# Regenerating project files Prerequisites - `python` - `pip install mako` (the template processor) - `pip install pyyaml` (to read the yaml files) - `go` (required by boringssl dependency) ``` # Regenerate the projects files (and other generated files) using templates tools/buildgen/generate_projects.sh ``` # Quick justification We've approached the problem of the build system from a lot of different angles. The main issue was that there isn't a single build system that was going to single handedly cover all of our usage cases. So instead we decided to work the following way: * A `build.yaml` file at the root is the source of truth for listing all the targets and files needed to build grpc and its tests, as well as a basic system for dependency description. * Most of the build systems supported by gRPC (e.g. Makefile, cmake, XCode) have a template defined in this directory. The templates use the information from the `build.yaml` file to generate the project files specific to a given build system. This way we can maintain as many project system as we see fit, without having to manually maintain them when we add or remove new code to the repository. Only the structure of the project file is relevant to the template. The actual list of source code and targets isn't. # Structure of `build.yaml` The `build.yaml` file has the following structure: ``` settings: # global settings, such as version number ... filegroups: # groups of files that are automatically expanded ... libs: # list of libraries to build ... target: # list of targets to build ... ``` The `filegroups` are helpful to re-use a subset of files in multiple targets. One `filegroups` entry has the following structure: ``` - name: "arbitrary string", # the name of the filegroup public_headers: # list of public headers defined in that filegroup - ... headers: # list of headers defined in that filegroup - ... src: # list of source files defined in that filegroup - ... ``` The `libs` collection contains the list of all the libraries we describe. Some may be helper libraries for the tests. Some may be installable libraries. Some may be helper libraries for installable binaries. The `targets` array contains the list of all the binary targets we describe. Some may be installable binaries. One `libs` or `targets` entry has the following structure (see below for details): ``` name: "arbitrary string", # the name of the library build: "build type", # in which situation we want that library to be # built and potentially installed (see below). language: "...", # the language tag; "c" or "c++" public_headers: # list of public headers to install headers: # list of headers used by that target src: # list of files to compile secure: boolean, # see below baselib: boolean, # this is a low level library that has system # dependencies filegroups: # list of filegroups to merge to that project # note that this will be expanded automatically deps: # list of libraries this target depends on deps_linkage: "..." # "static" or "dynamic". Used by the Makefile only to # determine the way dependencies are linkned. Defaults # to "dynamic". dll: "..." # see below. ``` ## The `"build"` tag Currently, the "`build`" tag have these meanings: * `"all"`: library to build on `"make all"`, and install on the system. * `"protoc"`: a protoc plugin to build on `"make all"` and install on the system. * `"private"`: a library to only build for tests. * `"test"`: a test binary to run on `"make test"`. * `"tool"`: a binary to be built upon `"make tools"`. All of the targets should always be present in the generated project file, if possible and applicable. But the build tag is what should group the targets together in a single build command. ## The `"secure"` tag This means this target requires OpenSSL one way or another. The values can be `"yes"`, `"no"` and `"check"`. The default value is `"check"`. It means that the target requires OpenSSL, but that since the target depends on another one that is supposed to also import OpenSSL, the import should then be implicitely transitive. `"check"` should then only disable that target if OpenSSL hasn't been found or is unavailable. ## The `"baselib"` boolean This means this is a library that will provide most of the features for gRPC. In particular, if we're locally building OpenSSL, protobuf or zlib, then we should merge OpenSSL, protobuf or zlib inside that library. That effect depends on the `"language"` tag. OpenSSL and zlib are for `"c"` libraries, while protobuf is for `"c++"` ones. ## The `"dll"` tag Currently only used by cmake. "true" means the project will be built with both static and dynamic runtimes. "false" means it'll only be built with static runtime. "only" means it'll only be built with the dll runtime. # The template system We're currently using the [mako templates](http://www.makotemplates.org/) renderer. That choice enables us to simply render text files without dragging with us a lot of other features. Feel free to explore the current templates in that directory. ## The renderer engine As mentioned, the renderer is using [mako templates](http://www.makotemplates.org/), but some glue is needed to process all of that. See the [buildgen folder](../tools/buildgen) for more details. We're mainly loading the build.json file, and massaging it, in order to get the list of properties we need, into a Python dictionary, that is then passed to the template while rending it. ## The plugins The file build.json itself isn't passed straight to the template files. It is first processed and modified by a few plugins. For example, the `filegroups` expander is [a plugin](../tools/buildgen/plugins/expand_filegroups.py). The structure of a plugin is simple. The plugin must defined the function `mako_plugin` that takes a Python dictionary. That dictionary represents the current state of the build.json contents. The plugin can alter it to whatever feature it needs to add.