SCons build targets

SCons is awesome. Just saying. If you want to know (or troubleshoot) how SCons selects targets to be built, add this snippet at the end of your SConstruct:

def dump_targets(targets):
  for t in targets:
    if type(t) == str:
      name = t
    else:
      name = t.name
    print("  <" + str(t.__class__.__name__) + "> " + name)

print("[*] Default targets:")
dump_targets(DEFAULT_TARGETS)

print("[*] Command line targets:")
dump_targets(COMMAND_LINE_TARGETS)
print("[*] All build targets:")
dump_targets(BUILD_TARGETS)

For my copy of Wesnoth, 'scons .' produces this output:

[*] Default targets:
  <Alias> wesnoth
  <Alias> wesnothd
[*] Command line targets:
  <str> .
[*] All build targets:
  <str> .

And if you want to know how to specify targets or what do they mean, read the second page of SCons man documentation. Just for convenience I quote it here.

---

scons is normally executed in a top-level directory containing a SConstruct file, optionally specifying as command-line arguments the target file or files to be built.

By default, the command

scons

will build all target files in or below the current directory. Explicit default targets (to be built when no targets are specified on the command line) may be defined the SConscript file(s) using the Default() function, described below.

Even when Default() targets are specified in the SConscript file(s), all target files in or below the current directory may be built by explicitly specifying the current directory (.) as a command-line target:

scons .

Building all target files, including any files outside of the current directory, may be specified by supplying a command-line target of the root directory (on POSIX systems):

scons /

or the path name(s) of the volume(s) in which all the targets should be built (on Windows systems):

scons C:\ D:\

To build only specific targets, supply them as command-line arguments:

scons foo bar

in which case only the specified targets will be built (along with any derived files on which they depend).

Specifying "cleanup" targets in SConscript files is not usually necessary. The -c flag removes all files necessary to build the specified target:

scons -c .

to remove all target files, or:

scons -c build export

to remove target files under build and export. Additional files or directories to remove can be specified using the Clean() function. Conversely, targets that would normally be removed by the -c invocation can be prevented from being removed by using the NoClean() function.

A subset of a hierarchical tree may be built by remaining at the top-level directory (where the SConstruct file lives) and specifying the subdirectory as the target to be built:

scons src/subdir

or by changing directory and invoking scons with the -u option, which traverses up the directory hierarchy until it finds the SConstruct file, and then builds targets relatively to the current subdirectory:

cd src/subdir
scons -u .