Examples

Trying to investigate/demonstrate the information required to consume different types of artifacts from others and the transitive information that has to be propagated downstream.

Information to be taken into account:

• Headers: header files and everything needed to link/use a library at the time of building a dependent one. It includes header files and preprocessor definitions.
• Linking: everything needed to link against another library.
• Runtime: everything needed during runtime, to execute/use the artifact in the final product.
• Package-ID: information very specific to Conan.

Types

Different types of artifacts:

• assets: intended to be used only by the final application/product.
• library-header: header-only library.
• library-static: static library.
• library-dynamic: dynamically linked library.
• tool: artifact containing an executable (or plugins for a tool).
• plugin: dynamic library to be consumed as a plugin.

About types, the type of a node could be encoded in the node itself, but it is also a property of the relation, the same node can be consumed as different types.

• Information that belongs to the node: header, static, dynamic; this information is typically encoded in the package-id.
• Information that belongs to the relation: library, tool, plugin; only the consumer can decide how it will use a requirement. Both coordinates have to be coherent. Who raises on this?

Visibility

Think about three different visibility relations:

• interface: current artifact doesn't use it, but its consumers will.
• public: current artifact uses it and it is exposed to the consumers.
• private: current artifact uses it and its consumers won't

Contexts

Different contexts:

• host: dependencies should use the same settings as the one requiring it.
• other: usually it would build, but it can be any other.

No-topological

On top of all of this, we need to support overrides and default_option propagation upstream, and we need to resolve conflicts.

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Legend for the tables in these files:

• + information is needed
• - information is not needed (and it shouldn't arrive)
• o producer doesn't provide this information
• e this situation doesn't make sense