On Fri, 8 May 2026 at 17:00, Pierrick Bouvier <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 5/8/2026 8:24 AM, Peter Maydell wrote: > > We have a set of binaries that we call "tools": they're built based on > > the --enable-tools/--disable-tools configure setting, they're > > documented in docs/tools, and they're standalone executables of one > > form or another. > > > > Currently the sources for these are a bit scattered: many still in the > > top level source directory, some in contrib, one or two actually in > > the tools directory. > > > > As an initial attempt at cleanup, this patchset moves the sources for > > qemu-bridge-helper, qemu-edid, qemu-img, qemu-io, qemu-nbd, > > qemu-keymap, qemu-vmsr-helper and elf2dmp into the tools/ directory. > > > > The patchseries also moves the ebfp skeleton sources from tools/ebpf/ > > to ebpf/bpf-src/, because this isn't a tool by the above definition. > > > > As per my thread from a while back, I would ultimately like us to > > clean up contrib/: > > https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/CAFEAcA_5HvGriDsWnb1ALuA_dgG320eKv7yuM2kThv=rfos...@mail.gmail.com/ > > But parts of that clearly need more discussion. So this is just doing > > some parts that I hope are not controversial. > > > > Annoyingly, meson doesn't seem to provide any way for a subdirectory > > meson.build to say "the foo.c in this subdir builds into a foo > > executable that lives at the top level of the builddir". And we have a > > lot of test harness stuff plus user muscle memory that assumes that > > qemu-img and qemu-io live there. So the build runes for these tools > > have to stay in the top level meson.build (and tools/meson.build > > remains an empty file). The exception is that contrib/elf2dmp/elf2dmp > > is now tools/elf2dmp/elf2dmp, but I think the set of people who were > > running that from the build directory will be small. > > > > It's a deliberate design more than an annoyance. It pushes users to make > things explicit at top level, which is good to understand what is built > and how, and hide details in subdirs in variables. QEMU's top level > meson.build is over complex, so it may appear more as a burden than a > benefit though.
Personally I think if the build system doesn't let you do a pretty normal and reasonable thing that's annoying. Meson annoys me because it has a tendency to be over-opinionated. -- PMM
