project-tree-builder

name	project-tree-builder
description	Use when generating or dry-running NCBI-style Unix C++ project trees with `project_tree_builder`.
disable-model-invocation	true
user-invocable	true

project-tree-builder

Compiled NCBI project-tree builder shipped inside the BLAST package. The live -help output documents a three-argument interface around <root> <subtree> <solution> plus build-tree options such as -dryrun, -extroot, -projtag, -dtdep, and -libdep.

Quick Start

• Command: project_tree_builder <root> <subtree> <solution>
• Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/project_tree_builder
• Observed version: 4.12.3 from BLAST 2.17.0

When To Use This Tool

• Generating NCBI C++ Toolkit-style Unix project trees
• Previewing a project-tree build with -dryrun before touching files
• Restricting tree generation to selected project tags or subtree lists
• Toggling dependency-analysis behavior for external or datatool-related builds

Common Patterns

# Preview a tree build without making changes
project_tree_builder -dryrun /path/to/c++ src/corelib/ MySolution

# Limit generation to selected project tags
project_tree_builder -projtag 'core && !demo' /path/to/c++ src/corelib/ MySolution

# Read arguments from a file
project_tree_builder -args tree_builder.args /path/to/c++ src/corelib/ MySolution

Recommended Workflow

1. Identify the NCBI-style C++ root, subtree (or subtree list file), and solution name you actually want to build.
2. Start with -dryrun so preconditions are checked before generating anything.
3. Add dependency or external-library switches only after the plain dry run looks correct.
4. Capture logs with -logfile if you need a reproducible record of the generation step.

Guardrails

• The live help states that root should end with c++.
• subtree can be either a subtree path or a file containing a list of subtrees.
• solution is required even though this is the Unix tree builder; do not omit it.
• Single-dash control flags are the real interface here: -h, -help, -version, -version-full, -dryrun, etc.
• Live testing showed project_tree_builder -dryrun . src/corelib test could exit silently with status 0, so lack of output is not proof that it did meaningful work.
• -libdep is typed as a Boolean in the help text and defaults to true.