Documentation: Add more specific instructions on how to use the GN build

This commit is contained in:
Andrew Kaster 2024-04-08 13:15:00 -06:00 committed by Andrew Kaster
parent 820f966b33
commit e5415f6d86
Notes: sideshowbarker 2024-07-17 08:38:37 +09:00
2 changed files with 62 additions and 1 deletions

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@ -175,6 +175,15 @@ open -W --stdout $(tty) --stderr $(tty) ./Build/ladybird/bin/Ladybird.app
open -W --stdout $(tty) --stderr $(tty) ./Build/ladybird/bin/Ladybird.app --args https://ladybird.dev
```
### Experimental GN build
There is an experimental GN build for Ladybird. It is not officially supported, but it is kept up to date on a best-effort
basis by interested contributors. See the [GN build instructions](../Meta/gn/README.md) for more information.
In general, the GN build organizes ninja rules in a more compact way than the CMake build, and it may be faster on some systems.
GN also allows building host and cross-targets in the same build directory, which is useful for managing dependencies on host tools when
cross-compiling to other platforms.
### Debugging with CLion
Ladybird should be built with debug symbols first. In `Meta/CMake/lagom_compile_options.cmake` remove the optimizations by changing `-O2` to `-O0`. For macOS also change the debug option from `-g1` to `-g` so that lldb is happy with the emitted symbols. In linux `-g1` can be changed to `-ggdb3` for maximum debug info.

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@ -6,7 +6,35 @@ GN is a metabuild system. It always creates ninja files, but it can create some
This is a good [overview of GN](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15Zwb53JcncHfEwHpnG_PoIbbzQ3GQi_cpujYwbpcbZo/edit#slide=id.g119d702868_0_12).
For more information, motivation, philosophy, and inspriation, see the LLVM documentation on its [GN build](https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/main/llvm/utils/gn#quick-start)
For more information, motivation, philosophy, and inspiration, see the LLVM documentation on its [GN build](https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/tree/main/llvm/utils/gn#quick-start)
# Creating a gn build
To create a GN build, you need to have GN installed. You can install it via homebrew on macOS, or via your package manager on Linux.
On Ubuntu 22.04, the main package repos do not have an up to date enough package for GN, so you will need to build it from source or get a binary from Google.
The easiest way to build GN from source is to use our [Toolchain/BuildGN.sh](../../Toolchain/BuildGN.sh) script, which will
drop the built binary into the `Toolchain/Local/gn/bin` directory. The instructions for downloading a prebuilt binary from Google are
[here](https://gn.googlesource.com/gn/+/refs/heads/main#getting-a-binary).
Once you have GN installed, you can create a build directory by running the following commands:
```sh
gn gen out
```
`gn gen` creates a ninja build in the `out` directory. You can then build the project with ninja:
```sh
ninja -C out
```
If GN or ninja report a bunch of errors, it's likely that you need to create an `args.gn` that points to all the required tools.
`args.gn` belongs at the root of the build directory, and can be placed there before running gn gen, or modified with
`gn args <build dir>`. See the section below for a typical `args.gn`.
If you modify `args.gn` outside of `gn args`, be sure to run `gn gen` again to regenerate the ninja files.
# Typical gn args
@ -28,3 +56,27 @@ qt_install_libexec="/usr/lib/qt6/libexec/"
```
As with any gn project, ``gn args <build dir> --list`` is your best friend.
# Running binaries from the GN build
Targets in the gn build are prefixed by the directory they are declared in. For example, to build the default target
in the Ladybird/ directory and LibWeb, you would run:
```shell
ninja -C out Ladybird
ninja -C out Userland/Libraries/LibWeb
```
Binaries are placed in the `out/bin` directory, and can be run from there.
```shell
./out/bin/Ladybird
# or on macOS
open -W --stdout $(tty) --stderr $(tty) ./out/bin/Ladybird.app --args https://ladybird.dev
```
There is also an incomplete target for SerenityOS, which can be tested with:
```shell
ninja -C out serenity
```