Copying multiple files in waf using only a single target

Question

The waf book shows that I can create a task generator which will copy a file:

def build(ctx):
    ctx(source='wscript', target='foo.txt', rule='cp ${SRC} ${TGT}')

This will result in a target, shown with waf configure list, called foo.txt. So that I can then do things like this:

waf configure build --targets=foo.txt

which is all well and good.

However, suppose I want to copy, say 200 files, all to populate a directory within the build directory, let's call that directory examples.

If I repeat this for each of the 200 files, I will have 200 targets and hence forth when I type waf configure list will get 200 targets and waf configure list will be rendered practically useless because of the explosion of output.

But I really want the copying of these 200 files to be a single target so that I can do something like waf configure build --targets=examples. How can I do this???

Answer 1

Use the buildcopy tool:

import buildcopy
...
def build(ctx):
    ctx(name = 'copystuff',
        features = 'buildcopy',
        buildcopy_source = ctx.path.ant_glob('examples/**'))

This will recursively copy the examples directory tree to the build directory. Only one target copystuff is introduced.

As an aside, if you want to copy one file:

ctx(features = 'subst', 
    source = '...', target = '...',
    is_copy = True)

is way better than calling the system's cp command.