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Dennis Jones
CBuilder Developer |
BDS (Delphi personality) output directories don't make sense2006-08-04 04:19:05 AM cppbuilder67 Can someone please explain how output directories work in BDS (particularly with respect to the Dephi personality)? If things are left at their defaults, files don't go where you'd expect (at least not when you're coming from a C++Builder perspective), and changing the defaults just makes things worse. For example, in the Delphi personality, when compiling packages, DCP's (whatever those are), BPL's and BPI's all go to MyDocs\BSP\BPL, LIB's go to wherever the project files are, and the DCU's go to wherever the source files are. If you change the "Output directory," then the BPL's go there, but the DCP's and BPI's still end up in MyDocs\BSP\BPL, and LIB's still go to the folder where the project files are. The help file says there should be a "Package output directory" entry on the Project Options dialog, but doesn't say if that means BPI's, LIB's, and/or BPL's, but since the entry isn't there, I guess it doesn't matter! That entry does exist on the Tools|Options|Delphi Options page -- but if you set it, it only affects BPL output, not BPI's or LIB's. I don't think a Borland IDE has ever been so confusing! In the C++ personality, BPL's, BPI's, LIB's and TDS's all go to the same place (MyDocs\BSP\BPL), and OBJ's go to the configuration's (release, debug, etc) output folder. At least here they've followed the expected convention of keeping OBJ's and RES's together (intermediate output) LIB's and BPI's together (bpi/lib output), and keeping EXE's, DLL's, BPL's and TDS's together (final output), and they gave us the ability to create multiple configurations (which is nice). But is it really so difficult for things to be consistent across personalities? Shouldn't the Delphi personality allow one to send BPI's and LIB's to the same location, the same way C++Builder does? I would think Delphi users would appreciate this too. Ideally, it would be nice if all output types [compiler output (obj's/dcu's/res's), static libs (bpi's/lib's), and executables (dll's/bpl's/exe's including tds's)], could each be set to go to some default directory which could then be overridden on a per-project basis. It seems like Borland tried to do this (at least in some form) with BDS2006, but I think they missed the mark. Here's what I want to do (with Delphi projects -- though it doesn't seem possible with the current IDE): 1) I'd like BPI's and LIB's to go to the same place (especially when compiling Delphi packages for use in C++Builder) 2) I'd like DCU's, RES's, and OBJ's to go to the same place 3) I'd like BPL's, DLL's, EXE's, and TDS's to go to the same place Is it possible to configure BDS2006 to accomodate these (relatively simple) desires? - Dennis |