$Id: blender-scons-dev.txt,v 1.2 2006/03/09 23:48:56 jesterking Exp $


    Internals of Blenders SCons scripts
    ===================================

    Scope
    ------
    This document describes the architecture of the SCons scripts for
    Blender. An overview of available functionality and how to modify,
    extend and maintain the system.

    Audience
    --------
    This document is for developers who need to modify the system,
    ie. add or remove new libraries, add new arguments for SCons, etc.

    Files and their meaning
    -----------------------

    The main entry point for the build system is the SConstruct-file in
    $BLENDERHOME. This file creates the first BlenderEnvironment to work
    with, reads in options, and sets up some directory structures. Further
    it defines some targets.

    Platform-specific configurations are in $BLENDERHOME/config. The
    filenames have the form (platform)-config.py, where platform one of:

        * darwin
        * linux2
        * win32-mingw
        * win32-vc

    The user can override options by creating a file
    $BLENDERHOME/user-config.py. It can have any option from
    (platform)-config.py. Options in this file will override the platform
    defaults.

    Much of the actual functionality can be found in the python scripts
    in the directory $BLENDERHOME/tools, with Blender.py defining the
    bulk of the functionality. btools.py has some helper functions, and
    bcolors.py is for the terminal colours. mstoolkit.py and crossmingw.py
    are modules which set up SCons for the MS VC++ 2003 toolkit and
    the cross-compile toolset for compiling Windows binaries on Linux
    respectively. Note: the cross-compile doesn't work yet for Blender,
    but is added in preparation for having it work in the distant future.

    BlenderEnvironment
    ------------------

    The module Blender.py implements a BlenderEnvironment class, derived
    from the SConsEnvironment of SCons. This is done to wrap some often
    used functionality. The BlenderEnvironment offers two important
    wrappers: BlenderProg() and BlenderLib(). The first one is used to
    specify a binary to be built, the second one is used to specify what
    static library is built from given sources.

    Build a static library called "somelib". The system handles library
    pre- and suffixes automatically, you don't need to bother yourself
    with these details:

        env = BlenderEnvironment(ENV = os.environ) # create an environment
        env.BlenderLib(libname="somelib", sources=['list.c','with.c','sources.c'],
                        includes=['/list/with/include/paths', '.', '..'],
                        defines=['LIST_WITH', 'CPP_DEFINES', 'TO_USE'],
                        libtype=['blender', 'common'] # this is a list with libtypes. Normally you don't
                                                      # need to specify this, but if you encounter linking
                                                      # problems you may need this
                        priority=[10, 20]             # Priorities, list as long as libtype, priority per type
                        compileflags=['/O2']          # List of compile flags needed for this particular library.
                                                      # used only in rare cases, like SOLID, qhull and Bullet
                        )

    There should be no need to ever add an extra BlenderProg to the
    existing ones in SConstruct, see that file for its use, and Blender.py
    for its implementation.

    The new system works so that using these wrappers, has all libraries
    (and programs) register with a central repository. This means that
    adding a new library is as easy as just creating the new SConscript
    and making sure that it gets called properly. Linking and such will
    then be handled automatically.

    If you want that adding new source files for a certain library
    is handled automatically, you can use the Glob() function from
    the BlenderEnvironment to create lists of needed files. See
    $BLENDERHOME/source/blender/src/SConscript for an example. Keep in
    mind that this will add any new file that complies to the rule given
    to the Glob() function. There are a few (external) libraries with
    which this can't be used, because it'd take files that shouldn't be
    compiled, and create subsequentially problems during the linking stage
    (like SOLID, qhull, Bullet).

    Linking order and priorities
    ----------------------------

    As shown above, you can give a library a priority in a certain
    group. If you need to make sure that a Blender library is linked
    before or after another one, you can give it a priority. To debug
    the priorities us BF_PRIORITYLIST=1 on the command-line while running
    a build.

    % scons BF_PRIORITYLIST=1

    This will give a list with values suggested by the system. Make
    changes to all SConscripts in question to reflect or change the
    values given by this command. ALWAYS check this after adding a new
    internal, external library or core library, and make sure there are
    sane values. You can use large and negative numbers to test with,
    but after you've got a working linking order, do change the system
    to reflect BF_PRIORITYLIST values.

    Also, if you find that a library needs to be given multiple times to
    the linker, you can do that by giving a python list with the names
    of the available library types. They are currently:

        B.possible_types = ['core', 'common', 'blender', 'intern',
                            'international', 'game', 'game2',
                            'player', 'player2', 'system']

    More groups can be added, but that should be carefully considered,
    as it may lead to large-scale changes. The current amount of libraries
    should suffice.

    The central repository is utilised in the SConstruct in two
    ways. Firstly, it is used to determine the order of all static
    libraries to link into the main Blender executable. Secondly, it
    is used to keep track of all built binaries and their location,
    so that they can be properly copied to BF_INSTALLDIR.

    The libraries can be fetched in their priority order with
    create_blender_liblist from Blender.py, see the SConstruct on how
    it is used.

    The program repository is the global list program_list from
    Blender.py. See SConstruct for its usage.


    Adding a new option and libraries
    ---------------------------------

    Lets say we want to add WITH_BF_NEWLIB, which will
    enable or disable a new feature library with sources in
    $BLENDERHOME/source/blender/newlib. This 'newlib' needs external
    headers from a 3rd party library '3rdparty'. For this we want to
    add a set of options BF_3RDPARTY, BF_3RDPARTY_INC, BF_3RDPARTY_LIB,
    BF_3RDPARTY_LIBPATH:

        1) Add all mentiond options to all (platform)-config.py
        files. WITH_BF_NEWLIB is a boolean option ('true', 'false'),
        the rest are strings with paths and library names. See the
        OpenEXR options for example.

        2) Add all options to the argument checking function
        validate_arguments() in btools.py. See again OpenEXR options
        for example.

        3) Add all options to the option reading function read_opts()
        in btools.py. See again OpenEXR options for example. All default
        values can be empty, as the actual default values are in the
        (platform)-config.py files.

        4) Add BF_3RDPARTY_LIB to the function setup_syslibs()
        and BF_3RDPARTY_LIBPATH to the function setup_staticlibs()
        in Blender.py

    At this stage we have prepared all option setting and linking needs,
    but we still need to add in the compiling of the 'newlib'.

        5) Create a SConscript in $BLENDERHOME/source/blender/newlib. Look
        at ie. $BLENDERHOME/source/blender/src/SConscript for
        template. The new SConscript will register the new library
        like so:

            env.BlenderLib(libname='newlib', sources=sourcefiles, includes=incs) # the rest of the arguments get defaults = empty lists and values

        6) Edit $BLENDERHOME/source/blender/SConscript with the following
        addition:

            if env['WITH_BF_NEWLIB'] == 1:
                SConscript(['newlib/SConscript'])

    After this you can see if this works by trying to build:

            % scons WITH_BF_NEWLIB=1  # build with newlib
            % scons WITH_BF_NEWLIB=0  # disable newlib

    This is all what should be needed. Changing the library name doesn't
    need changes elsewhere in the system, as it is handled automatically
    with the central library repository.

    Enjoy the new system!

    /Nathan Letwory (jesterKing)
