NAME

Alien::xmake - Locate, Download, or Build and Install xmake

SYNOPSIS

use Alien::xmake;
system Alien::xmake->exe, '--help';
system Alien::xmake->exe, 'create -t qt.widgetapp test';

DESCRIPTION

xmake is a lightweight, cross-platform build utility based on Lua. It uses a Lua script to maintain project builds, but is driven by a dependency-free core program written in C. Compared with Makefiles or CMake, the configuration syntax is (in the opinion of the author) much more concise and intuitive. As such, it's friendly to novices while still maintaining the flexibly required in a build system. With xmake, you can focus on your project instead of the build.

xmake can be used to directly build source code (like with Make or Ninja), or it can generate project source files like CMake or Meson. It also has a built-in package management system to help users integrate C/C++ dependencies.

Methods

Not many are required or provided.

install_type()

Returns 'system' or 'shared'.

exe()

system Alien::xmake->exe;

Returns the full path to the xmake executable.

xrepo()

system Alien::xmake->xrepo;

Returns the full path to the xrepo executable.

bin_dir()

use Env qw[@PATH];
unshift @PATH, Alien::xmake->bin_dir;

Returns a list of directories you should push onto your PATH.

For a 'system' install this step will not be required.

version()

my $ver = Alien::xmake->version;

Returns the version of xmake installed.

Under a 'system' install, xmake --version is run once and the version number is cached.

Alien::Base Helper

To use xmake in your alienfiles, require this module and use %{xmake} and %{xrepo}.

use alienfile;
# ...
    [ '%{xmake}', 'install' ],
    [ '%{xrepo}', 'install ...' ]
# ...

xmake Cookbook

xmake is severely underrated so I'll add more nifty things here but for now just a quick example.

You're free to create your own projects, of course, but xmake comes with the ability to generate an entire project for you:

$ xmake create -P hi    # generates a basic console project in C++ and xmake.lua build script
$ cd hi
$ xmake -y              # builds the project if required, installing defined prerequisite libs, etc.
$ xmake run             # runs the target binary which prints 'hello, world!'

xmake create is a lot like minil new in that it generates a new project for you that's ready to build even before you change anything. It even tosses a .gitignore file in. You can generate projects in C++, Go, Objective C, Rust, Swift, D, Zig, Vale, Pascal, Nim, Fortran, and more. You can also generate boilerplate projects for simple console apps, static and shared libraries, macOS bundles, GUI apps based on Qt or wxWidgets, IOS apps, and more.

See xmake create --help for a full list.

Prerequisites

Windows simply downloads an installer but elsewhere, you gotta have git, make, and a C compiler installed to build and install xmake. If you'd like Alien::xmake to use a pre-built or system install of xmake, install it yourself first with one of the following:

• Built from source

  $ curl -fsSL https://xmake.io/shget.text | bash
  

  ...or on Windows with Powershell...

  > Invoke-Expression (Invoke-Webrequest 'https://xmake.io/psget.text' -UseBasicParsing).Content
  

  ...or if you want to do it all by hand, try...

  $ git clone --recursive https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake.git
  # xmake maintains dependencies via git submodule so --recursive is required
  $ cd ./xmake
  # On macOS, you may need to run: export SDKROOT=$(xcrun --sdk macosx --show-sdk-path)
  $ ./configure
  $ make
  $ ./scripts/get.sh __local__ __install_only__
  $ source ~/.xmake/profile

  ...or building from source on Windows...

  > git clone --recursive https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake.git
  > cd ./xmake/core
  > xmake
  

• Windows

  The easiest way might be to use the installer but you still have options.

  • Installer

    Download a 32- or 64-bit installer from https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake/releases and run it.

  • Via scoop

    $ scoop install xmake
    

    See https://scoop.sh/

  • Via the Windows Package Manager

    $ winget install xmake
    

    See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/

  • Msys/Mingw

    $ pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-xmake # 64-bit
    
    $ pacman -Sy mingw-w64-i686-xmake   # 32-bit
    

• MacOS with Homebrew

  $ brew install xmake
  

  See https://brew.sh/

• Arch

  # sudo pacman -Sy xmake
  

• Debian

  # sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xmake-io/xmake
  # sudo apt update
  # sudo apt install xmake
  

• Fedora/RHEL/OpenSUSE/CentOS

  # sudo dnf copr enable waruqi/xmake
  # sudo dnf install xmake
  

• Gentoo

  # sudo emerge -a --autounmask dev-util/xmake
  

  You'll need to add GURU to your system repository first.

• FreeBSD

  Build from source using gmake instead of make.

• Android (Termux)

  $ pkg install xmake
  

See Also

https://xmake.io/

LICENSE

Copyright (C) Sanko Robinson.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms found in the Artistic License 2. Other copyrights, terms, and conditions may apply to data transmitted through this module.

AUTHOR

Sanko Robinson sanko@cpan.org