KYUA-BUILD-ROOT(7)

NAME
build-root - Mechanics of build directories

DESCRIPTION
Build directories (or object directories, target directories, product directories, etc.) is the concept that allows a developer to keep the source tree clean from build products by asking the build system to place such build products under a separate subtree.

Most build systems today support build directories. For example, the GNU Automake/Autoconf build system exposes such concept when invoked as follows:

    $ cd my-project-1.0
    $ mkdir build
    $ cd build
    $ ../configure
    $ make

Under such invocation, all the results of the build are left in the my-project-1.0/build/ subdirectory while maintaining the contents of my-project-1.0/ intact.

Because build directories are an integral part of most build systems, and because they are a tool that developers use frequently, kyua(1) supports build directories too. This manifests in the form of kyua(1) being able to run tests from build directories while reading the (often immutable) test suite definition from the source tree.

One important property of build directories is that they follow (or need to follow) the exact same layout as the source tree. For example, consider the following directory listings:

    src/Kyuafile
    src/bin/ls/
    src/bin/ls/Kyuafile
    src/bin/ls/ls.c
    src/bin/ls/ls_test.c
    src/sbin/su/
    src/sbin/su/Kyuafile
    src/sbin/su/su.c
    src/sbin/su/su_test.c
    obj/bin/ls/
    obj/bin/ls/ls*
    obj/bin/ls/ls_test*
    obj/sbin/su/
    obj/sbin/su/su*
    obj/sbin/su/su_test*

Note how the directory layout within src/ matches that of obj/. The src/ directory contains only source files and the definition of the test suite (the Kyuafiles), while the obj/ directory contains only the binaries generated during a build.

All commands that deal with the workspace support the --build-root path option. When this option is provided, the directory specified by the option is considered to be the root of the build directory. For example, considering our previous fake tree layout, we could invoke kyua-test(1) as any of the following:

    $ kyua test --kyuafile=src/Kyuafile --build-root=obj
    $ cd src && kyua test --build-root=../obj

SEE ALSO
kyua(1), kyua-debug(1), kyua-list(1), kyua-test(1)