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1.4 +========
1.5 +mozbuild
1.6 +========
1.7 +
1.8 +mozbuild is a Python package providing functionality used by Mozilla's
1.9 +build system.
1.10 +
1.11 +Modules Overview
1.12 +================
1.13 +
1.14 +* mozbuild.backend -- Functionality for producing and interacting with build
1.15 + backends. A build backend is an entity that consumes build system metadata
1.16 + (from mozbuild.frontend) and does something useful with it (typically writing
1.17 + out files that can be used by a build tool to build the tree).
1.18 +* mozbuild.compilation -- Functionality related to compiling. This
1.19 + includes managing compiler warnings.
1.20 +* mozbuild.frontend -- Functionality for reading build frontend files
1.21 + (what defines the build system) and converting them to data structures
1.22 + which are fed into build backends to produce backend configurations.
1.23 +* mozpack -- Functionality related to packaging builds.
1.24 +
1.25 +Overview
1.26 +========
1.27 +
1.28 +The build system consists of frontend files that define what to do. They
1.29 +say things like "compile X" "copy Y."
1.30 +
1.31 +The mozbuild.frontend package contains code for reading these frontend
1.32 +files and converting them to static data structures. The set of produced
1.33 +static data structures for the tree constitute the current build
1.34 +configuration.
1.35 +
1.36 +There exist entities called build backends. From a high level, build
1.37 +backends consume the build configuration and do something with it. They
1.38 +typically produce tool-specific files such as make files which can be used
1.39 +to build the tree.
1.40 +
1.41 +Piecing it all together, we have frontend files that are parsed into data
1.42 +structures. These data structures are fed into a build backend. The output
1.43 +from build backends is used by builders to build the tree.
1.44 +
