build

custom c/c++ build system written in c fixing what I don't like about ninja. (actually, it's in Nim!) It's easy, even for large projects!: ./build topLevelMain.cpp -o MyApp.exe

Features

• Mac/Win/Linux C/C++ build tool
• Automatically discovers dependencies fast!
• Recompiles only necessary dependencies based on source changes
• Performs parallel builds based on total available cores
• Automatically Discovers and uses the available compiler: Visual Studio, GCC, Clang, whichever is available
• Provided as C source code
• Only a C compiler is needed
• Compiles with a single CLI script on any computer

QuickStart

Build the build tool using your system's c compiler.

On Windows cmd /c build.bat (even works from within msys2 or gitbash)

On Linux or Mac bash build.sh

Usage Help ./build -h shows the help. build.exe -h if on windows

Usage Example ./build ../myproj/main.cpp -o myproj.exe --cflags "-std=c++14" --lflags "-pthread" The above commannd automatically discovers dependencies from recursively inspecting main.cpp and builds them using as many threads as your hardware supports.

Motivation

• We needed a custom build tool aware of project structure for another reason
• We wanted to avoid dependencies (python, ninja, basil, etc.) to ease end developer experience
• The Ninja build system takes too long to do automtaic dependency discovery

Notes

• The src dir contains the C sources for each possible system
• The metasrc dir contains the original nim sourcecode

To Do

• Collapse source code into since cross-platform source directory using precompiler directives and defines to differentiate
• Perform simple precompiler parsing to correctly follow dependencies that arise from precompiler commands