Support this project

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. 🙏

Technical support

You can also consider sponsoring us to get extra technical support services via the Github sponsor program. If you do, you can get access to the xmake-io/technical-support repository, which has the following bennefits:

Introduction

What is Xmake?

  1. Xmake is a cross-platform build utility based on the Lua scripting language.
  2. Xmake is very lightweight and has no dependencies outside of the standard library.
  3. Uses the xmake.lua file to maintain project builds with a simple and readable syntax.

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.

Xmake = Build backend + Project Generator + Package Manager + [Remote|Distributed] Build + Cache

Although less precise, one can still understand Xmake in the following way:

Xmake ≈ Make/Ninja + CMake/Meson + Vcpkg/Conan + distcc + ccache/sccache

If you want to know more, please refer to: the Documentation, GitHub or Gitee. You are also welcome to join our community.

The official Xmake repository can be found at xmake-io/xmake-repo.

Installation

With cURL

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

With Wget

wget https://xmake.io/shget.text -O - | bash

With PowerShell

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

Other installation methods

If you don't want to use the above scripts to install Xmake, visit the Installation Guide for other installation methods (building from source, package managers, etc.).

Simple Project Description

target("console")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")

Creates a new target console of kind binary, and adds all the files ending in .c in the src directory.

Package dependences

add_requires("tbox 1.6.*", "zlib", "libpng ~1.6")

Adds a requirement of tbox v1.6, zlib (any version), and libpng v1.6.

The official xmake package repository exists at: xmake-repo

Commandline interface reference

The below assumes you are currently in the project's root directory.

Build a project

$ xmake

Run target

$ xmake run console

Debug target

$ xmake run -d console

Configure platform

$ xmake f -p [windows|linux|macosx|android|iphoneos ..] -a [x86|arm64 ..] -m [debug|release]
$ xmake

Menu configuration

$ xmake f --menu

Supported platforms

Supported toolchains

IDE-Tied

Languages

Assemblers

Supported languages

Features

Xmake exhibits:

Supported Project Types

Xmake supports the below types of projects:

Package management

Download and build

Xmake can automatically fetch and install dependencies!

Supported package repositories

Package management features

Processing architecture

Below is a diagram showing roughly the architecture of Xmake, and thus how it functions.

Distributed Compilation

For more details see: #274

Remote Compilation

For more details see: #622

Local/Remote Build Cache

For more details see: #622

Benchmark

Xmake's speed on is par with Ninja! The test project: xmake-core

Multi-task parallel compilation

buildsystem Termux (8core/-j12) buildsystem MacOS (8core/-j12)
xmake 24.890s xmake 12.264s
ninja 25.682s ninja 11.327s
cmake(gen+make) 5.416s+28.473s cmake(gen+make) 1.203s+14.030s
cmake(gen+ninja) 4.458s+24.842s cmake(gen+ninja) 0.988s+11.644s

Single task compilation

buildsystem Termux (-j1) buildsystem MacOS (-j1)
xmake 1m57.707s xmake 39.937s
ninja 1m52.845s ninja 38.995s
cmake(gen+make) 5.416s+2m10.539s cmake(gen+make) 1.203s+41.737s
cmake(gen+ninja) 4.458s+1m54.868s cmake(gen+ninja) 0.988s+38.022s

More Examples

Debug and release profiles

add_rules("mode.debug", "mode.release")

target("console")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    if is_mode("debug") then
        add_defines("DEBUG")
    end

Custom scripts

target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    after_build(function (target)
        print("hello: %s", target:name())
        os.exec("echo %s", target:targetfile())
    end)

Automatic integration of dependent packages

Download and use packages in xmake-repo or third-party repositories:

add_requires("tbox >1.6.1", "libuv master", "vcpkg::ffmpeg", "brew::pcre2/libpcre2-8")
add_requires("conan::openssl/1.1.1g", {alias = "openssl", optional = true, debug = true})
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    add_packages("tbox", "libuv", "vcpkg::ffmpeg", "brew::pcre2/libpcre2-8", "openssl")

In addition, we can also use the xrepo command to quickly install dependencies.

Qt QuickApp Program

target("test")
    add_rules("qt.quickapp")
    add_files("src/*.cpp")
    add_files("src/qml.qrc")

Cuda Program

target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.cu")
    add_cugencodes("native")
    add_cugencodes("compute_35")

WDK/UMDF Driver Program

target("echo")
    add_rules("wdk.driver", "wdk.env.umdf")
    add_files("driver/*.c")
    add_files("driver/*.inx")
    add_includedirs("exe")

target("app")
    add_rules("wdk.binary", "wdk.env.umdf")
    add_files("exe/*.cpp")

For more WDK driver examples (UMDF/KMDF/WDM), please visit WDK Program Examples

Darwin Applications

target("test")
    add_rules("xcode.application")
    add_files("src/*.m", "src/**.storyboard", "src/*.xcassets")
    add_files("src/Info.plist")

Framework and Bundle Program (Darwin)

target("test")
    add_rules("xcode.framework") -- or xcode.bundle
    add_files("src/*.m")
    add_files("src/Info.plist")

OpenMP Program

add_requires("libomp", {optional = true})
target("loop")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.cpp")
    add_rules("c++.openmp")
    add_packages("libomp")

Zig Program

target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/main.zig")

Automatically fetch remote toolchain

fetch a special version of LLVM

Require the Clang version packaged with LLM-10 to compile a project.

add_requires("llvm 10.x", {alias = "llvm-10"})
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    set_toolchains("llvm@llvm-10")

Fetch a cross-compilation toolchain

We can also pull a specified cross-compilation toolchain in to compile the project.

add_requires("muslcc")
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    set_toolchains("@muslcc")

Fetch toolchain and packages

We can also use the specified muslcc cross-compilation toolchain to compile and integrate all dependent packages.

add_requires("muslcc")
add_requires("zlib", "libogg", {system = false})

set_toolchains("@muslcc")

target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    add_packages("zlib", "libogg")

Plugins

Generate IDE project file plugin（makefile, vs2002 - vs2022 .. ）

$ xmake project -k vsxmake -m "debug,release" # New vsproj generator (Recommended)
$ xmake project -k vs -m "debug,release"
$ xmake project -k cmake
$ xmake project -k ninja
$ xmake project -k compile_commands

Run a custom lua script plugin

$ xmake l ./test.lua
$ xmake l -c "print('hello xmake!')"
$ xmake l lib.detect.find_tool gcc
$ xmake l
> print("hello xmake!")
> {1, 2, 3}
< {
    1,
    2,
    3
  }

To see a list of bultin plugs, please visit Builtin plugins.

Please download and install other plugins from the plugins repository xmake-plugins.

IDE/Editor Integration

Xmake Gradle Plugin (JNI)

We can use the xmake-gradle plugin to compile JNI libraries via gradle.

plugins {
  id 'org.tboox.gradle-xmake-plugin' version '1.1.5'
}

android {
    externalNativeBuild {
        xmake {
            path "jni/xmake.lua"
        }
    }
}

The xmakeBuild task will be injected into the assemble task automatically if the gradle-xmake-plugin has been applied.

$ ./gradlew app:assembleDebug
> Task :nativelib:xmakeConfigureForArm64
> Task :nativelib:xmakeBuildForArm64
>> xmake build
[ 50%]: cache compiling.debug nativelib.cc
[ 75%]: linking.debug libnativelib.so
[100%]: build ok!
>> install artifacts to /Users/ruki/projects/personal/xmake-gradle/nativelib/libs/arm64-v8a
> Task :nativelib:xmakeConfigureForArmv7
> Task :nativelib:xmakeBuildForArmv7
>> xmake build
[ 50%]: cache compiling.debug nativelib.cc
[ 75%]: linking.debug libnativelib.so
[100%]: build ok!
>> install artifacts to /Users/ruki/projects/personal/xmake-gradle/nativelib/libs/armeabi-v7a
> Task :nativelib:preBuild
> Task :nativelib:assemble
> Task :app:assembleDebug

CI Integration

GitHub Action

The github-action-setup-xmake plugin for GitHub Actions can allow you to use Xmake with minimal efforts if you use GitHub Actions for your CI pipeline.

uses: xmake-io/github-action-setup-xmake@v1
with:
  xmake-version: latest

Who is using Xmake?

The list of people and projects who are using Xmake is available here.

If you are using Xmake, you are welcome to submit your information to the above list through a PR, so that other users and the developers can gauge interest. Ihis also let users to use xmake more confidently and give us motivation to continue to maintain it.

This will help the Xmake project and it's community grow stronger and expand!

Contacts

Thanks

This project exists thanks to all the people who have contributed:

edit