[Scons-users] Builder to perform string substitution on source contents to produce a target file?

[William Deegan]

Matt,

On Jun 18, 2012, at 11:57 AM, M Busche wrote:

snip...


> 

> BEGIN DOCUMENTATION RANT:

> 

> USER GUIDE:  When I wrote my own builder I was aware of the dependency problem introduced by the dictionary but didn't see a way to deal with it.  I read section 5 of the scons user guide (on Nodes):  it only mentions File, Dir and Entry type nodes.  I don't think section 6 (on Dependencies) mentions dependencies beyond file system dependencies either.  I was left with the feeling that that was all there was!  Seems like another example, or perhaps a pointer to some other document that gives a more complete list of Node types and/or dependencies would be appropriate.

> 

> MAN PAGE:  I find the man page unwieldy (almost 200 pages of unindexed text) and some sections are quite difficult to decipher even after reading (most of) the User Guide.  The description of the Depends function (which I did read) merely states that both arguments must be a Node, but doesn't hint at the full range of possibilities permitted.  Even now knowing about this special Value Node type, I'm not sure what to grep for to find a section that might give a clue about Scons.Node.Python.Value.

> 

> 

> API:  This again is not very tutorial.  It is difficult to see what's important and what's not (as is the case for most API docs).  And it's obviously difficult to find what you're looking for when you're not exactly sure what it is you seek!  Even if I had read the class summary for Node.Python.Value, the text "A class for Python variables, ..." would not have hit me in the head hard enough to make me think this was what I needed.

> 

> 

> END RANT



Being an open source project we welcome any and all patches to code and documentation.
If you have the time and interest to do so, please do.

Also if you can list the sections from the man page which you found difficult to decipher, and perhaps why they were, that would help.   Those of us with enough knowledge of SCons to make the edits may already know too much to be able to see what would be difficult to understand.


Thanks,
Bill