On Tue, 9 Dec 2025, Marco van de Voort via fpc-pascal wrote:
Op 9-12-2025 om 18:54 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal:
Nothing stops you from adding a loop that scans the (sub)directories and
adds units as targets. The fpmake from pas2js does that. We could
maybe add
a convenience call to automate this.
That's also what I thought. Beside fpmake for the heavy duty side of
things (with partial generation or not), and a simple Lazarus group
project on the other hand for simple, in order builds, what is the point
of pasbuild? I only realised that after my previous post.
As you noted, fpmake can do parallelism. In order to process
files/packages in the correct order, you need to specify the
dependencies correctly. This requires
rigourous analysis of the source files (uses clauses and include
directives)
with all the correct defines in place etc.
I don't know, that somehow doesn't make sense to me. Does fpmake really
analyse cross package?
It treats packages as monolithic. That is why you need to specify package
dependencies.
Theoretically, fpmake can figure all out all the unit and package
dependencies itself if all packages are created in 1 run
(as in the toplevel fpmake in packages).
When fpmake was written, there simply was no tool that could do this
correctly. Today such a tool exists, and we can think about automating
this.
Note that if these dependencies are not correct, you run into all
kinds of errors
when doing parallel compilation.
Pierre will probably paint a more complete picture than I do.
I would be glad to hear about it. But I thought that Joost wrote the
core of fpmake?
I did, with Peter Vreman. Joost added fppkg, which of course builds on
top of fpmake. He did do some important changes to fpmake to make it more
useful at that time, if memory serves well.
Something there doesn't compute IMHO. Either I'm missing something, or
the required detail is more than needed, or for some other purpose than
straight build.
The original fpmake didn't know the concept of a build unit.
If you use a build unit, then the compiler will of course
figure most things out by itself.
If no build unit is used, fpmake can parallelize compilation
up to unit level, but then it needs a lot of dependency info.
(which is what you see in packages).
If a build unit is used then parallel compilation is restricted to the
package level.
fpmake also prepares the installs and zips. You need to know what
files need to be installed and what not. This can be automated to some
degree, but never fully.
That is after a build. Parsing FPC output could give you that information.
You also need the examples etc.
Sorry to be a pain in the *ss, but I do think that spelling the reasons
why fpmake is what it is, is important.
I don't think you're being a PITA ? You're right, It is time fpmkunit got
documented and its usage and purpose explained in more detail.
But I'm working on it, as you'll soon see.
Michael.
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