Generators can have extra target dependencies. Closes #4131.

2 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/markdown/Reference-manual.md b/docs/markdown/Reference-manual.md
index 01fa3c3..2fc3d6a 100644
--- a/docs/markdown/Reference-manual.md
+++ b/docs/markdown/Reference-manual.md
@@ -714,6 +714,9 @@ following:
 
 - `arguments` a list of template strings that will be the command line
   arguments passed to the executable
+- `depends` is an array of build targets that must be built before this
+  generator can be run. This is used if you have a generator that calls
+  a second executable that is built in this project. Available since 0.51.0
 - `depfile` is a template string pointing to a dependency file that a
   generator can write listing all the additional files this target
   depends on, for example a C compiler would list all the header files
diff --git a/docs/markdown/snippets/gendeps.md b/docs/markdown/snippets/gendeps.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e724994
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/markdown/snippets/gendeps.md
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+## Generators have a new `depends` keyword argument
+
+Generators can now specify extra dependencies with the `depends`
+keyword argument. It matches the behaviour of the same argument in
+other functions and specifies that the given targets must be built
+before the generator can be run. This is used in cases such as this
+one where you need to tell a generator to indirectly invoke a
+different program.
+
+```meson
+exe = executable(...)
+cg = generator(program_runner,
+    output: ['@BASENAME@.c'],
+    arguments: ['--use-tool=' + exe.full_path(), '@INPUT@', '@OUTPUT@'],
+    depends: exe)
+```