.\" .\" cook - file construction tool .\" Copyright (C) 1997-1999, 2001 Peter Miller; .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by .\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or .\" (at your option) any later version. .\" .\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the .\" GNU General Public License for more details. .\" .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License .\" along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software .\" Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA. .\" .\" MANIFEST: input for archive/cook.html .\" .ad l .hy 0 .so version.so Cook \*(v)

Cook \*(v)

Cook is a tool for constructing files. It is given a set of files to create, and recipes of how to create them. In any non-trivial program there will be prerequisites to performing the actions necessary to creating any file, such as include files. Cook provides a mechanism to define these. .br

When a program is being developed or maintained, the programmer will typically change one file of several which comprise the program. Cook examines the last-modified times of the files to see when the prerequisites of a file have changed, implying that the file needs to be recreated as it is logically out of date. .br

Cook also provides a facility for implicit recipes, allowing users to specify how to form a file with a given suffix from a file with a different suffix. For example, to create filename.o from filename.c .br

.br .br .br .br .br .br .br .br

Cook is a replacement for the traditional make(1) tool.
There is a make2cook utility included in the distribution to help convert makefiles into cookbooks.
Cook is more powerful than the traditional make tool.
Cook has true variables, not simple macros.
Cook has a simple but powerful string-based description language with many built-in functions. This allows sophisticated filename specification and manipulation without loss of readability or performance.
Cook has user defined functions.
Cook can build in parallel.
Cook is able to build your project with multiple parallel threads, with support for rules which must be single threaded. It is possible to distribute parallel builds over your LAN, allowing you to turn your network into a virtual parallel build engine.
Cook can distribute builds across your LAN.
Cook is able to use fingerprints to supplement file modification times. This allows build optimization without contorted rules.
Cook can be configured with an explicit list of primary source files. This allow the dependency graph to be constructed faster by not going down dead ends, and also allows better error messages when the graph can't be constructed. This requires an accurate source file manifest.
In addition to walking the dependency graph, Cook can turn the input rules into a shell script, or a web page.
Cook runs on almost any flavor of UNIX. The source distribution is self configuring using a GNU Autoconf generated configure script.
Cook has special cascade dependencies, allowing powerful include dependency specification, amongst other things.

.br

See the README file for a description of the new features and bug-fixes in this release. This is also in the Cook Reference Manual, along with the build and installation instructions, and all of the manual pages. .br

If you are putting together a source-code distribution and planning to write a makefile, consider writing a cookbook instead. Although Cook takes a day or two to learn, it is much more powerful and a bit more intuitive than the traditional make(1) tool. And Cook doesn't interpret tab differently to 8 space characters! .br

Year 2000 Status

Cook does not suffer from Year 2000 problems.

Cook stores dates internally in Unix style (i.e. seconds offset), so internal storage of times and dates does not suffer from any Y2K problems.
Cook always uses the ANSI C standard strftime function to display times and dates. (This assumes that your vendor has supplied a compliant strftime.) This means that displaying dates does not assume fixed field widths, nor will it display the year 2000 as ``100''.
When a user enters dates, they may specify years with an explicit century. If a user enters a year with an implicit century, the closest is assumed.

.br

Files for Download

File Name	Description
`cook-\*(v).README`	The `README` file from the tar distribution.
`cook-\*(v).lsm`	Brief description in .nf LSM .fi format.
`cook-\*(v).spec`	RedHat package manager specification file (RPM)
`cook-\*(v).tar.gz`	The complete source.
`cook-\*(v).rm.ps.gz`	Cook Reference Manual in PostScript format.
`cook-\*(v).ug.ps.gz`	Cook User Guide in PostScript format.
`cook-\*(v)-1.i386.rpm`	Pre-built binaries in RPM format.

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Second Sources

Cook is also available from the Linux archives in the devel/make directory. .br
Cook is also available as .br Debian packages from the Debian distribution. .br
Cook is also available as part of the FreeBSD ports collection in the .fi devel/cook directory. .br
Cook is also available as part of the OpenBSD ports collection in the .fi devel/cook directory.

.br

Mailing List

A mailing list has been created so that users of Aegis may exchange ideas about how to use Aegis. Discussion may include, but is not limited to: bugs, enhancements, and applications. The list is not moderated.

Posting

The address of the mailing list is cook-users@canb.auug.org.au

Please do not attempt to subscribe by sending email to this address. It is for content only.

Subscribe

To subscribe to this mailing list, send an email message to majordomo@canb.auug.org.au with a message body containing the single line

subscribe cook-users

The subscribe is moderated, and there are more options, too. See the README file for details.

Archive

The mailing list is archived at eGroups. The URL is .br http://www.egroups.com/ list/ cook-users/ and then follow the links.

The archive starts from November 1999. Sorry, previous postings are not available.

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unsubscribe cook-users

The unsubscribe is moderated, and there are more options, too. See the .br README file for details.

You can't fetch files throuht the mailing list, so please don't try. Use the links on this page, instead. .br

Cook is written and owned by Peter Miller and is freely distributable under the terms and conditions of the GNU GPL.

Cook is developed using Aegis, a transaction based software configuration management package.

There is more Software by Peter Miller at his home page. .br

This page has been accessed approximately .nf

.fi times since .ds MO1 Jan .ds MO2 Feb .ds MO3 Mar .ds MO4 Apr .ds MO5 May .ds MO6 Jun .ds MO7 Jul .ds MO8 Aug .ds MO9 Sep .ds MO10 Oct .ds MO11 Nov .ds MO12 Dec .nr y4 \n[yr]+1900 \n[dy]-\*[MO\n[mo]]-\n[y4].

Cook is a replacement for the traditional make(1) tool.	There is a make2cook utility included in the distribution to help convert makefiles into cookbooks.
Cook is more powerful than the traditional make tool.
Cook has true variables, not simple macros.	Cook has a simple but powerful string-based description language with many built-in functions. This allows sophisticated filename specification and manipulation without loss of readability or performance.
Cook has user defined functions.
Cook can build in parallel.	Cook is able to build your project with multiple parallel threads, with support for rules which must be single threaded. It is possible to distribute parallel builds over your LAN, allowing you to turn your network into a virtual parallel build engine.
Cook can distribute builds across your LAN.
Cook is able to use fingerprints to supplement file modification times. This allows build optimization without contorted rules.	Cook can be configured with an explicit list of primary source files. This allow the dependency graph to be constructed faster by not going down dead ends, and also allows better error messages when the graph can't be constructed. This requires an accurate source file manifest.
In addition to walking the dependency graph, Cook can turn the input rules into a shell script, or a web page.
Cook runs on almost any flavor of UNIX. The source distribution is self configuring using a GNU Autoconf generated configure script.	Cook has special cascade dependencies, allowing powerful include dependency specification, amongst other things.