SCons Design and Implementation

SCons Design and Implementation Steven Knight 2001 2002 Steven Knight 2002 4-7 February 2002 The Tenth International Python Conference

Alexandria, Virginia

0.2 16 December 2001 Internal re-review. 0.1 8 October 2001 Submitted for Python10 conference. &abstract;

Introduction &intro;

Architecture &design;

Installation &install;

Development Process &process;

Future Directions &future;

Summary This paper has introduced &SCons;, a next-generation build tool with a modular, embeddable architecture and a direct Python interface. &SCons; has a global view of the dependencies in a source tree, uses MD5 signatures to decide if derived files are out of date, and automatically scans files for dependencies, all of which make &SCons; builds exceptionally reliable. The &SCons; development methodology has been described, notable for its emphasis on automated regression testing to ensure a robust and reliable tool from day one. Several future directions for &SCons; have also been discussed.

Acknowledgements &acks;

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