VanGo - A C/C++ Build System for Cargo Lovers

A build system designed with rusts cargo philosophy in mind. You can have a million options, but there is nothing wrong with sensible defaults. Vango uses project file structure as a component of its project configuration, minimizing the need for a build script. ./src is the source file directory and added to the include path. ./bin holds any incremental build files (usually object files). ./test is for source files that contain tests. All manual configuration is done via the Vango.toml manifest file in the project root.

The system supports most popular toolchains, specifically: GCC and Clang/LLVM on all platforms, as well as MSVC on windows. It does of course assume that you have all relevant compiler tools installed, as it is not in itself a compiler. For easier cross compilation, vango also supports zig as a target, which wraps clang. To read why this is useful, see the docs chapter on cross-compilation.

For a more in-depth explanation, see the documentation.

Installation

VanGo currently only releases as source code.

• To build, simply git clone the repository and run cargo build. It is recommended to build in release mode, though not required.
• For everything to work correctly, copy or create a symlink to the built executable in the repository root, such that that is where its working directory will be.
• Add the install location to your PATH environment variable.
• Run vango --version from a new terminal to check that your install was successful.

Features Available So Far

• Subcommands for creating, building, running, testing, and cleaning C/C++ projects. Some usage examples are as follows, but for a more complete list see the help action.

  • vango new [--lib] [--c] <name>
  • vango b[uild] [-r|--release] [-t|--toolchain=<msvc|gnu|clang|zig>]
  • vango r[un] [-r|--release] [-t|--toolchain=<msvc|gnu|clang|zig>] [-- args*]
  • vango c[lean]
  • vango help [action]

• File change detection and incremental rebuilds

• Source, prebuilt, and header-only dependency automation

• Cross-platform abstraction of shared library builds, precompiled headers, system dependencies and more

• Complete per-profile freedom of configuration

[profile.debug]
defines = [ "MACRO", "VALUE=10" ]

[profile.myprofile]
include = [ "../some/other/headers" ]

• Configure prebuilt libraries with a staticlib-type toml file

[staticlib]
name = "SFML"
version = "3.0.1"
lang = "C++17"
include = "include"
...

• Cross compilation via Clang/Zig

Conclusion: It just works. Even without boilerplate generation via vango new, slap a Vango.toml next to a src directory with a main.cpp in it and everything will just work. Was that so hard everybody?

Caveat on MacOS

Although I have tried my best to dilligently research MacOS workflows and write correct code to the best of my theoretical knowledge, I am a solo developer with no direct access to an Apple computer. Because of this, I have no way of knowing for sure what the real world behaviour of Vango will be on such platforms specifically. Those of you using this on MacOS, do so at your own risk, and know I welcome people to test what I cannot.

Future Plans

• Feature Flags: Conditional compilation based on requested features
• Smart Sem-Ver: Improved integration with Git tags to enable versioned dependencies, lockfiles
• Package Manager: Registry of popular libraries and build recipes to enable full environment automation for open-source projects
• Zig-like Cross-Compilation: System libraries as packages accessible via the package manager
• Generator Functionality: The ability to transpile a build script to other popular tools such as CMake, Make, MSBuild and more