Patent ID: 7861236

Claim:
A method for constructing a software distribution image, comprising: receiving pre-processing instructions for zero or more to-be-compiled components of said software distribution image, the pre-processing instructions operable to delineate modifications for inclusion or exclusion from a final compiled version of said to-be-compiled components; receiving pre-processing instructions for one or more not-to-be-compiled components of said software distribution image, said not-to-be-compiled components comprising uncompiled components, the pre-processing instructions operable to delineate modifications for inclusion or exclusion from a final ready-to-run version of said not-to-be-compiled components; preprocessing each of said zero or more to-be-compiled components to either include or exclude each of said delineated modifications of said to-be-compiled components based on desired characteristics of said software distribution image; preprocessing each of said one or more uncompiled components to either include or exclude each of said delineated modifications of said uncompiled components based on said desired characteristics of said software distribution image to obtain a ready-to-run version of each of said one or more uncompiled components; compiling each of said zero or more preprocessed to-be-compiled components to obtain a compiled version of each of said zero or more to-be-compiled components; and assembling each of said ready-to-run version of uncompiled components and each of said zero or more compiled components into said software distribution image, wherein pre-processing each of said one or more uncompiled components comprises using a helper script to resolve, for each modification to the uncompiled components, an instruction, the resolution based on whether a version of a build of a deliverable software product associated with said software distribution image should include each of the modifications to the uncompiled components.