Auto Bundle

Autobundle is a utility for making software distributions by bundling multiple (third-party) software packages. Autobundle promotes the development of reusable components which can be distributed separately, or as part of larger software systems. Autobundle thus allows you to easily distribute your software as self-contained packages (by bundling all required components). This greatly simplifies the installation process of your software because a user does not need to obtain, configure, and install these required software packages first.

Two typical applications of autobundle are:

1. The distribution of the ASF+SDF Meta-Environment (www.cwi.nl/projects/MetaEnv), which bundles amongst others the ToolBus^? software application architecture, the ATerms abstract data type and libraries, a parser, and a parser generator. All these components are also distributed and used separately.
2. XT, which stands for `Program Transformations Tools' (www.program-transformation.org/xt). It bundles some of the components of the ASF+SDF Meta-Environment (the ATerms abstract data type, the parser, and parser generator), but in addition the programming language Stratego (www.stratego-language.org), a pretty-printer (www.cs.uu.nl/~mdejonge/gpp),the grammar tools (GT) package (www.program-transformation.org/gt), and the grammar bases (GB) package (www.program-transformation.org/gb).

Autobundle allows you to easily define such distributions by listing the components, together with a version number, and the location where the components can be retrieved. A typical autobundle distribution is thus simply a collection of components of a particular version.

The autobundle software helps creating an initial framework for the package and creates the software bundle for you, by downloading the different components and building a single distribution from them. Autobundle requires that the components are constructed using AutoConf^? and AutoMake^?. The use of AutoConf^? and AutoMake^? is clearly described in the documentation of both packages and not addressed here.

Available packages are stored in the Online Package Base, from where you can obtain generated software bundles by making specific packages selections.

Publications

• Source Tree Composition

• Package-Based Software Development

• Feature-Based Product Line Instantiation using Source-Level Packages

• The Linux Kernel as Flexible Product-Line Architecture

Getting the software

The autobundle package is open source and the most recent release can be obtained from:

• http://nix.cs.uu.nl/dist/stratego/autobundle-0.14/