[fpc-devel] The future of fpmake

[michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2011, Darius Blaszyk wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm using fpmake more and more in my projects (large or small) and from time to time I come across some limitations that need to be resolved. In the past I have supplied a number of small patches which were normally applied without problems, but sometimes I was sent back (mostly with good reasons) to rethink a patch. However as I noted in http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=18151this approach is sometimes like a "trial and error" strategy and I would prefer if we could create something like a roadmap for fpmake and put that up on the wiki.
> Because it's a FPC program it's of course always possible to add functionality yourself. The question though is, what will FPC support out of the box.
>
> A couple of things that come to mind:
>
> - generation of documentation (fpdoc and possible other??)
> - compilation of example files
> - compilation and running of the testsuite
> - generation of the classchart

No problem with adding those.

> - execute fpmake from command line (see thread by mattias : "run pascal programs as script") for this we would need instantfpc to support win32 and it should be supplied as a standard fpc tool

I doubt this is feasible for windows. As far as I know, no #! comparable construct exists.

> - implement the creation of installer (scripts) for all platforms

I doubt a cross-platform installer is feasible within the scope of FPC.
If you mean the creation of a skeleton inno setup script or a .rpm or .deb
spec, that can be thought of.

> - implement a binary zip option

This should be possible.

> - managing debug/release builds (also cross-compiling)

What is failing in the current system for this ?

> - cmake like system (display and store information on builds and test suites, etc)

fppkg should handle that part of the job, not fpmake.

Michael.