Hi all,
During the development of the build-system branch there has been a
suggestion that there needs to be an upgrade of the setting of the directory
in which build menu commands are run.
Currently the operation is:
Filetype commands are intended to be run on the currently open file, so they
always run in the source file directory. This allows them to be used for
simple single file work without configuration, and allows movement around
more complex source trees, again without configuration.
Non-filetype commands are a bit more complicated. Since this group is
intended to run commands independent of the source file, in theory it could
be any directory, But there are a couple of likely candidates:
- for make type builders to build the entire package the top of the tree is
the right place, that is a fixed directory (at least for each package it is)
- for make type bulders that build lower levels than the whole package, then
somewhere below the top of the tree is right, that isn't a fixed directory
(an example of where you use this is make doc in geany's doc subdirectory)
The current behaviour of Geany is to provide an approximation of both, at
least if you are using a project. A fixed directory for all commands for
this package is provided by the base_dir of the project, otherwise the
directory of the current file is used as the most likely place to run
commands within the tree.
(Note although it is called the project base directory, I am not aware of
any reason why it can't be set to any arbitrary directory)
When running without a project there is no base_dir available, so Geany runs
commands in the directory of the current file or not at all. This could be
improved by having a preference for a common directory (a base_dir for
non-project use) and by having per-command directories.
Suggested addition
Now that build menu items are fully configurable, Thomas has suggested that
there be a directory configured per command and I agree with him for the
non-filetype and execute commands, filetype commands should always run in
the directory of the file.
To select known directories such as the base_dir or the directory of the
current file, substitutions such as %p for project could be used (like %e
and %f in the commands).
If one of the substitutions is the directory of the project file, then all
paths could effectively be made relative to the project file and if it is in
the source tree, so allow it to be moved around with the source tree without
re-configuration, and even checked into version control and checked out in a
working directory somewhere else. This would be really useful when a
project configured special commands as new users wouldn't have to
re-configure them.
Please let me know agree/disagree.
There is a new commit in the build-system branch that makes the error
regular expressions work, I think. I find it very hard to test since you
need a compiler or other command that outputs errors in a format that
Geany's built-in parsing doesn't recognise, and it recognises a lot. If you
have such an animal please try it out.
Cheers
Lex