Building Projects

As mod projects grow larger, manually building all of the modified files quickly becomes unmanagable. At this point you might decide to write a bash script (or similar) to automate running all of the necessary commands. However, this too can become a mess as the number of source files increases (and thus the length of your command lines).

The alice project build tool provides a solution to this problem by specifying a declarative format for describing all of the inputs and outputs of the build process.

Project Files

The main configuration for a project is contained in a .pje file in the project’s root directory. For example, suppose we have the following directory structure:

Rance10ModCG.manifest
Rance10ModFlat.manifest
Rance10ModSound.manifest
ex/
    1_デバッグ時ボーナス／ボス.txtex
    ...
    Rance10EX.txtex
flat/
    ...
flatsrc/
    ...
my_project.pje
ogg/
    ....
out/
    Rance10.ain
    Rance10EX.ex
    Rance10.exe
    ...
png/
    ...
qnt/
    ...
src/
    battle.jaf
    battle.jam
    cards.jaf
    cards.jam
    main.jaf
    quests/
        quests.inc
        my_quest.jaf
    quests.jaf
    mod.inc
src.ain

The file my_project.pje might have the following contents:

// The name of the project
ProjectName = "my_project"

// The name of the .ain file (will be placed in OutputDir)
CodeName = "Rance10.ain"

// The name of the directory containing .jaf/.jam source files
SourceDir = "src"

// The name of the directory to place built output files
OutputDir = "out"

// The source files (relative to SourceDir)
Source = {
    "mod.inc",
}

// Bytecode files to append to the .ain file's code section
ModJam = {
    "cards.jam",
    "battle.jam",
}

// The input .ain file to modify
ModAin = "src.ain"

// List of archive manifests to build
Archives = {
    "Rance10ModCG.manifest",
    "Rance10ModSound.manifest",
    "Rance10ModFlat.manifest"
}

// The name of the .txtex input file from which the .ex file should be built
ExInput = "ex/Rance10EX.txtex"
// The name of the .ex file (will be placed in OutputDir)
ExName = "Rance10EX.ex"

Include Files

In the “Source” list above there is a single file named “mod.inc” which is found in the SourceDir “src/”. This file should have the following contents:

Source = {
    "misc.jaf",
    "battle.jaf",
    "cards.jaf",
    "quests.jaf",
    "quests/quests.inc",
}

The file “src/quests/quests.inc” in turn should have the following contents:

Source = {
    "my_quest.jaf",
}

All of the files in the “Source” lists contained in these files will be built (in order) when the project build command is executed.

It is also possible to specify another “SystemSource” list in these files (and in the .pje file). Source files listed under “SystemSource” are built before any files listed under the normal “Source” list.

Archive Manifests

The “Archives” list in the .pje file should contain a list of archive manifest files (as understood by alice ar pack). When building, the output path in the manifest is used. As such, it is necessary to specify the OutputDir as part of this path to ensure the output file is placed in the correct directory.

Rance10ModCG.manifest

#BATCHPACK
out/Rance10ModCG.afa
png, png, qnt, qnt

Rance10ModFlat.manifest

#BATCHPACK
out/Rance10ModFlat.afa
flatsrc,txtex,flat,flat

Rance10ModSound.manifest

#BATCHPACK
out/Rance10ModSound.afa
ogg,ogg,ogg,ogg

Building the Project

Simply pass the path to the .pje file to the project build command to build the project.

alice project build my_project.pje

This will produce .ain, .ex and .afa files in the OutputDir specified in the .pje file.

out/
    Rance10.ain
    Rance10EX.ex
    Rance10ModCG.afa
    Rance10ModFlat.afa
    Rance10ModSound.afa
    ...