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doc: document the GN build
PR-URL: #51676 Reviewed-By: Marco Ippolito <marcoippolito54@gmail.com> Reviewed-By: Joyee Cheung <joyeec9h3@gmail.com> Reviewed-By: Debadree Chatterjee <debadree333@gmail.com> Reviewed-By: Yagiz Nizipli <yagiz.nizipli@sentry.io> Reviewed-By: Luigi Pinca <luigipinca@gmail.com>
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‎doc/contributing/gn-build.md‎

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# GN Build
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Similar to GYP, GN is a build system designed for building Chromium. The
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official builds of Node.js are built with GYP, but GN build files are also
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provided as an unofficial alternative build system.
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The GN build files only support a subset of the Node.js build configurations.
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It's not required for all pull requests to Node.js to support GN builds, and the
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CI of Node.js does not currently test GN builds, though Node.js welcomes pull
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requests that improve GN support or fix breakages introduced by other pull
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requests.
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Currently the GN build is used by:
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1. Electron for building Node.js together with Chromium.
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2. V8 for testing the integration of Node.js in CI.
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## Files for GN support
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Node.js contains following GN build files:
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* `node.gni` - Public GN arguments for configuring the build.
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* `*/BUILD.gn` - This is the file where GN looks for build rules, in Node.js it
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just includes the `unofficial.gni` file to avoid accidental modifications.
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* `*/unofficial.gni` - The actual build rules for each component.
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## Build with GN
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Unlike GYP, the GN tool does not include any built-in rules for compiling a
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project, which means projects building with GN must provide their own build
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configurations for things like how to invoke a C++ compiler. Chromium related
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projects like V8 and skia choose to reuse Chromium's build configurations, and
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V8's Node.js integration testing repository
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([node-ci](https://chromium.googlesource.com/v8/node-ci/)) can be reused for
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building Node.js.
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### 1. Install `depot_tools`
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The `depot_tools` is a set of tools used by Chromium related projects for
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checking out code and managing dependencies, and since this guide is reusing the
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infra of V8, it needs to be installed and added to `PATH`:
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```bash
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git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
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export PATH=/path/to/depot_tools:$PATH
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```
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You can also follow the [official tutorial of
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`depot_tools`](https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chrome-infra-docs/flat/depot_tools/docs/html/depot_tools_tutorial.html).
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### 2. Check out code of Node.js
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To check out the latest main branch of Node.js for building, use the `fetch`
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tool from `depot_tools`:
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```bash
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mkdir node_gn
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cd node_gn
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fetch node
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```
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You can choose to save some time by omitting git history:
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```bash
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fetch --no-history node
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```
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After syncing is done, you will get a directory structure like this:
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```console
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node_gn/
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├── .gclient
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├── .gclient_entries
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├── ...
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└── node
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├── DEPS
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├── ...
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├── build/
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├── node/
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└── tools/
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```
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The `node_gn` is a workspace directory, which only contains configurations and
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caches of the `gclient` tool from `depot_tools`, and the repository is checked
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out at `node_gn/node`.
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The `node_gn/node` directory is not a checkout of Node.js, it is actually
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[node-ci](https://chromium.googlesource.com/v8/node-ci/), the repository used by
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V8 for testing integration with Node.js. The source code of Node.js is checked
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out at `node_gn/node/node`.
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### 3. Build
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GN only supports [`ninja`](https://ninja-build.org) for building, so to build
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Node.js with GN, `ninja` build files should be generated first, and then
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`ninja` can be invoked to do the building.
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The `node-ci` repository provides a script for calling GN:
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```bash
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cd node # Enter `node_gn/node` which contains a node-ci checkout
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./tools/gn-gen.py out/Release
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```
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which writes `ninja` build files into the `out/Release` directory under
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`node_gn/node`.
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And then you can execute `ninja`:
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```bash
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ninja -C out/Release node
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```
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After the build is completed, the compiled Node.js executable can be found in
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`out/Release/node`.
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## Status of the GN build
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Currently the GN build of Node.js is not fully functioning. It builds for macOS
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and Linux, while the Windows build is still a work in progress. And some tests
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are still failing with the GN build.
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There are also efforts on making GN build work without using `depot_tools`,
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which is tracked in the issue
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[#51689](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/51689).

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