6.3. KDE projects and source code organization

6.3.1. Individual projects

It is easy to set kde-builder to build a single project. The following listing is an example of what a declaration for a project would look like in the configuration file.

project kdefoo:
  cmake-options: -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug

Tip

This is a git-based project since it doesn't use a repository option. Also, the cmake-options option is listed as an example only, it is not required.

6.3.2. Groups of related projects

Now most KDE source projects are git-based KDE, and are normally combined into groups of projects.

kde-builder therefore supports groups of projects as well, using groups. An example:

group base-projects:
  repository: kde-projects
  use-projects:
    - kde-runtime
    - kde-workspace
    - kde-baseapps

Tip

This repository setting tells kde-builder where to download the source from, but you can also use a git:// URL.

One special feature of the "repository: kde-projects" is that kde-builder will automatically include any projects that are grouped under the projects you list (in the KDE Project database).

6.3.3. Project "branch groups"

Taking the concept of a group of projects further, the KDE developers eventually found that synchronizing the names of the git branches across a large number of repositories was getting difficult.

So the concept of "branch groups" was developed, to allow users and developers to select one of only a few groups, and allow the kde-builder to automatically select the appropriate git branch.

branch-group can be used in the configuration file as follows:

Example of using branch-group

global:
  # Select KDE Frameworks 6 and other Qt6-based apps
  branch-group: kf6-qt6

  # Other global options here ...

group name:
  # branch-group only works for kde-projects
  repository: kde-projects

  # branch-group is inherited from the one set globally, but could
  # be specified here.

  use-projects:
    - kdelibs
    - kde-workspace

# kdelibs's branch will be "frameworks"
# kde-workspace's branch will be "master" (as of August 2013)

In this case the same branch-group gives different branch names for each project.

This feature requires some data maintained by the KDE developers in a git repository named repo-metadata, however this project will be included automatically by kde-builder (though you may see it appear in the script output).

Tip

KDE projects that do not have a set branch name for the branch group you choose will default to an appropriate branch name, as if you had not specified branch-group at all.