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The executables definitions

Purpose​

List the executables available in the binary archive.

Syntax​

{
    ...
    "executables": {
        ....
        "<executable name>": "<relative path>",
        ....
    }
}

History​

0.19.5 / November 2024​

Added.

At the same moment the previous name bin was deprecated, but still preserved.

Description​

When installing a binary package with executables, after the archive is extracted, links to all executables listed in the executables object are created in the xpacks/.bin folder. On Windows, where soft links to files are problematic, .cmd forwarders/shims are created.

tip

On Windows, to accommodate for the .cmd stubs, some development tools (like CMake and meson) must be configured to explicity launch the xPack executables via an explicit shell like cmd.exe or PowerShell.exe.

Example​

{
    ...
    "xpack": {
        ...
        "destination": "./.content",
        ...
        "executables": {
            "ccmake": "./.content/bin/ccmake",
            "cmake": "./.content/bin/cmake",
            "cpack": "./.content/bin/cpack",
            "ctest": "./.content/bin/ctest"
        }
    }
}