Patent ID: 8010937

Claim:
A method of building a plurality of software products, the method comprising: receiving a set of target settings comprising definitions for a plurality of build settings for directing a set of build applications to build said plurality of software products; to build each particular software product, receiving a set of build styles from a plurality of build styles, each build style comprising definitions for a set of build settings for directing the set of build applications to build the particular software product, wherein at least a first received build style inherits from a second build style that is not included in said set of received build styles; at a computing device, searching said set of received build styles to identify a definition for a particular build setting, wherein searching said first build style comprises automatically retrieving said second build style to search for a definition for the particular build setting based on an inheritance relationship between the first and second build styles; and generating a final set of build settings for the particular software product by applying the definition of the particular build setting to the set of target settings without changing the set of target settings, the final set of build settings for said set of build applications to build the particular software product, said applying comprising overriding a value of an existing build setting defined in the set of target settings with a value of the particular build setting to generate the final set of build settings.