleanActions: Having an Action run when scons is in clean mode

Tree Problems

• NonDeterministicDependencies How to incorperate builders which can produce an unknown number of results

Source Files

• BuildDirGlob lets you glob for source files from a build directory.
• ExternalFiles: how to use other source files not recognized by scons (e.g. linker scripts)
• UsingCvs: how to download source files from a CVS server
• WgetSourceCode: How to use sourcecode() methods to 'wget' files
• DynamicSourceGenerator: how to use a source generator that puts out many source files, by having scons add targets dynamically.
• FindTargetSources: Find sources and headers for a target when generating MSVSProject.
• AddFilesDynamically to every build per-environment
• MFObject: Compile multiple source files with a single invocation of the compiler
• ExplicitlyCallCppScanner: How to explicitly call the C/CPP scanner on a source file in your SConstruct/SConscript.

Building and Linking

• UsingOrigin: using $ORIGIN to specify runtime search path for libraries
• UsingPkgConfig: many libraries these days come with .pc files, such as GTK+, but how do you use them?
• SharedLibrarySignatureOverride: avoid relinking every program when a shared library is rebuilt.
• BuildTimeCallback: How to have a function called at build time
• RightNow: Build one or more targets during the SConscript reading phase, then continue reading SConscripts

Build Dirs

• UsingBuildDir
• UnderstandingBuildDir

Build logs

• BuildLog: How to write SCons output to a file as well as the screen.
• ColorBuildMessages: Replace the raw build commands printed to the screen with colored messages
• ColorGcc: using the colorgcc wrapper to colorize the output of compilers with warning / error messages matching the gcc output format.
• HidingCommandLinesInOutput: how to hide all or part of the printed command lines for prettier build logs.

Environment

• ImportingEnvironmentSettings from your process environment.
• EnvValue: A value node which substitutes variables from the environment
• Using ExternalTools from within SCons frequently requires certain types of environment variable inheritance.

Testing

• ValgrindMemChecker: Automatic running of valgrind on executables
• UnitTests: Running unit tests with an Alias or Command

Multiple Projects

• SconstructMultiple: multiple projects, build dir, debug/release
• SconstructMultipleAll: build all, multiple projects, build dir, debug/release
• SconstructMultipleRefactored: clean up redundancy in SconstructMultiple

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Increasing performance and large builds

• The GoFastButton: options you can use to make SCons faster by sacrificing build accuracy
• ModularExample: A modular way to support multiple systems and build multiple setups at a time.
• SimultaneousVariantBuilds: How to make build different variants (e.g. debug/release, target/host) at the same time.
• PreventBuildingOfEverything: you have a big hierarchical tree of projects...
• ProxyDependencies: A simple way to avoid inefficiencies when you have commands that consume lots of input files and produce lots of output files.
• TargetDrivenBuilderCreation: Avoid scanning large source trees on startup by only queuing up dependencies on demand for things scons actually needs to build.
• LimitCacheSizeWithProgress: Prevent the cache directory to grow indefinitely.
• SerialiseForSharedResources : Tell scons to run particular tasks in series, while letting others run in parallel.

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Misc

• DumpEnv: Dump the contents of the construction environment
• JavaNativeInterface: how to build java native interface (JNI) libraries
• MultipleDirectoryFortranBuild: how to setup a multiple-directory Fortran 90 project
• SconsLatexThesisSkeleton: A more elaborate way to build LaTeX documents with SCons, including automatic file format conversion
• StaticallyLink: Statically link g++ libraries
• CudaTool - tool for NVidia's CUDA
• Building Debian packages
• Quite a bunch of SCons techniques, including the use of SConf, can be seen in the http://madman.sf.net madman build scripts.

Full-blown Examples

• AdvancedBuildExample: This document describes how the Bombyx project is doing its builds. This configuration is interesting in that it builds for each target platform in a different directory, and has a very structured build.
• ExtendedExample A log of John Arrizza's quest to convert an Ant-based build system to SCons.
• AllInSConstruct Bill Baxter's attempt at a SCons-based build system.
• RpmHonchoTemp: JeffPitman's adventure in coercing SCons to manage an RPM repository.
• BasicSimpleProject: Andrew Lentvorski's venture to build Gambit with SCons on his way to cross-compiling
• SimpleProject_1: A simple project with libraries and profile information
• MavenIdeasWithSCons: An approach of using some maven ideas and best practices with SCons.
• SDLWindowsApp: A typical SDL application on Windows (including icon and no annoying dialog pop-up)