Re: gprbuild with --db switch

[Simon Belmont <sbelmont700@gmail.com>]

On Aug 20, 1:42 pm, Simon Wright <si...@pushface.org> wrote:
> Simon Belmont <sbelmont...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Obstensibly, gprbuild will recognize a "--db dir" switch and pass it
> > onto gprconfig when spawned (to add an additional knowledge base
> > directory), but i'm having trouble getting it to do so.  Gprbuild will
> > not complain about the switch (and even spit out an error if the
> > directory is invalid), but does not seems to invoke gprconfig with
> > it.  By turning on the verbosity, the gprconfig line (as invoked by
> > gprbuild) is quite clearly missing it, and consequently generates the
> > auto.cgpr from only the original KB.  If i manually run the gprconfig
> > line as generated by gprbuild, but add the --db switch, the
> > configuration file is generated as intended.
>
> > Is this a known defenciency, or is there an order the switches must be
> > in, or other 'gotcha' someone knows about?  I have tried most of the
> > obvious things to no avail.  (Gprbuild Pro 1.4.1, 20100106, Linux)
>
> If you're supported (I see you're using Gprbuild Pro), this is the sort
> of question AdaCore are only too happy to answer.
>
> If not, you could try the latest gprbuild (from GNAT GPL 2011) from
> libre.adacore.com. You should be able to extract just gprbuild & friends
> from the download. There may be configuration issues finding the
> compiler (--target helps, ISTR), but you seem to be comfortable with
> this sort of thing!

Thank you for the feedback, but unfortunetly trying to switch versions
would most likely be more paperwork hassle than simply finding a
workaround, especially since putting the .xml in the original KB
location (causes it to be correctly parsed).

However, while I'm posting about silent gprbuild failures, I have
another odd behavior that perhaps someone can verify, or at least
point out what I'm doing incorrectly.  Section 3.3 of the gprbuild
users guide states "All attributes in a configuration project file are
inherited by each user project file in the project tree", which i
interpret to mean just that.  For instance, if the .cgpr file includes
a 'for Default_Language use "ada"', then any .gpr in the project can
reference it, e.g. "foo := project'Default_Language".  The same
dubious version of gprbuild, however, returns all these inherited
attributes as a null string.  Again, it accepts those inherited
attributes as correct syntax (and reports errors if they do not
exist), but they all return a null string.  Does anyone know if this
is this expected behavior?

Again, thank you for time

-sb