Expose `Environment::get_build_command()` to meson.build

Hi,

As part of the build generation I would like to generate tests / scripts that in invoke meson. One example is generating a script that runs DESTDIR=/sometemp meson install and then runs tests against that temporary installation. I can’t just use find_program('meson') because meson may not be on PATH or the meson on PATH isn’t the same as used in a build directory.

I obviously can just invoke ninja install in such scripts / tests, but that will not work in case a different backend is used. Hence the desire to expose get_build_command().

Would a patch adding that feature have a decent chance of getting accepted?

A second, less crucial, use-case for this is that I would like to generate a script that uses meson introspect + knowledge of the source-tree to compares - and optionally resyncs - the list of tests existing in the source tree and the tests that the corresponding meson.build knows about.

get_build_command() effectively already is exposed via MESONINTROSPECT (including inside run_command and add_postconf_script, which doesn’t seem to be documented). Exposing just the meson invocation as an array to meson.build seems a lot cleaner however than needing to do shell-splitting inside commands.

Regards,

Andres

[anarazel]

Hi,

On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, at 08:43, behlec wrote:

To clarify what you are asking for: Do you want to have a MESONCOMMAND variable like MESONINTROSPECT in run_command or do you want a command in meson.build that returns an array with the meson command?

The latter. That way no shell string parsing has to be done.

Regards,

Andres

[anarazel]

@jpakkane ping? There’s a PR, implementing this - but it seems to be stuck waiting for design input?