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| author | pack <pack@packgekko.xyz> | 2026-08-09 10:54:08 +0000 |
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| committer | pack <pack@packgekko.xyz> | 2026-08-09 10:54:08 +0000 |
| commit | d3adc16a08d95d6e331de55d7d3bf05a66a874a8 (patch) | |
| tree | a2dabd199501e67c547c2ce79e1374ca3aa55443 /node_modules/node-gyp/gyp/docs/GypVsCMake.md | |
| parent | 55a4f1fc869e41aca748c63d3018f0448b1606e0 (diff) | |
| download | crud-d3adc16a08d95d6e331de55d7d3bf05a66a874a8.tar.gz | |
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diff --git a/node_modules/node-gyp/gyp/docs/GypVsCMake.md b/node_modules/node-gyp/gyp/docs/GypVsCMake.md deleted file mode 100644 index 6d659a6..0000000 --- a/node_modules/node-gyp/gyp/docs/GypVsCMake.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ -# vs. CMake - -GYP was originally created to generate native IDE project files (Visual Studio, Xcode) for building [Chromium](http://www.chromim.org). - -The functionality of GYP is very similar to the [CMake](http://www.cmake.org) -build tool. Bradley Nelson wrote up the following description of why the team -created GYP instead of using CMake. The text below is copied from -http://www.mail-archive.com/webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org/msg11029.html - -``` - -Re: [webkit-dev] CMake as a build system? -Bradley Nelson -Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:38:30 -0700 - -Here's the innards of an email with a laundry list of stuff I came up with a -while back on the gyp-developers list in response to Mike Craddick regarding -what motivated gyp's development, since we were aware of cmake at the time -(we'd even started a speculative port): - - -I did an exploratory port of portions of Chromium to cmake (I think I got as -far as net, base, sandbox, and part of webkit). -There were a number of motivations, not all of which would apply to other -projects. Also, some of the design of gyp was informed by experience at -Google with large projects built wholly from source, leading to features -absent from cmake, but not strictly required for Chromium. - -1. Ability to incrementally transition on Windows. It took us about 6 months -to switch fully to gyp. Previous attempts to move to scons had taken a long -time and failed, due to the requirement to transition while in flight. For a -substantial period of time, we had a hybrid of checked in vcproj and gyp generated -vcproj. To this day we still have a good number of GUIDs pinned in the gyp files, -because different parts of our release pipeline have leftover assumptions -regarding manipulating the raw sln/vcprojs. This transition occurred from -the bottom up, largely because modules like base were easier to convert, and -had a lower churn rate. During early stages of the transition, the majority -of the team wasn't even aware they were using gyp, as it integrated into -their existing workflow, and only affected modules that had been converted. - -2. Generation of a more 'normal' vcproj file. Gyp attempts, particularly on -Windows, to generate vcprojs which resemble hand generated projects. It -doesn't generate any Makefile type projects, but instead produces msvs -Custom Build Steps and Custom Build Rules. This makes the resulting projects -easier to understand from the IDE and avoids parts of the IDE that simply -don't function correctly if you use Makefile projects. Our early hope with -gyp was to support the least common denominator of features present in each -of the platform specific project file formats, rather than falling back on -generated Makefiles/shell scripts to emulate some common abstraction. CMake by -comparison makes a good faith attempt to use native project features, but -falls back on generated scripts in order to preserve the same semantics on -each platforms. - -3. Abstraction on the level of project settings, rather than command line -flags. In gyp's syntax you can add nearly any option present in a hand -generated xcode/vcproj file. This allows you to use abstractions built into -the IDEs rather than reverse engineering them possibly incorrectly for -things like: manifest generation, precompiled headers, bundle generation. -When somebody wants to use a particular menu option from msvs, I'm able to -do a web search on the name of the setting from the IDE and provide them -with a gyp stanza that does the equivalent. In many cases, not all project -file constructs correspond to command line flags. - -4. Strong notion of module public/private interface. Gyp allows targets to -publish a set of direct_dependent_settings, specifying things like -include_dirs, defines, platforms specific settings, etc. This means that -when module A depends on module B, it automatically acquires the right build -settings without module A being filled with assumptions/knowledge of exactly -how module B is built. Additionally, all of the transitive dependencies of -module B are pulled in. This avoids their being a single top level view of -the project, rather each gyp file expresses knowledge about its immediate -neighbors. This keep local knowledge local. CMake effectively has a large -shared global namespace. - -5. Cross platform generation. CMake is not able to generate all project -files on all platforms. For example xcode projects cannot be generated from -windows (cmake uses mac specific libraries to do project generation). This -means that for instance generating a tarball containing pregenerated -projects for all platforms is hard with Cmake (requires distribution to -several machine types). - -6. Gyp has rudimentary cross compile support. Currently we've added enough -functionality to gyp to support x86 -> arm cross compiles. Last I checked -this functionality wasn't present in cmake. (This occurred later). - - -That being said there are a number of drawbacks currently to gyp: - -1. Because platform specific settings are expressed at the project file -level (rather than the command line level). Settings which might otherwise -be shared in common between platforms (flags to gcc on mac/linux), end up -being repeated twice. Though in fairness there is actually less sharing here -than you'd think. include_dirs and defines actually represent 90% of what -can be typically shared. - -2. CMake may be more mature, having been applied to a broader range of -projects. There a number of 'tool modules' for cmake, which are shared in a -common community. - -3. gyp currently makes some nasty assumptions about the availability of -chromium's hermetic copy of cygwin on windows. This causes you to either -have to special case a number of rules, or swallow this copy of cygwin as a -build time dependency. - -4. CMake includes a fairly readable imperative language. Currently Gyp has a -somewhat poorly specified declarative language (variable expansion happens -in sometimes weird and counter-intuitive ways). In fairness though, gyp assumes -that external python scripts can be used as an escape hatch. Also gyp avoids -a lot of the things you'd need imperative code for, by having a nice target -settings publication mechanism. - -5. (Feature/drawback depending on personal preference). Gyp's syntax is -DEEPLY nested. It suffers from all of Lisp's advantages and drawbacks. - --BradN -``` |