How to compile a Delphi 7 project group file (.bpg) using the command line? - delphi

Question

I've grouped a lot of projects in a project group. All the info is in the project.bpg. Now I'd like to automatically build them all.
How do I build all the projects using the command line?
I'm still using Delphi 7.

Answer 1

I never tried it myself, but here is a German article describing that you can use make -f ProjectGroup.bpg because *.bpgs essentially are makefiles.

Answer 2

You can also run Delphi from the command line or a batch file, passing the .bpg file name as a parameter.
Edit: Example (for D2007, but can be adjusted for D7):
=== rebuild.cmd (excerpt) ===
#echo off
set DelphiPath=C:\Program Files\CodeGear\RAD Studio\5.0\bin
set DelphiExe=bds.exe
set LibPath=V:\Library
set LibBpg=Library.groupproj
set LibErr=Library.err
set RegSubkey=BDSClean
:buildlib
echo Rebuilding %LibBpg%...
if exist "%LibPath%\%LibErr%" del /q "%LibPath%\%LibErr%"
"%DelphiPath%\%DelphiExe%" -pDelphi -r%RegSubkey% -b "%LibPath%\%LibBpg%"
if %errorlevel% == 0 goto buildlibok

Answer 3

As I said as a comment to Ulrich Gerhardt answer, the make project_group.bpg is useless if your projects are in subdirectories. Make won't use relative paths and the projects won't compile correctly.
I've made a python script to compile all the DPRs in every subdirectory. This is what I really wanted to do, but I'll leave the above answer as marked. Although it didn't worked for me, It really answered my question.
Here is my script to compile_all.py . I believe it may help somebody:
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import os.path
import subprocess
import sys
#put this file in your root dir
BASE_PATH = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
os.chdir(BASE_PATH)
os.environ['PATH'] += "C:\\Program Files\\Borland\\Delphi7\\Bin" #your delphi compiler path
DELPHI = "DCC32.exe"
DELPHI_PARAMS = ['-B', '-Q', '-$D+', '-$L+']
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(BASE_PATH):
projects = [project for project in files if project.lower().endswith('.dpr')]
if ('FastMM' in root ): #put here projects you don't want to compile
continue
os.chdir(os.path.join(BASE_PATH, root))
for project in projects:
print
print '*** Compiling:', os.path.join(root, project)
result = subprocess.call([DELPHI] + DELPHI_PARAMS + [project])
if result != 0:
print 'Failed for', project, result
sys.exit(result)
Another vantage of this approach is that you don't need to add new projects to your bpg file. If it is in a subdir, it will compile.