80 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
80 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Build System Overview
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Electron uses [GN](https://gn.googlesource.com/gn) for project generation and
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[ninja](https://ninja-build.org/) for building. Project configurations can
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be found in the `.gn` and `.gni` files.
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## GN Files
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The following `gn` files contain the main rules for building Electron:
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* `BUILD.gn` defines how Electron itself is built and
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includes the default configurations for linking with Chromium.
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* `build/args/{debug,release,all}.gn` contain the default build arguments for
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building Electron.
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## Component Build
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Since Chromium is quite a large project, the final linking stage can take
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quite a few minutes, which makes it hard for development. In order to solve
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this, Chromium introduced the "component build", which builds each component as
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a separate shared library, making linking very quick but sacrificing file size
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and performance.
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Electron inherits this build option from Chromium. In `Debug` builds, the
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binary will be linked to a shared library version of Chromium's components to
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achieve fast linking time; for `Release` builds, the binary will be linked to
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the static library versions, so we can have the best possible binary size and
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performance.
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## Tests
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**NB** _this section is out of date and contains information that is no longer
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relevant to the GN-built electron._
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Test your changes conform to the project coding style using:
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```sh
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$ npm run lint
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```
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Test functionality using:
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```sh
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$ npm test
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```
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Whenever you make changes to Electron source code, you'll need to re-run the
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build before the tests:
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```sh
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$ npm run build && npm test
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```
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You can make the test suite run faster by isolating the specific test or block
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you're currently working on using Mocha's
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[exclusive tests](https://mochajs.org/#exclusive-tests) feature. Append
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`.only` to any `describe` or `it` function call:
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```js
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describe.only('some feature', function () {
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// ... only tests in this block will be run
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})
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```
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Alternatively, you can use mocha's `grep` option to only run tests matching the
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given regular expression pattern:
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```sh
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$ npm test -- --grep child_process
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```
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Tests that include native modules (e.g. `runas`) can't be executed with the
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debug build (see [#2558](https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/2558) for
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details), but they will work with the release build.
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To run the tests with the release build use:
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```sh
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$ npm test -- -R
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```
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