Getting Started with Jam MR – A Tutorial

Getting Started with Jam/MR – A TutorialLaura WingerdPerforce SoftwarePerforce User Conference 2001AbstractJam/MR (“Jam – make(1) Redux”) is a software build tool. Its command language and processing logicare enough unlike make that new users often have trouble learning how to use it to its best advantage. Inthis talk, I’ll demonstrate some of Jam’s most useful features in a series of progressively interestingexamples. The basic knowledge gleaned from these examples will give you the insight you need toincorporate very sophisticated Jam features into a powerful build system. You’ll find it helpful to have theJam documentation at hand as you follow along.1 BackgroundJam was written by Christopher Seiwald. It has been freely available as C++ source for many years. It is1widely used to build commercial and academic software, and has evolved into a few variants. It’s evenshipped with the Macintosh OS/X operating system. Nevertheless, it hasn’t supplanted make, and theO’Reilly book on Jam has yet to be written.Jam’s distinguishing strengths are its portability and speed. Its portability comes from the way the Jamcommand language segregates platform-dependent specifications, like compile and link commands, fromplatform-independent specifications, like dependencies. (More on this in a bit.) Its speed comes in partfrom its single-invocation processing logic. The Jam executable is invoked once -- unlike make, whichmust invoke itself recursively -- to gather ...