Difference between revisions of "Build Tools"

Revision as of 23:05, 12 September 2018

The GnuCash project uses several different tools to build the program, the docs, the OS specific packages.

Basic Tools

This control the build process at a low level.

Make

Make is a build automation tool that automatically builds executable programs and libraries from source code by reading files called Makefiles which specify how to derive the target program. Though integrated development environments and language-specific compiler features can also be used to manage a build process, Make remains widely used, especially in Unix and Unix-like operating systems.

It is directly used in gnucash-htdocs, indirectly by #Autotools and optionally by #CMake.

Ninja

Ninja is a small build system with a focus on speed. It differs from other build systems in two major respects: it is designed to have its input files generated by a higher-level build system, and it is designed to run builds as fast as possible.

You can use it in #CMake.

Tool Chains

More complex projects use this tools to control the basic tools.

Autotools

Gnucash-docs is using Autotools, which consists of many parts, from which 2 are important:

Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available.

Automake automatically generates one or more Makefile.in from files called Makefile.am. Each Makefile.am contains, among other things, useful variable definitions for the compiled software, such as compiler and linker flags, dependencies and their versions, etc. The generated Makefile.ins are portable and compliant with the Makefile conventions in the GNU Coding Standards, and may be used by configure scripts to generate a working Makefile.

So there remain 3 basic steps:

1. After checking out of the repository run ./autogen.sh.
   • Decide, which build directory to use and run the following steps in your build dir.
2. After changes of makefile.am or configure.ac run configure [options].
3. Finally after your edits run make <target>. Some common targets are all, check, install.

CMake

CMake is a cross-platform free and open-source software application for managing the build process of software using a compiler-independent method. It supports directory hierarchies and applications that depend on multiple libraries. It is used in conjunction with native build environments such as make, Apple's Xcode, and Microsoft Visual Studio. It has minimal dependencies, requiring only a C++ compiler on its own build system.