How to build app resources with a particular directory layout?

[smilediver]

Hi. My question is how to use meson to build resources for an app, where the app is expecting a particular layout for the resources? Essentially I need to control where things go inside the build directory. Example of my use case is as follows:

Source data:

data/
  objects/
    house/
      house.png
      house.mesh
  shaders/
    shader.frag

Built data and what the app might expect:

data/ - (anywhere in build dir)
  objects/
    house/
      house.png.bin
      house.mesh
  shaders/
    glsl/
      shader.frag.bin
    dx12/
      shader.frag.bin

The build process basically has 3 cases:

1. Copy resource as is, while mirroring the layout
   data/objects/house/house.mesh -> data/objects/house/house.mesh
2. Compile resource, while mirroring the layout
   data/objects/house/house.png -> data/objects/house/house.png.bin
3. Compile resource and copy to other location than it actually is (note that destination might be some other directory, not necessarily a subdirectory of the source)
   data/shaders/shader.frag -> data/shaders/glsl/shader.frag.bin
data/shaders/shader.frag -> data/shaders/dx12/shader.frag.bin

So I need some advice of what is the best way to set this up. Right now it seems that I need to mirror the build data directory in my source tree, place meson.build files where I want the built resources to go (eg data/shaders/glsl/meson.build), and use custom_target(). But this greatly complicates the whole build setup, because I can't have just a single meson.build file for data with a list of all resources and how to build them.

Any tips or examples would be appreciated.

[eli-schwartz]

Maybe you could use meson install and just have that produce the correct layout for runtime? This does sound more like an install-time thing to do.