bras --- Rule Based Command Execution

Executing commands according to rules instead of in the order in which they appear is the great idea which gave us famous make.

Although I am quite happy with make most of the time, it has some rough edges which I really dislike. There fore I decided the other day that I want to have my own little tool without the rough edges. The result is bras.

Its main features are:

rule-controlled command execution, similar to make;
written in Tcl, no compilation required;
Tcl-syntax so that commands associated with rules may contain control structures;
dependencies in foreign directories can trigger sourcing rule files in that directory, recursive execution of bras is not necessary;
more than one type of rule: Newer, Exist, Always;
new types of rules can be easily added;
distinction between dependencies and mere prerequisites;
multiple targets in one rule;
multiple rules for a target;
pattern rules which deserve the name;

Of course not all of those are unique to bras compared to make. My favorites are Tcl-syntax and the ability to reason over several directories without the necessity to execute bras recursively. You may want to study a trivial example to find out if bras is for you.

You can now download the gzipped PostScript documentation, the latest release as |BRASTARGZ|, or as |BRASRPM| both of which include the documentation. Since bras does not contain any binary files, the rpm might also work on non-intel platforms.

For a start you can also read the online documentation. If you know bras already, you may be interested in the changes since the last release.

Please send comments and suggestions to Harald Kirsch. Flames expressing the opinion that bras is heresy against holy make are redirected to /dev/null.