# Depper Dan
#### Windows Library Builds made easi(er)

## About

Depper Dan is a collection of scripts to enable (CMake based) C++ projects
with a set of open source dependencies to build them
automatically.

## Motivation

Unlike Linuxoid systems, C++ projects that use Open Source dependencies
traditionally have a hard time building those dependencies, 
especially automatic, with custom build settings or when they
depend on one another.

This script realizes this in a re-usable and extendable manner
but only for a limited set of libraries. It is meant to be used
with Visual Studio 2022 for build tools and modern CMake.

## Usage

### Prerequisites

* Visual Studio (2022 was what this was developed for but others might work)
* git (available in the Path)
* CMake (available in the Path)
* Python (3.11, 3.12, etc)
* This repository, checked out and with temporary disk space

### Available packages

Each package that can be built with this system must be 
given in `packages.jon`. For every package therein, you will 
find a build script in the folder `build_functions`.

### Build

To use the system, you must specify an installation folder.
It should have as short a name as possible (on windows) to avoid MAX_PATH issues
which may arise out of any build.
In the examples below we will use `C:\devel\3rd_party`.
This directory will be used to install each package built
with Depper Dan and it should be considered stable and system
wide. 

As a shell, use "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt" to ensure 
the correct build tools and environment being set.

Create a venv unless it's already present and activate it
```PowerShell
> cd /depper/dan/repo
> python -m venv .venv
> .venv\Scripts\Activate
```

Build a single package into your installation dir
```PowerShell
> python .\depper_dan.py -i C:\devel\3rd_party -p zlib
```

## Extension

This script is meant to be hacked on. It is not meant 
to be a complete extensible package manager like conan or [vcpkg](https://vcpkg.io).

Extending it by more packages generally involves:

* Add package information in `packages.jon`.
* Add a build function in `build_functions`.


## License

Depper Dan is being published under the 
Apache License 2.0