Dependency driven execution is a problem that keeps on cropping up. My lastest encounter is in progating changes through a data warehouse. Before that is was running one section of a test script but ensuring the dependencies are fulfilled (eg. login first). Build systems and component publishing systems deal with dependencies too.

What I need is something like "make" which has a graph of dependencies, rules for updating them and a means to check the age/change state of items. You can then "make endproduct" and it will update the parts that need to be updated in the right order. The problem with make is that it's tied to files (is there another way to use it?)

I've looked around for either a module or software with the right hooks, but can't find anything. Cons and Makepp are written in Perl but, as with make, the seem too file-system tied.

AAP by Bram "vim" Moolenaar looks more flexible but uses Python as it's scripting language. (I recommend the linked "design decisions" article as an information source for the problem domain).

On CPAN there's Algorithm::Dependency, but it's doesn't address this problem, leaving Graph as the best module to try an adapt.

Is there anything better out there that I've missed?
Or another way of thinking about the problem?

Brad

In reply to make-like dependency tools in perl by bsb

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