Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
doc: add two tips for speeding the dev builds
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Add two important tips for novice Node.js contributors

PR-URL: #36452
Reviewed-By: Gireesh Punathil <gpunathi@in.ibm.com>
Reviewed-By: Benjamin Gruenbaum <benjamingr@gmail.com>
Reviewed-By: Franziska Hinkelmann <franziska.hinkelmann@gmail.com>
Reviewed-By: Rich Trott <rtrott@gmail.com>
Reviewed-By: James M Snell <jasnell@gmail.com>
  • Loading branch information
mmomtchev authored and Trott committed Dec 18, 2020
1 parent b49145f commit 36581f1
Showing 1 changed file with 24 additions and 0 deletions.
24 changes: 24 additions & 0 deletions BUILDING.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ file a new issue.
* [Building the documentation](#building-the-documentation)
* [Building a debug build](#building-a-debug-build)
* [Building an ASAN build](#building-an-asan-build)
* [Speeding up frequent rebuilds when developing](#speeding-up-frequent-rebuilds-when-developing)
* [Troubleshooting Unix and macOS builds](#troubleshooting-unix-and-macos-builds)
* [Windows](#windows)
* [Prerequisites](#prerequisites)
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -527,6 +528,29 @@ $ ./configure --debug --enable-asan && make -j4
$ make test-only
```

#### Speeding up frequent rebuilds when developing

If you plan to frequently rebuild Node.js, especially if using several branches,
installing `ccache` can help to greatly reduce build times. Set up with:
```console
$ sudo apt install ccache # for Debian/Ubuntu, included in most Linux distros
$ ccache -o cache_dir=<tmp_dir>
$ ccache -o max_size=5.0G
$ export CC="ccache gcc" # add to your .profile
$ export CXX="ccache g++" # add to your .profile
```
This will allow for near-instantaneous rebuilds even when switching branches.

When modifying only the JS layer in `lib`, it is possible to externally load it
without modifying the executable:
```console
$ ./configure --node-builtin-modules-path $(pwd)
```
The resulting binary won't include any JS files and will try to load them from
the specified directory. The JS debugger of Visual Studio Code supports this
configuration since the November 2020 version and allows for setting
breakpoints.

#### Troubleshooting Unix and macOS builds

Stale builds can sometimes result in `file not found` errors while building.
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 36581f1

Please sign in to comment.