buildtools

Build tools: ninja and GN

Why Ninja and GN

Prerequisites

• Linux or macOS
• Python 3.7+

Transparent setup

Unlike Make and CMake, which are almost ubiquitous on every developer's machine, Ninja and GN are niche. Therefore, the proxy scripts ninja.py and gn.py will download the binaries over the network on first invocation if:

• ninja and gn are missing from PATH, or
• ninja and gn are found on PATH, but gclient is also found on PATH (presence of gclient implies the ninja and gn commands found are customized for the Chromium projects).

The zipball URLs for downloading are in the get_binaries.py source, or can be shown with command get_binaries.py --show-urls.

After downloading, the binaries will be stored in bin/linux (or bin/mac if you are on a macOS). They will not be added to your PATH. Instead, you should call the proxy scripts in lieu of calling the binaries.

Alternative setup

If you wish not to download Ninja and GN binaries over the network or there's an error, you can tell the proxy scripts to use locally-built/installed binaries.

# Assume you are at this directory.

# step 1: create bin/XXX and change working directory
mkdir -p bin/linux # on macOS: mkdir -p bin/mac
cd bin/linux       # on macOS: cd bin/mac

# step 2: make symlinks
ln -s /path/to/your/gn gn
ls -s /path/to/your/ninja ninja

# step 3: verify
cd ../..
./gn.py --version
./ninja.py --version

EOF