SCons - a software construction tool

                     Version 2.5.1

This is SCons, a tool for building software (and other files). SCons is implemented in Python, and its "configuration files" are actually Python scripts, allowing you to use the full power of a real scripting language to solve build problems. You do not, however, need to know Python to use SCons effectively.

See the RELEASE.txt file for notes about this specific release, including known problems. See the CHANGES.txt file for a list of changes since the previous release.

LATEST VERSION

Before going further, you can check that this package you have is the latest version by checking the SCons download page at:

    http://www.scons.org/download.html

EXECUTION REQUIREMENTS

Running SCons requires Python version 2.7.*. Currently it does not run on the Python 3.x release. There should be no other dependencies or requirements to run SCons. (There is, however, an additional requirement to install SCons from this particular package; see the next section.)

By default, SCons knows how to search for available programming tools on various systems--see the SCons man page for details. You may, of course, override the default SCons choices made by appropriate configuration of Environment construction variables.

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS

Nothing special.

INSTALLATION

Assuming your system satisfies the installation requirements in the previous section, install SCons from this package simply by running the provided Python-standard setup script as follows:

    # python setup.py install

By default, the above command will do the following:

--  Install the version-numbered "scons-2.5.1" and "sconsign-2.5.1"
    scripts in the default system script directory (/usr/bin or
    C:\Python*\Scripts, for example).  This can be disabled by
    specifying the "--no-version-script" option on the command
    line.

--  Install scripts named "scons" and "sconsign" scripts in the
    default system script directory (/usr/bin or C:\Python*\Scripts,
    for example).  This can be disabled by specifying the
    "--no-scons-script" option on the command line, which is useful
    if you want to install and experiment with a new version before
    making it the default on your system.

    On UNIX or Linux systems, you can have the "scons" and "sconsign"
    scripts be hard links or symbolic links to the "scons-2.5.1" and
    "sconsign-2.5.1" scripts by specifying the "--hardlink-scons"
    or "--symlink-scons" options on the command line.

--  Install "scons-2.5.1.bat" and "scons.bat" wrapper scripts in the
    Python prefix directory on Windows (C:\Python*, for example).
    This can be disabled by specifying the "--no-install-bat" option
    on the command line.

    On UNIX or Linux systems, the "--install-bat" option may be
    specified to have "scons-2.5.1.bat" and "scons.bat" files
    installed in the default system script directory, which is useful
    if you want to install SCons in a shared file system directory
    that can be used to execute SCons from both UNIX/Linux and
    Windows systems.

--  Install the SCons build engine (a Python module) in an
    appropriate version-numbered SCons library directory
    (/usr/lib/scons-2.5.1 or C:\Python*\scons-2.5.1, for example).
    See below for more options related to installing the build
    engine library.

--  Install the troff-format man pages in an appropriate directory
    on UNIX or Linux systems (/usr/share/man/man1 or /usr/man/man1,
    for example).  This can be disabled by specifying the
    "--no-install-man" option on the command line.  The man pages
    can be installed on Windows systems by specifying the
    "--install-man" option on the command line.

Note that, by default, SCons does not install its build engine library in the standard Python library directories. If you want to be able to use the SCons library modules (the build engine) in other Python scripts, specify the "--standard-lib" option on the command line, as follows:

    # python setup.py install --standard-lib

This will install the build engine in the standard Python library directory (/usr/lib/python*/site-packages or C:\Python*\Lib\site-packages).

Alternatively, you can have SCons install its build engine library in a hard-coded standalone library directory, instead of the default version-numbered directory, by specifying the "--standalone-lib" option on the command line, as follows:

    # python setup.py install --standalone-lib

This is usually not recommended, however.

Note that, to install SCons in any of the above system directories, you should have system installation privileges (that is, "root" or "Administrator") when running the setup.py script. If you don't have system installation privileges, you can use the --prefix option to specify an alternate installation location, such as your home directory:

    $ python setup.py install --prefix=$HOME

This will install SCons in the appropriate locations relative to $HOME--that is, the scons script itself $HOME/bin and the associated library in $HOME/lib/scons, for example.

DOCUMENTATION

See the RELEASE.txt file for notes about this specific release, including known problems. See the CHANGES.txt file for a list of changes since the previous release.

The scons.1 man page is included in this package, and contains a section of small examples for getting started using SCons.

Additional documentation for SCons is available at:

    http://www.scons.org/doc.html

LICENSING

SCons is distributed under the MIT license, a full copy of which is available in the LICENSE.txt file. The MIT license is an approved Open Source license, which means:

    This software is OSI Certified Open Source Software.  OSI
    Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative.

More information about OSI certifications and Open Source software is available at:

    http://www.opensource.org/

REPORTING BUGS

Please report bugs by following the detailed instructions on our Bug Submission page:

    http://scons.tigris.org/bug-submission.html

You can also send mail to the SCons developers' mailing list:

    [email protected]

But even if you send email to the mailing list please make sure that you ALSO submit a bug report to the project page bug tracker, because bug reports in email often get overlooked in the general flood of messages.

MAILING LISTS

An active mailing list for users of SCons is available. You may send questions or comments to the list at:

    [email protected]

You may subscribe to the mailing list by sending email to:

    [email protected]

There is also a low-volume mailing list available for announcements about SCons. Subscribe by sending email to:

    [email protected]

There are other mailing lists available for SCons developers, for notification of SCons code changes, and for notification of updated bug reports and project documents. Please see our mailing lists page for details.

DONATIONS

If you find SCons helpful, please consider making a donation (of cash, software, or hardware) to support continued work on the project. Information is available at:

    http://www.scons.org/donate.html

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Check the SCons web site at:

    http://www.scons.org/

AUTHOR INFO

SCons was originally written by Steven Knight, knight at baldmt dot com. Since around 2010 it has been maintained by the SCons development team, co-managed by Bill Deegan and Gary Oberbrunner, with many contributors, including but not at all limited to:

• Chad Austin
• Dirk Baechle
• Charles Crain
• William Deegan
• Steve Leblanc
• Rob Managan
• Greg Noel
• Gary Oberbrunner
• Anthony Roach
• Greg Spencer
• Tom Tanner
• Anatoly Techtonik
• Christoph Wiedemann
• Russel Winder

... and many others.

Copyright (c) 2001 - 2015 The SCons Foundation