Boost build v2 with CodeSynthesis XSD

Question

I'm trying to learn how to use boost build. For starters, I'd like to run the codesynthesis xsd tool on an xsd file to generate c++ code. This tool takes one file as input and generates multiple output files. I'm having some difficulty figuring out how to do this with boost build, and I can't find any examples that are terribly similar to what I want to do. Can anyone provide some insights here? I've attached my code below. Thanks!

import path ;                                                                                                                          
import type ;                                                                            
import generators ;                                                                      

type.register XSD : xsd ;                                                                

generators.register-standard xsd.compilexsd : XSD : CPP ;                                

module xsd                                                                               
{                                                                                        
    actions compilexsd                                                                   
    {                                                                                    
        xsd cxx-tree \                                                                   
            --show-sloc \                                                                
            --generate-doxygen \                                                         
            --generate-forward \                                                         
            --generate-serialization \                                                                                                     
            --output-dir [path.parent($(<))] \                                        
            $(>)                                                                      
    }                                                                                 
}  

exe app : main.cpp test.xsd ;

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 11 '14 at 21:57

I hit a nearly identical problem about seven years ago while trying to generate code from a structural spec. Boost.Build allows stating direct transformations for a single file.

Eg:

 .y --> .cpp --> .obj

Yet, there is just no syntax to express a more complex dependency tree, where a single spec file produces a whole set of .cpp files. The workaround was to do the following:

Define a lib which lists all generated file names (this means you will have to keep this silly list up to date manually)
Define a "prebuild" rule in a subproject which is a dependency. This way the generator always runs first:
```
ALWAYS prebuildcmd ;
PREBUILD_CMD = "your-generator arg arg arg" ;

rule Prebuild 
{
    local output = [ SHELL "$(PREBUILD_CMD)" ] ;
    ECHO $(output) ;
}

Prebuild prebuildcmd ;
```
(this means the script is not a part of normal dependencies and must be smart enough not to stamp over unchanged files)

Thanks. I'll look into that. Also, XSD seems to write the output files to the top-level source directory, not to the variant output directory. And I can't seem to figure out how to change that. The path.parent() thing above is an invalid syntax, apparently. — Brian, Aug 12 '14 at 13:37

Boost build v2 with CodeSynthesis XSD

1 Answers1