[lazarus] Text file database as a first step...?

[Peter Vreman]

>
>
> On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Peter Vreman wrote:
>
>> > On Sat, 23 Aug 2003 15:10:15 +0200 (CEST)
>> > Michael.VanCanneyt at wisa.be wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Mattias Gaertner wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > On 23 Aug 2003 04:12:27 -0600
>> >> > Tom Lisjac <netdxr at adelphia.net> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > > > ... But we're still
>> >> > > > thinking about a good package format. Maybe a mix between
>> fpcmake
>> >> > > > and lazarus package manager would be good, if we can make the
>> >> > > > package manager in a command-line version.
>> >> >
>> >> > Peter Vreman had the same idea and I like the idea too. But in
>> >> general,
>> >> > fpcmake and the lazarus package system are quite different. fpcmake
>> is
>> >> a
>> >> > Makefile generator and the other is a graphical dependency manager
>> for
>> >> > fpc commands.
>> >>
>> >> Sounds the same to me ? One is graphical, the other not :-)
>> >>
>> >> > A Makefile is file based, supports a lot of macros and uses the
>> >> > environment vars. Lazarus otoh is package based, supports
>> inheritance
>> >> > and no variable depends on external programs.
>>
>> Package based is better for pascal units. Pascal units don't need the
>> Makefile file dependency support. A program that has ppu file knowledge
>> can give that information much better.
>>
>> Having the posibility to run pre- and post-build commands that can do
>> some
>> preprocessing/checking will make a package based tool already very
>> powerfull to do some more complex tasks
>
> I'm all for it. Like I said, fpcmake is not a must, but a command-line
> tool
> is.

I forgot one of the most complex things of the Makefile's: the unix-tools
you need like install/date/echo/pwd. For every platform we have to collect
these tools. The most difficult platform sofar was Windows where we needed
native win32 apps.

Currently the Makefile doesn't support cygwin. Adding support to the
Makefile is not easy because it needs more exceptions to look for
install.exe instead of ginstall.exe etc.