"vcbuild.bat release test" very slow after building in MSVS

[ry]

cc @DrPizza @igorzi

often I will compile Node in MSVS then go to test it in cmd.exe and type "vcbuild.bat release test" but this seems to relink the binary - it takes almost 5 minutes under VMware.

[DrPizza]

We can turn off LTCG, which will make linking much much faster. However, LTCG is recommended (and on by default) for V8, which is one of the reasons I enabled it.

One thing that V8 does is to allow LTCG to be overridden at the command line by turning a condition off. It might be possible to do something along those lines.

[DrPizza]

Oh I should read more closely. So it's building and linking in MSVS and then rebuilding from the command line?

As long as the same settings are being used each time, that shouldn't really happen. Strange.

[igorzi]

I can't reproduce this. @piscisaureus is it possible that you compiled debug node in VS, and then ran "vsbuild.bat release test"?

[ry]

@igorzi - no it was compiled as release in VS

[igorzi]

@ry can you reliably reproduce it? what are the exact steps? I'll also try to repro with VC express.

[ry]

Bert explained to me that it is not linking but "checking for changes". It's still quite slow - but perhaps unavoidable.

[igorzi]

Hmm, 5 minutes is too long though. It really shouldn't take that long.
You could also pass "nobuild" flag to vcbuild to completely avoid the build:
"vcbuild.bat release test nobuild"

[ry]

closing. using nobuild is a fine work around for my slow vmware setup