Rule | Qbs Manual
Description: Creates transformers for input tags.

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# Rule

Creates transformers for input tags. More...

- List of all members, including inherited members
- Rule is part of List of All Items.

## Properties

- alwaysRun : bool
- auxiliaryInputs : stringList
- auxiliaryInputsFromDependencies : stringList `(since 2.6)`
- condition : bool
- excludedInputs : stringList `(since Qbs 1.12)`
- explicitlyDependsOn : stringList
- explicitlyDependsOnFromDependencies : stringList `(since Qbs 1.12)`
- inputs : stringList
- inputsFromDependencies : stringList
- multiplex : bool
- outputArtifacts : var
- outputFileTags : stringList
- prepare : script
- requiresInputs : bool

## Detailed Description

In Qbs, rules create transformers that produce output files from input files. The term transformer refers to a list of commands. These commands are created in a rule's prepare script. They do the actual work, either directly or by executing external commands.

## A Simple Example

The following rule takes text files and replaces Windows-style line endings with their Unix-style counterparts. We will look at it one piece at a time.

         Rule {
             multiplex: false

A multiplex rule creates one transformer that takes all input artifacts with the matching input file tag and creates one or more output artifacts. We are setting the respective property to `false` here, indicating that we want to create one transformer per input file.

Note: This is actually the default, so the above assignment is not required.

             inputs: ["txt_input"]

Here we are specifying that our rule is interested in input files that have the tag `"txt_input"`. Such files could be source files, in which case you would tag them using a Group. Or they could in turn get generated by a different rule, in which case that rule would assign the file tag. The files matching the tag will be available in the prepare script under the name `inputs` (see The inputs and outputs Variables).

             Artifact {
                 filePath: input.fileName + ".out"
                 fileTags: ["txt_output"]
             }

Here we are specifying that for every input file, we want to create one output file whose name is the same as the input file, but with an additional extension. Because we are giving a relative path, Qbs will prepend that path by the product's build directory.

In addition, we tell Qbs that the output files should get the file tag `"txt_output"`. This enables other rules to use these files as inputs. You must always assign suitable file tags to your output artifacts, or the rule will not be run. See Rules and Product Types for details.

If you want to create more than one output file per input file, you simply provide multiple Artifact items. The set of output artifacts will be available in the prepare script under the name `outputs` (see The inputs and outputs Variables).

             prepare: {
                 var cmd = new JavaScriptCommand();
                 cmd.description = "generating " + output.fileName + " from " + input.fileName;
                 cmd.highlight = "codegen";
                 cmd.sourceCode = function() {
                     var file = new TextFile(input.filePath);
                     var content = file.readAll();
                     file.close()
                     content = content.toUpperCase();
                     file = new TextFile(output.filePath, TextFile.WriteOnly);
                     file.write(content);
                     file.close();
                 }
                 return [cmd];
             }
         }

The prepare script shown above puts everything together by creating the command that does the actual transformation of the file contents, employing the help of the TextFile class.

As you can see, the return value is an array, meaning you can provide several commands to implement the rule's functionality. For instance, if we had provided two `Artifact` items, we might have also provided two commands, each of them creating one output file.

For the `input` and `output` variables used in the code, see the next section.

## The `inputs` and `outputs` Variables

We already mentioned that the input and output artifacts are available in the prepare script via the variables `inputs` and `outputs`, respectively. These variables are JavaScript objects whose property keys are file tags and whose property values are lists of objects representing the artifacts matching these tags. In our example, the `inputs` variable has a single property `txt_input`, whose value is a list with one element. Similarly, the `outputs` variable also has one single property `txt_output`, again with a list containing one element.

The actual artifact objects have the following properties:

Property | Description
--- | ---
`baseName` | The file name without any extension.
`completeBaseName` | The file name without the last extension.
`fileName` | The name of the file (that is, `filePath` without any directory components).
`filePath` | The full file path.
`fileTags` | The list of the artifact's file tags.

The artifact object contains a property for every module that is used in the product. That can be used to access the module's properties. For instance, for an artifact in a C++ product, `artifact.cpp.defines` is the list of defines that will be passed when compiling the respective file.

But what about the variables `input` and `output` that appeared in our example? These are simply convenience variables which are available in the case that the `inputs` and `outputs` variables contain only one artifact, respectively. So in our example, instead of `input` we also could have written `inputs.txt_input[0]`, which is considerably more verbose.

## Rules and Product Types

It is important to know that when figuring out which rules to execute, Qbs starts at the product type and then looks for a way to produce artifacts with matching file tags from source files, using a chain of rules that are connected by their respective input and output tags. For instance, consider this simple C++ project:

     Product {
         type: ["application"]
         Depends { name: "cpp" }
         files: ["main.cpp"]
     }

Here's how this product is built:

1. Qbs looks for a rule that can produce artifacts with the file tag `"application"`. Such a rule is found in the cpp module (namely, the rule that invokes the linker).
2. Since the rule found in the previous step takes inputs of type `"obj"`, Qbs now looks for a rule that produces artifacts of that type. Again, such a rule is found in the `cpp` module (the rule that runs the compiler).
3. The rule found in the previous step takes inputs of type `"cpp"`. No rule is found that creates such artifacts, but we do have a source file with a matching type (because the `cpp` module contains a FileTagger which attached that type to `"main.cpp"` due to its file extension).
4. Now that there is a chain of rules leading from a source file tag to the product type, the commands of these rules are executed one after the other until we end up with our executable.

## A Complete Example

The following code snippet shows a single Rule within a Product and summarizes the previous sections.

Note: The product's type is set up to the `"txt_output"` file tag to tell Qbs that the product depends on output artifacts produced by the custom rule. Otherwise the rule would not be executed.

     import qbs.TextFile

     Product {
         type: "txt_output"

         Group {
             name: "lorem_ipsum"
             files: "lorem_ipsum.txt"
             fileTags: "txt_input"
         }

         Rule {
             multiplex: false
             inputs: ["txt_input"]
             Artifact {
                 filePath: input.fileName + ".out"
                 fileTags: ["txt_output"]
             }
             prepare: {
                 var cmd = new JavaScriptCommand();
                 cmd.description = "generating " + output.fileName + " from " + input.fileName;
                 cmd.highlight = "codegen";
                 cmd.sourceCode = function() {
                     var file = new TextFile(input.filePath);
                     var content = file.readAll();
                     file.close()
                     content = content.toUpperCase();
                     file = new TextFile(output.filePath, TextFile.WriteOnly);
                     file.write(content);
                     file.close();
                 }
                 return [cmd];
             }
         }
     }

## Property Documentation

alwaysRun : bool

If `true`, the rule's commands are always executed, even if all output artifacts are up to date.

Default: `false`

auxiliaryInputs : stringList

A list of file tags. This rule will be dependent on (that is: applied after) every other rule in the same product that (potentially) produces artifacts that are compatible with the value of this property.

Unlike inputs, this property has no effect on the content of the `inputs` variable of the prepare script.

Default: Undefined

auxiliaryInputsFromDependencies : stringList `[since 2.6]`

Like auxiliaryInputs, except that instead of rules from the current product, those from product dependencies are considered.

Default: Undefined

This property was introduced in Qt 2.6.

condition : bool

If `true`, the rule is enabled, otherwise it does nothing.

Default: `true`

excludedInputs : stringList `[since Qbs 1.12]`

A list of file tags. Connections to rules that produce these file tags are prevented.

Default: Undefined

This property was introduced in Qbs 1.12.

explicitlyDependsOn : stringList

A list of file tags. Each artifact that matches the file tags is added to the dependencies of each output node. All artifacts in the current product are considered.

The main difference between this property and inputs is that all matching artifacts are dependencies for all output artifacts, regardless of whether multiplex is true or not.

Default: Undefined

explicitlyDependsOnFromDependencies : stringList `[since Qbs 1.12]`

Like explicitlyDependsOn, except that instead of artifacts from the current product, those from product dependencies are considered.

Default: Undefined

This property was introduced in Qbs 1.12.

inputs : stringList

A list of file tags the input artifacts must match.

All output artifacts will depend on all artifacts in the product with the given input file tags. Also, these artifacts are available in the `inputs` variable of the prepare script.

Default: Undefined

inputsFromDependencies : stringList

A list of file tags that the artifacts of product dependencies must match.

For example, the product foo might appear as follows in the current product:

     Depends {
         name: "foo"
     }

All artifacts of foo that match the given file tags will appear in the `inputs` variable of the prepare script.

Default: Undefined

multiplex : bool

Determines whether this is a multiplex rule.

Default: `false`

outputArtifacts : var

An array of output artifacts, specified as JavaScript objects.

For example:

     outputArtifacts: [{
         filePath: "myfile.cpp",
         fileTags: ["cpp"],
         cpp: { cxxLanguageVersion: "c++11" }
     }]

For a description of the possible properties, see the documentation of the Artifact item.

Output artifacts can be specified either by this property or by Artifact items. Use this property if the set of outputs is not fixed but depends the input's content. If no file tags are provided, Qbs will apply all file taggers known in the current context to the output file name.

The user may set the property `explicitlyDependsOn` on artifact objects, which is similar to Rule.explicitlyDependsOn.

Default: Undefined

outputFileTags : stringList

If output artifacts are specified by outputArtifacts, this property must specify a list of file tags that the rule potentially produces.

Default: Undefined

prepare : script

A script that prepares the commands to transform the inputs to outputs.

The code in this script is treated as a function with the signature `function(project, product, inputs, outputs, input, output, explicitlyDependsOn)`.

The argument `input` is `undefined` if there's more than one input artifact for this rule. Similarly, `output` is only defined if there is exactly one output artifact.

Default: Undefined

requiresInputs : bool

Specifies whether a rule's commands should be created even if no inputs are available.

Enabling this property can be useful if you are not sure whether input files exist, and you want Qbs to create an output file even if they do not.

Set to `true` if the rule declares any inputs, `false` otherwise.

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