Buildfile for vspec2binary lives in vss

[SebastianSchildt]

To use the vspec2binary converter some C(pp) code needs to be compiled. According to the documentation that is done in the VSS (the spec) Makefile here

https://github.com/COVESA/vehicle_signal_specification/blob/c5ae76070fbef8e6f599b89a7e2de80d9da80fef/Makefile#L42

However, BUILD instructions for tools should not live in the spec repo.

(for vss CI it is still cleaner if a build script inside vss-tools is executed)

[gunnarx]

Isn't this true for a lot of things... traditionally the Makefile has been kept in vehicle_signal_specification repo. And it refers to tools in vss-tools, so why can it not refer to binarytool.c ?

Or am I missing your exact point?

Solution? Do you want to change the Makefile, move the makefile, or change the documentation?

[SebastianSchildt]

I see the makefile in vehicle_signal_specification as a way to test vss contributions ("is VSS ok in this branch/PR valid?"), so it needs to execute the tools. While maybe it would be "cleaner" in a gh action file, or just running a container from somehwere, or real "installable" packages (pypi), for "historic reasons" it works fine with the makefile. But whatever mechanism is used to test vehicle_signal_specification, I think it should boil down to

• install tool
• run tool

Building tools, which might change faster/on a different level, and would possibly use even different build systems, I would rather see only in the tools repo (where we need them anyway).

So I would see it as more clean if the vss would just execute a makefile from vss-tools where necessary instead of containing a like this
https://github.com/COVESA/vehicle_signal_specification/blob/e4adabe9b66258b5632e85cc03e89cc4251fa2cb/Makefile#L43

I think it is not a pressing "fix it or VSS will break" kind of thing, but as we are doing it now is neither a good nor elegant solution.

[erikbosch]

The current setup at least makes it a bit cumbersome if you e.g. refactor a tool, as you then to get builds to pass needs to change both the tool itself and the Makefile in VSS. As of today VSS Makefile executes e.g. vspec2csv.py, as I see see it would be cleaner is VSS (from Makefile or buildcheck.yml) just triggered "make csv" in the vss-tools Makefile with vspecfile as parameter/variable.

By the way, is anyone using the install command in the vss Makefile? I assume it does not work since contrib was not added to ${TOOLSDIR}/vspec2c when we moved vspec2c.

install:
	git submodule init
	git submodule update
	(cd ${TOOLSDIR}/; python3 setup.py install --install-scripts=${DESTDIR}/bin)
	$(MAKE) DESTDIR=${DESTDIR} -C ${TOOLSDIR}/vspec2c install
	install -d ${DESTDIR}/share/vss
	(cd spec; cp -r * ${DESTDIR}/share/vss

[erikbosch]

This is fixed now