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Building with CMake

Some portions of this repository are portable beyond iOS and can be built using CMake.

Dependencies​

You need:

  • A C++11 compiler
  • CMake 3.9
  • Ninja (optional)
  • CocoaPods (macOS-only)

For dependencies:

  • Go
  • Perl
  • Yasm (Windows-only)

macOS​

You need Xcode, which you can get from the Mac App Store.

You can get other development tools via homebrew. Adjust as needed for other package managers.

brew install cmake
brew install golang
brew install ccache     # optional
brew install ninja      # optional
gem install cocoapods   # may need sudo

Note that CocoaPods is only needed for its ruby library, no Podfiles actually need to be set up and no pod install is required for the CMake build.

Ubuntu​

If you're on a relatively recent Linux, the system-provided CMake may be sufficient.

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install ccache       # optional
sudo apt-get install ninja-build  # optional

sudo apt-get install golang

Windows​

You need Visual Studio. The 2017 Community edition building for x64 gets regular testing. We're working on support for Visual Studio 2015.

An easy way to get development tools is via Chocolatey.

choco install git
choco install cmake --installargs 'ADD_CMAKE_TO_PATH=System'
choco install ninja

# Build scripts use bash and python
choco install msys2

# Required for building gRPC and its dependencies
choco install activeperl
choco install golang
choco install nasm

# Optional: can speed up builds
choco install openssl

Building​

CMake builds out-of source, so create a separate build directory for the target you want to work on.

The first time you build, it will download all dependencies of the project so it might take a while.

Basic build​

The basic shape of the build is to:

  • create and enter the build tree
  • run CMake to prepare the build tree
  • build sources
  • run tests

On most systems that looks like this:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .
cmake --build . --target test

Useful flags to pass to CMake​

Standard CMake flags:

  • -G Ninja -- build with Ninja instead of the default.
  • -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -- optimized build

Dependencies:

  • -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=path/to/openssl -- where to find a pre-built OpenSSL, if you prefer that over the default BoringSSL. See FindOpenSSL.cmake in your CMake distribution.
  • -DZLIB_ROOT=path/to/zlib -- where to find a pre-built zlib, if you prefer that. See FindZLIB.cmake in your CMake distribution.

Firebase-specific goodies:

  • -DFIREBASE_DOWNLOAD_DIR:PATH=.downloads -- put downloaded files outside the build tree.
  • -DWITH_ASAN=ON -- enable the address sanitizer (Clang, GCC)
  • -DWITH_TSAN=ON -- enable the thread sanitizer (Clang, GCC)
  • -DWITH_UBSAN=ON -- enable the undefined behavior sanitizer (Clang, GCC)

For example:

On Mac or Linux:

cmake -H. -Bbuild -G Ninja -DFIREBASE_DOWNLOAD_DIR:PATH=$HOME/.downloads
cd build
ninja && ninja test

On Windows:

mkdir %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\CMake
cmake -H. -Bbuild -G Ninja ^
    -DFIREBASE_DOWNLOAD_DIR:PATH=%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\CMake ^
    -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR:Path="c:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64"