[fpc-pascal] [ANN] PasBuild v1.7.0 Released

[mailinglists at geldenhuys.co.uk]

Hi everyone,

PasBuild v1.7.0 has been released.

PasBuild is a Maven-inspired build automation tool for Free
Pascal projects. It provides convention-based project structure,
dependency management, multi-module builds, resource filtering,
and packaging.

Homepage:
   https://github.com/graemeg/pasbuild

Quick Start Guide:
    
https://github.com/graemeg/PasBuild/blob/master/docs/quick-start-guide.adoc


Overview For This Release
-------------------------

PasBuild v1.7.0 introduces an external plug-in system, a
resolve command for IDE and tooling integration, and
activeByDefault module control. Several bug fixes improve
multi-module test builds, unit discovery for non-standard
source layouts, and resource processing output.


New Features
------------

External Plugin System

   PasBuild now supports external plug-ins: standalone
   executables that extend the build lifecycle with custom
   goals. Plug-ins are named pasbuild-<goal> and discovered
   in the project's plugins/ directory, ~/.pasbuild/plugins/,
   or anywhere on PATH.

   Plug-ins declare which build phase they run after via a
   --pasbuild-phase flag and receive project context through
   environment variables and the resolve command. Unknown
   goals are automatically deferred for plugin resolution
   before reporting an error.

   An example plug-in (shell and Pascal implementations) is
   included under extras/plugins/hello-world/.

   Example usage:

     pasbuild hello       # runs pasbuild-hello plugin
     pasbuild --help      # lists discovered plugins


Resolve Command (IDE/Tooling Integration)

   The new resolve command outputs the fully resolved build
   configuration as JSON to stdout, without compiling. This
   includes unit paths, include paths, defines, compiler
   options, dependencies, and the complete compiler command
   line.

   It supports single-module projects, multi-module
   aggregators (outputs all modules), and per-module
   selection with -m.

   Example usage:

     pasbuild resolve           # single module
     pasbuild resolve           # aggregator: all modules
     pasbuild resolve -m core   # specific module

   Use cases include IDE integration, plugin development,
   CI tooling, and debugging build configuration issues.


activeByDefault Module Attribute

   Modules listed in an aggregator's <modules> section can
   now specify activeByDefault="false" to be excluded from
   normal builds. This is useful for example projects or
   optional modules in large multi-module repositories.

   Two mechanisms override this attribute:

   - The --all CLI flag forces all modules to build
     regardless of their activeByDefault setting (useful
     for CI and nightly builds).
   - Explicitly selecting a module with -m also overrides
     the attribute.

   Example:

     <modules>
       <module>core</module>
       <module activeByDefault="false">examples</module>
     </modules>


Bug Fixes
---------

Multi-Line Unit Declarations in Bootstrap Generator

   Units where the 'unit' keyword and the unit name appear
   on separate lines (common in some FPC codebases such as
   aggpas units in fpGUI) were not being discovered by the
   bootstrap generator. ParseUnitName now tracks a
   UnitKeyFound flag to handle the name appearing on the
   next non-empty line.

   Thanks to Andrew Haines for reporting this issue.


Test Goals Skip Gracefully When No Test Directory Exists

   Modules without a src/test/pascal/ directory previously
   caused the entire reactor build to fail. Test-compile
   and test now log an informational message and return
   success, matching Maven behaviour where a module with
   no test sources reports SUCCESS in the reactor summary.


Test-Compile Routed Through Reactor for Multi-Module Builds

   The test-compile goal was missing from both the
   multi-module dispatch and the reactor goal-to-command
   mapping. This caused test-compile with -m to run against
   the aggregator directory instead of the selected module,
   failing with "Source directory not found".


Module Dependency Paths Included in Test-Compile

   Test compilation failed when test units referenced units
   from module dependencies because BuildTestCompilerCommand
   omitted ResolvedModulePaths. The same -Fu loop from the
   compile command is now applied to test-compile.


Conditional Unit Paths Resolved Relative to Source Directory

   Conditional paths from <unitPaths> were added as -Fu
   flags without prepending the base source directory,
   producing incorrect compiler arguments in auto-scan
   mode. Paths are now resolved relative to the configured
   source directory.


XML Escaping in Init-Generated project.xml

   User input containing <, >, or & characters (e.g. an
   author field with an email address in angle brackets)
   produced invalid XML. All user-provided values are now
   escaped with XML entities before being written.

   Thanks to Frank Fischer for reporting this issue.


Resource Processing Output Respects Verbose Flag

   The per-file "Copied:" and "Filtered:" log lines during
   resource processing could produce excessive output for
   projects with many resource files. These lines now
   require the -v flag. The verbose flag is also propagated
   from parent commands to their dependencies.


Changes
-------

CLI Refactoring

   Build goals and certain arguments are now refactored
   and better separated in code logic.


Quiet Mode for Resolve Output

   The resolve command suppresses all [INFO] log lines to
   ensure only machine-consumable JSON appears on stdout.


Test Suite
----------

   63 new test cases added in this release:
   Total test count: 209 (up from 146 in v1.6.0)


PasBuild is free software released under the BSD-3-Clause
license.


Regards,
   - Graeme -