autobuild

version 0.3.6, cbm 11/1/11

A Unix build management tool for open source packages.

Autobuild is a tool for building public-domain/open-source Unix software packages.

It builds packages modularly, that is, each installed in its own package directory rather than a monolithic install location such as /usr/local.
It builds packages consistently and repeatably by using uniform wrapper scripts to enforce a consistent environment, and by capturing any manual changes made to the source or the wrapper scripts in a diff patch archive.
It logs every build or build attempt of every package so that one can investigate errors or review old builds at any time.

Feature List

Supports modular package builds.
Enforces consistent builds by sanitizing the build environment and using uniform wrapper scripts for the build.
Encourages and eases recording of manual changes made to a build directory.
As of version 0.3.3, changes made to source or the build wrapper scripts are auto-archived to a patch file, which can in principle be applied to later versions of the same package when it's time to upgrade.
Enables each package to be built with its own shared-library dependencies represented as symbolic links within the package directory; binaries are linked with an rpath to this directory. This way new versions of the libraries may be installed without worry about breaking packages which depend on the old version; and if desired, one can upgrade the package symbolic links to point to the new library version without recompiling (assuming API/ABI compatibility between library versions).
As of version 0.3.3, supports automatic inclusion of packages that use pkgconfig, e.g. gtk+.
Logs a complete transcript of every build or build attempt.
If desired, builds can be done on local disk for speed, then transferred to a central nfs-mounted directory after completion.

Requirements

perl 5.
gnu make.
gnu tar.
gzip to support tar.gz files.
bzip2 to support tar.bz2 files [optional if you never use them].
xz to support tar.xz or tar.lzma files [optional if you never use them].
gnu diffutils to support creation of patchfiles [optional].
wget to support automatic fetching of tar files from URL's [optional].
rsync to support transfer of local build directories to a central repository [optional].

Note that aside from perl, gnu make, and gnu tar, all the above utilities can be installed later and put into autobuild's path if you decide you want the additional functionality.

Download

autobuild-0.3.6.tar.gz (stable)