The start

Can you tell me what this XML code does?

<set name="buildOrTest" if="${project.command == build} || ${project.command == test}" />
<echo value="Building for ${project.target} on a ${project.host} machine" if="buildOrTest" />

<echo value="${meta.title} v${meta.version}" />

No? Well, I can tell you.

That first line sets the value of buildOrTest to if the project is being compiled with lime test or lime build.

The second line executes only if buildOrTest is true and prints to the console what platform you're compiling to and what machine you're compiling with.

For example: “Building for mobile on a windows machine”.

Now the third line is unrelated and just prints to the console the project title and version.

“Sinco and Portilizen v0.0.3“ for example.

Today I decided to stream some development of Sinco and Portilizen and I decided to do backlog and quality of life stuff.

I moved folders to a central sap folder so that if I am overwriting files then I won’t confuse that folder for just a random folder name. The chances of that are unlikely but I’m just inspired by Funkin a lot so leave me alone.

And then I moved from traces from Initialization to the project.xml using things I didn’t even know existed for project XML files.

Alright let’s get started

Elements I’ve learned

Echo

Echo is pretty simple, it’s like trace but it doesn’t show what file it comes from. It’s the echo command in your terminal.

Set

This is setting a variable but in XML. For example:

<set name="debug" if="DEBUG_BUILD"/>

That line of code sets debug to true if you are compiling with the DEBUG_BUILD compiler condition

Define

This is basically Set but for compiler conditions

Section

It’s basically like a function. If it has an if argument set then it is dependent on a condition. For example:

<section>
<section/>

That will run always.

<section if="DEBUG_BUILD">
<section/>

That will run if compiled with the DEBUG_BUILD Compiler Condition

Error

It’s Set but with this cool little Error: text in the front and it stops the game from compiling.

Final thoughts

Project.xml is noice.

If you don’t like it then you probably should look at the docs.

You don’t have to use trace to figure out what compiler flags are being used thanks to the docs so uh, yeah.

Ok, time for the article quote:

“Start with a mess and clean it up later.“