Spot o' Conf is a configuration and build system

Spot o' Conf is TEA-inspired and caters to Tcl and Jim extensions.

Release tarballs: spotoconf-0.94.tar.gz  spotoconfexamples-0.94.tar.gz

Features:

• Build binary or script-only extensions for Tcl or Jim, C programs, packages containing only data files.
• Build other things; Spot o' Conf is very flexible.
• Nested builds (packages of packages).
• Build and install documentation and examples.
• Run tests and make distribution files.
• Supports pkg-config.
• Extensible.
• Simple and fast.

Spot o' Conf is basically a shell script and a Makefile.
The script, driven by a simple Spoto.conf file, sets up variables and substitutes them in the Makefile and (optionally) other files.

New for 0.94:

• Static build improvements.
• Tcl conf dir now optional.
• Spotoshell now optional.
• Spotoshell for Jim!

New for 0.93:

• Auto-detection of build files location.
• Auto-detection of Spoto.conf in build files location.
• Build files location can be $srcdir or $srcdir/Spotoconf.
• Tcl .tm for Jim (sort-of).
• A few more sanity checks.

New for 0.92:

• Removed OpenBSD port generation
• Added --installer option; install-sh now optional
• Added README.configure, explaining Spot o' Conf
• Added ext_message() for custom package messages

New for 0.91:

• Incompatible with previous versions:
  • Directory 'tclconfig' changed to 'Spotoconf'.
  • Variable name changes for improved consistency.
• Options --disable-shared and --exec-prefix.
• Tk support.
• More automatic dist and install.
• General improvements, better support for cross-compiling, user hooks.
• Example projects:
  • Tcl extension in C.
  • Tk extension in C.
  • Jim extension in C.
  • Tcl/Jim extension in C. Demonstrates Ezt
  • Tcl extension in Tcl.
  • Tcl extension in Tcl as a Tcl Module.
  • Tcl Module extension with submodules.
  • C program.
  • The toplevel examples directory is an example of a multi-packages configuration.
  • The toplevel Spot o' Conf directory is an example of a data-files (DAT) configuration.

New for 0.9:

• Data file packages.
• Doc handling improvements.
• Multi-package improvements.
• Documentation begins.

Many new features in 0.8. No docs yet.

A Spot o' Conf user's requests, followed by my comments.

a) with-tcl= is required ((but shouldn't be) for script-only extensions,
   also tclConfig.sh does not add anything; make it optional;
>> Use TCL_CONF_DIR=no in spoto.conf or --with-tcl=no when running configure.

b) offer a default mechanism to pre-load prefix and friends from tclsh setting;
>> Tclsh doesn't provide that info.

c) moddir overloading from configure not possible right now;
>> Now possible.

d) right now, i use moddir='$(shell)' to call into a Tcl script...
   is there a better way? can I use some Tcl version info from within
   spoto.conf, Makefile.in?
>> Use moddir=guess in spoto.conf or --moddir=guess when running configure.

e) *.tm is a symbolic link, which precludes generating something into it
   upon deployment (see my top-level tm); so I need an extension target
   to make an actual copy ...
>> Use new vars: BUILD_SCLIB, BUILD_SCBIN, BUILD_DOC

f) work better with structured .tm's
>> Now posssible.

TODO

- Documentation.

- update Jim's testing.tcl?

- Handle more than one source file per build?

- Offload particular discoveries to Autosetup/Autoconf/CMake?

DONE

- better dist: include more possibilities
               or reduce & make users use
               their own makefile.package.in?

+ Updated package and dist bits.
  Added Makefile.pkgs.in to the mix.

- Does Spotoconf work with .a's? Probably.

+ Static builds now supported.

- include Jim's testing.tcl?

+ Jim's testing.tcl now included.

Older versions:
spotoconf-0.93.tar.gz spotoconfexamples-0.93.tar.gz
spotoconf-0.92.tar.gz spotoconfexamples-0.92.tar.gz
spotoconf-0.91.tar.gz
spotoconf-0.9.tar.gz
spotoconf-0.8.tar.gz