makegyp tries to add existing C or C++ library as modules with GYP support. This project is still at early stage and could be constantly changed.
The idea behind makegyp is inspired by Homebrew and npm. Like Homebrew, formula is defined explicitly for installing a library. And like npm, C or C++ libraries will be installed as modules under a specific directory.
Also, thanks to Nathan Rajlich for writing this article. makegyp pretty much does the same thing but programatically.
I was trying to find a better way to develop my C++ projects. I chose Google's GYP build system as my weapon to build my products. But if I want to easily use existing C or C++ libraries as dependencies, I need to convert them from other build system to GYP before I can use. It's really cumbersome to do such work manually and repeatly. So I created this project trying to automate that work.
Each C or C++ library will be supported by implementing an inherited Formula class. When installing, makegyp will try to download and build the library by a predefined formula, then inspect the building process and finally generate necessary config files and a GYP script for that library. The installed module is just a normal source code library with GYP support so you can easily use them as dependencies of your GYP projects.
makegyp is written in Python, so you can install it by pip like this:
pip install git+git://github.com/olliwang/makegyp.git
Now create a new directory and switch to it. You can simply install the LAME library one command:
$mkgyp install lame
Created 'gyp_deps' directory.
Installing lame...
Use cached package at '/var/folders/gf/dx4d3hdj6yg302w7qkyz8zt40000gn/T/makegyp/lame-3.99.5'
Configuring...
Generated config file: /var/folders/gf/dx4d3hdj6yg302w7qkyz8zt40000gn/T/makegyp/lame-3.99.5/gyp_config/mac/x64/config.h
Making...
Generating gyp file...
Copying library source code to '/Users/olliwang/workspace/pip_makegyp/gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5'
Copying config files to '/Users/olliwang/workspace/pip_makegyp/gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5/gyp_config'
Copying gyp file to '/Users/olliwang/workspace/pip_makegyp/gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5/lame.gyp'
Installed 'lame' to '/Users/olliwang/workspace/pip_makegyp/gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5'
- library::gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5/lame.gyp:libmpgdecoder
- library::gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5/lame.gyp:liblamevectorroutines
- library::gyp_deps/lame-3.99.5/lame.gyp:libmp3lame
That's it. Now the LAME library should be installed as a module in the auto generated gyp_deps directory. You can add gyp_deps/lame/lame.gyp:libmp3lame to the target's dependencies field in your GYP file and write a simple program to test it.
#include <stdio.h>
#include "lame.h"
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
printf("get_lame_version(): %s\n", get_lame_version());
return 0;
}
Write a GYP file for your test problem like this:
{
"target_defaults": {
"default_configuration": "Debug",
"configurations": {
"Debug": {},
"Release": {},
},
},
'targets': [
{
'target_name': 'test',
'type': 'executable',
'sources': [
'main.c',
],
'dependencies': [
'gyp_deps/lame/lame.gyp:libmp3lame',
],
},
],
}
At this point, you can build your test program:
$gyp --depth=. -f ninja test.gyp
$ninja -C out/Debug/
And run the test program:
$ ./out/Debug/test
get_lame_version(): 3.99.5
It works!
I'm going to support more libraries for my needs and the parsers will be
improved as well to be able to support more libraries. If you can't find the
library you need in the supported list below. You can also write formula for
your needs. You may want to check the "tests" directory to get the idea how
to use makegyp to install all dependent library at once through the
gyp_deps.txt file. If you have such file, all you have to do is run
mkgyp install in the same directory.