Automatically build dependencies that are out of date

[cgibson]

I think it would be very useful if when selecting a build specification, you could build all the dependencies of that build in a manner similar to the way "make" works.

When building complicated projects, there may be several builds. The simplest example is an application installer that depends on the the application to be built first. Another example is a suite of compiled utilities that all have to be compiled before the installer is made. Another example is an application that uses packed libraries, all of which should be built prior to making the final build and then the installer build.

"Make" is an old tool that does this dependency checking for you. If you select the installer to build, it would check the dependencies of the installer, defined in a "makefile", and then build any project that is out of date. The out of date projects are those where the last modified date of the source code is later then the last modified date of the built file.

In this way you can simply ask that the installer be made, confident that "make" would find all the required dependencies and compile them as well.

This can be baked into LabVIEW. The installer build already knows which build specification it is dependent on.

Below is an idea of where this feature would be implemented.

[crossrulz]

Another alternative to get what you want:

Add Folders/Groups for organizing build specifications

Virtual Folders for "Build Specification" in the Project Viewer

One of those two should be closed as a duplicate.  I will let Darren decide which one...

[cgibson]

Hi Crossrulz,

I don't see what either of those has to do with determining by dependency which build spec to run and in what order.

This is an automation tool, not an organizational one.

[crossrulz]

My thought was if you organize the builds, you know the dependencies and you can therefore build them all at once.  This is far from a duplicate of the others.  I was just trying to state another way for NI to attempt to accomplish this.

[cgibson]

OK. I see how if "build all" skipped builds that were up to date and if the build specs were in order, you would get the same effect. Thank you for clarifying.

[Darren]

Available in LabVIEW NXG. You can have a distribution containing installers built from applications and libraries and all will be rebuilt correctly when needed.

[Christina_R]

Re-opening because LabVIEW NXG has been discontinued.

[crossrulz]

Just to throw another alternative out there...

The LabVIEW Solution Builder now has the capability of skipping builds that will not change and builds things based on dependency order.

https://github.com/jovianarts/LVSolutionBuilder