How to run a binary target compiled on the same project before compiling others?

[mohabouje]

Hi,

I have a simple code generator that needs to run before compiling other targets, as they depend on the generated targets.
The code generator is a target that belongs to the same project.

I'm thinking about creating a phony target that will generate the code on the before_build step and that depends on the code generator itself to introduce a dependency hierarchy:

target("schemas")
    set_kind("phony")
    add_deps("codegenerator", { public = true })
    before_build(function (target)
        -- Run the binary compiled previously to generate the code
        -- os.run(....)
    end)
target_end()

I cannot find in the docs a way to get the directory where the target codegenerator was compiled to run it with os.run or something like that.

Is this the proper way to try to solve this problem? Does xmake support this pattern?

[mohabouje]

I've asked in Discord and target:dep("codegenerator"):targetfile() returns the binary path to the target. That solved my problem.