Configuration profiles can be defined to build a software package using different options.
A common application is to build with a Debug configuration profile when elaborating the software package and build with a Release configuration profile when time has come to prepare software packages. The first profile can build objects with debugging symbols and other useful similar information while the second can produce an optimised version of the product programs. A second applications is to compare several configuration profiles to experimentally determine which leads to the most efficient build according to a given benchmark.
Configuration files can be stored in the directory pointed to by the
variable PACKAGELIBRARYCONFIGURATION whose implicit value is
${SRCDIR}/Library/Configuration.
If the variable CONFIGURATION is defined then a file
${CONFIGURATION}.mk containing the corresponding settings must exist
in the configuration specific configuration file library. This file
is then processed by each module of the package. An error is
triggered if this file does not exist.
To work with several configuration profiles, it is advised that the
OBJDIR mechanism is configured so that the variable
${CONFIGURATIONDIR} is part of the objdir-path and of DESTDIR or
PREFIX if we also want to use the install target.
It is then possible to build concurrently the software package using several distinct configuration profiles and to benchmark the obtained products to compare them.