Add "rules" to fobos for performing "minor" tasks, e.g. create documentation, create project archive, etc...

[szaghi]

Feature request:

Add the possibility to write "rules" into fobos file for performing "minor" tasks (e.g. to create documentation, to create project archive, etc...). One of the nice features of GNU Make is the ability to perform heterogeneous tasks other than the code building. It would be nice to have a similar feature into fobos file.

Presently, I am thinking at a peculiar set of fobos sections (for both single/many building modes versions) that should start with the prefix "rule-rule_name", namely

...
[rule-makedoc]
rule = doxygen ...
...
[rule-tar-prj]
rule = tar cf myprj.tar *
...

These rules should be invoked by means of a third execution-mode of FoBiS.py other than "clean" and "build", maybe "run" or "execute". Obviously, this execution mode requires a fobos file. The invocation should be similar to

FoBiS.py run makedoc

and the rule "rule-makedoc" (namely doxygen ...) is executed. Such a feature should come with a "list rules" switch for listing the rules defined into the fobos file.

[szaghi]

I have just added this feature, the name of the new switch being "rule" not "run"... More details into the main documentation.

[Tobychev]

Seems like it could be useful, but I've not needed it yet. I'll provide feedback when I've used it.

[szaghi]

Hi Tomas, thank you for your help. I like to use makefile for such minor tasks, and now that also FoBiS.py can, I can definitively leave GNU Make (at least on my workstation, because in some old clusters I use there is no python 2.7+ sic!).