In SCons, you don't have to call an external command
to build a file.
You can, instead, define a Python function
that a Builder object can invoke
to build your target file (or files).
Such a builder function definition looks like:
def build_function(target, source, env):
# Code to build "target" from "source"
return None
The arguments of a builder function are:
A list of Node objects representing
the target or targets to be
built by this function.
The file names of these target(s)
may be extracted using the Python str function.
A list of Node objects representing
the sources to be
used by this function to build the targets.
The file names of these source(s)
may be extracted using the Python str function.
The construction environment used for building the target(s).
The function may use any of the
environment's construction variables
in any way to affect how it builds the targets.
The function will be constructed as a SCons FunctionAction and
must return a 0 or None
value if the target(s) are built successfully. The function may
raise an exception or return any non-zero value to indicate that
the build is unsuccessful.
For more information on Actions see the Action Objects section of
the man page.
Once you've defined the Python function
that will build your target file,
defining a Builder object for it is as
simple as specifying the name of the function,
instead of an external command,
as the Builder's
action
argument:
def build_function(target, source, env):
# Code to build "target" from "source"
return None
bld = Builder(action = build_function,
suffix = '.foo',
src_suffix = '.input')
env = Environment(BUILDERS = {'Foo' : bld})
env.Foo('file')
And notice that the output changes slightly, reflecting the fact that a Python function, not an external command, is now called to build the target file:
% scons -Q
build_function(["file.foo"], ["file.input"])