How to build Skia ================= Make sure you have first followed the [instructions to download Skia](./download). Skia uses [GN](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/tools/gn/) to configure its builds. `is_official_build` and Third-party Dependencies ------------------------------------------------ Most users of Skia should set `is_official_build=true`, and most developers should leave it to its `false` default. This mode configures Skia in a way that's suitable to ship: an optimized build with no debug symbols, dynamically linked against its third-party dependencies using the ordinary library search path. In contrast, the developer-oriented default is an unoptimized build with full debug symbols and all third-party dependencies built from source and embedded into libskia. This is how do all our manual and automated testing. Skia offers several features that make use of third-party libraries, like libpng, libwebp, or libjpeg-turbo to decode images, or ICU and sftnly to subset fonts. All these third-party dependencies are optional and can be controlled by a GN argument that looks something like `skia_use_foo` for appropriate `foo`. If `skia_use_foo` is enabled, enabling `skia_use_system_foo` will build and link Skia against the headers and libaries found on the system paths. `is_official_build=true` enables all `skia_use_system_foo` by default. You can use `extra_cflags` and `extra_ldflags` to add include or library paths if needed. Quickstart ---------- Run GN to generate your build files. bin/gn gen out/Static --args='is_official_build=true' bin/gn gen out/Shared --args='is_official_build=true is_component_build=true' If you find you don't have `bin/gn`, make sure you've run python tools/git-sync-deps GN allows fine-grained settings for developers and special situations. bin/gn gen out/Debug bin/gn gen out/Release --args='is_debug=false' bin/gn gen out/Clang --args='cc="clang" cxx="clang++"' bin/gn gen out/Cached --args='cc_wrapper="ccache"' bin/gn gen out/RTTI --args='extra_cflags_cc=["-frtti"]' To see all the arguments available, you can run bin/gn args out/Debug --list Having generated your build files, run Ninja to compile and link Skia. ninja -C out/Static ninja -C out/Shared ninja -C out/Debug ninja -C out/Release ninja -C out/Clang ninja -C out/Cached ninja -C out/RTTI Android ------- To build Skia for Android you need an [Android NDK](https://developer.android.com/ndk/index.html). If you do not have an NDK and have access to CIPD, you can use one of these commands to fetch the NDK our bots use: python infra/bots/assets/android_ndk_linux/download.py -t /tmp/ndk python infra/bots/assets/android_ndk_darwin/download.py -t /tmp/ndk python infra/bots/assets/android_ndk_windows/download.py -t C:/ndk When generating your GN build files, pass the path to your `ndk` and your desired `target_cpu`: bin/gn gen out/arm --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="arm"' bin/gn gen out/arm64 --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="arm64"' bin/gn gen out/mips64el --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="mips64el"' bin/gn gen out/mipsel --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="mipsel"' bin/gn gen out/x64 --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="x64"' bin/gn gen out/x86 --args='ndk="/tmp/ndk" target_cpu="x86"' Other arguments like `is_debug` and `is_component_build` continue to work. Tweaking `ndk_api` gives you access to newer Android features like Vulkan. To test on an Android device, push the binary and `resources` over, and run it as normal. You may find `bin/droid` convenient. ninja -C out/arm64 adb push out/arm64/dm /data/local/tmp adb push resources /data/local/tmp adb shell "cd /data/local/tmp; ./dm --src gm --config gpu" Mac --- Mac users may want to pass `--ide=xcode` to `bin/gn gen` to generate an Xcode project. iOS --- Run GN to generate your build files. Set `target_os="ios"` to build for iOS. This defaults to `target_cpu="arm64"`. bin/gn gen out/ios64 --args='target_os="ios"' bin/gn gen out/ios32 --args='target_os="ios" target_cpu="arm"' Googlers who want to sign and run iOS test binaries can do so by running something like python gn/package_ios.py out/Debug/dm python gn/package_ios.py out/Release/nanobench These commands will create and sign `dm.app` or `nanobench.app` packages you can push to iOS devices registered for Google development. `ios-deploy` makes installing and running these packages easy: ios-deploy -b out/Debug/dm.app -d --args "--match foo" If you find yourself missing a Google signing identity or provisioning profile, you'll want to have a read through go/appledev. Windows ------- Skia can build on Windows with Visual Studio 2015 Update 3. No older or newer version is supported. The bots use a packaged toolchain, which you may be able to download like this: python infra/bots/assets/win_toolchain/download.py -t C:/toolchain If you pass that downloaded path to GN via `windk`, you can build using that toolchain instead of your own from Visual Studio. This toolchain is the only way we support 32-bit builds, by also setting `target_cpu="x86"`. ### Visual Studio Solutions If you use Visual Studio, you may want to pass `--ide=vs` to `bin/gn gen` to generate `all.sln`. That solution will exist within the GN directory for the specific configuration, and will only build/run that configuration. If you want a Visual Studio Solution that supports multiple GN configurations, there is a helper script. It requires that all of your GN directories be inside the `out` directory. First, create all of your GN configurations as usual. Pass `--ide=vs` when running `bin/gn gen` for each one. Then: python gn/gn_meta_sln.py This creates a new dedicated output directory and solution file `out/sln/skia.sln`. It has one solution configuration for each GN configuration, and supports building and running any of them. It also adjusts syntax highlighting of inactive code blocks based on preprocessor definitions from the selected solution configuration. CMake ----- We have added a GN-to-CMake translator mainly for use with IDEs that like CMake project descriptions. This is not meant for any purpose beyond development. bin/gn gen out/config --ide=json --json-ide-script=../../gn/gn_to_cmake.py