Readings

Build Systems à la Carte
- Microsoft Research 2018
- Andrey Mokhov, Neil Mitchell, Simon Peyton Jones
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/build-systems-la-carte/
- https://github.com/snowleopard/build
- https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/andreymokhov/the-task-abstraction/
- https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/andreymokhov/build-systems-a-la-carte/
- https://icfp18.sigplan.org/event/icfp-2018-papers-build-systems-a-la-carte
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQVT6wiwCxM
- Build Systems à La Carte: Theory and Practice
  - Journal of Functional Programming 30 (2020)
  - Andrey Mokhov, Neil Mitchell, Simon Peyton Jones
  - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956796820000088
Build System Rules and Algorithms
- Mike Shal (2009)
- http://gittup.org/tup/build_system_rules_and_algorithms.pdf
- Build System Partial Updates - http://gittup.org/blog/2014/09/11-build-system-partial-updates/
Clobber Builds - Mike Shal
- Part 1 - Missing Dependencies - http://gittup.org/blog/2014/03/6-clobber-builds-part-1---missing-dependencies/
- Part 2 - Fixing Missing Dependencies - http://gittup.org/blog/2014/05/7-clobber-builds-part-2---fixing-missing-dependencies/
- Part 3 - Other Clobber Causes - http://gittup.org/blog/2014/06/8-clobber-builds-part-3---other-clobber-causes/
- Part 4 - Fixing Other Clobber Causes - http://gittup.org/blog/2015/03/13-clobber-builds-part-4---fixing-other-clobber-causes/
Correct, Efficient, and Tailored: The Future of Build Systems
- IEEE Software, vol. 35, no. 2, 2018
- G. Maudoux and K. Mens
- https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2018.111095025
The C++ Build Process Explained
- https://github.com/green7ea/cpp-compilation

Caching

Caching Function Calls Using Precise Dependencies
- Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) 2000
- Allan Heydon, Roy Levin, Yuan Yu
- http://www.vestasys.org/doc/pubs/pldi-00-04-20.pdf
- Vesta Configuration Management System - http://www.vestasys.org/#publications
cHash: Detection of Redundant Compilations via AST Hashing
- USENIX Annual Technical Conference 2017
- Christian Dietrich, Valentin Rothberg, Ludwig Füracker, Andreas Ziegler, Daniel Lohmann
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc17/technical-sessions/presentation/dietrich
- cHash Compiler Plugins and related tools - https://github.com/luhsra/chash

Correctness

Detecting Incorrect Build Rules
- International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2019
- Nandor Licker, Andrew Rice
- https://2019.icse-conferences.org/details/icse-2019-Technical-Papers/82/Detecting-Incorrect-Build-Rules
- https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288468
- mkcheck: Incremental Build Verification
  - https://github.com/nandor/mkcheck
Oops, My Tests Broke the Build: An Explorative Analysis of Travis CI with GitHub
- Mining Software Repositories (MSR) 2017
- M. Beller, G. Gousios, A. Zaidman
- http://www.gousios.gr/pub/tests-broke-build-explorative-analysis-travis-ci-github.pdf
- https://www.slideshare.net/inventitech/oops-my-tests-broke-the-build-an-explorative-analysis-of-travis-ci-with-github
Programmers’ Build Errors: A Case Study (at Google)
- International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2014
- Hyunmin Seo, Caitlin Sadowski, Sebastian Elbaum, Edward Aftandilian, Robert Bowdidge
- https://research.google.com/pubs/pub42184.html

Dependencies

Automatic Object Linkage, with Include Graphs (Source code sharing without static libraries)
- 2018; Thomas Young
- https://upcoder.com/19/automatic-object-linkage-with-include-graphs
Build Predictor: More Accurate Missed Dependency Prediction in Build Configuration Files
- Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2014)
- Bo Zhou, Xia Xin, David Lo, Xinyu Wang
- http://www.mysmu.edu/faculty/davidlo/papers/compsac14-dependency.pdf
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Build-Predictor%3A-More-Accurate-Missed-Dependency-in-Zhou-Xia/a4d4b05c8594fc7358a89f0afffb7e405b65fa0d
Program Repository
- LLVM with Program Repository Support
  - https://github.com/SNSystems/llvm-project-prepo
- Program Repository: What’s the Idea?
  - https://github.com/SNSystems/llvm-project-prepo/wiki
- Early Overview
  - https://github.com/SNSystems/llvm-project-prepo/wiki/Early-Overview
- Toy programming demo of a repository for statically compiled programs
  - 2016 US LLVM Developers' Meeting; Paul Bowen-Huggett
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2016-11/Slides/Bowen-Hugett-ToyProgrammingDemo.pdf
  - https://youtu.be/-pL94rqyQ6c
- Targeting a statically compiled program repository with LLVM
  - 2019 EuroLLVM Developers’ Meeting; Phil Camp , Russell Gallop
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlQyEBDnDJE
  - http://llvm.org/devmtg/2019-04/slides/Lightning-Camp-Program_Repo.pdf
- LLVM Build Times Using a Program Repository
  - https://www.snsystems.com/technology/tech-blog/llvm-build-times-using-a-program-repository
- Compile Faster with the Program Repository and ccache
  - 2020 European LLVM Developers Meeting; Ying Yi, Paul Bowen-Huggett
  - http://www.llvm.org/devmtg/2020-04/talks.html#LightningTalk_51
mtime comparison considered harmful
- "tl;dr: Rebuilding a target because its mtime is older than the mtimes of its dependencies, like make does, is very error prone. redo does it better, and so can you."
- https://apenwarr.ca/log/20181113
Non-recursive Make Considered Harmful
- Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Haskell, 2016
- Andrey Mokhov, Neil Mitchell, Simon Peyton Jones, Simon Marlow
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/non-recursive-make-considered-harmful/
- https://simonmar.github.io/bib/shake-2016_abstract.html
Recursive Make Considered Harmful
- Journal of AUUG Inc, 19(1):14–25, 1998
- Peter Miller
- http://aegis.sourceforge.net/auug97.pdf
- http://sites.e-advies.nl/nonrecursive-make.html

Distributed

Build in the Cloud
- Accessing Source Code: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/06/build-in-cloud-accessing-source-code.html
- How the Build System works: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/08/build-in-cloud-how-build-system-works.html
- Distributing Build Steps: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/09/build-in-cloud-distributing-build-steps.html
- Distributing Build Outputs: http://google-engtools.blogspot.com/2011/10/build-in-cloud-distributing-build.html
CloudBuild: Microsoft’s Distributed and Caching Build Service
- International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) 2016
- Hamed Esfahani, Jonas Fietz, Qi Ke, Alexei Kolomiets, Erica Lan, Erik Mavrinac, Wolfram Schulte, Newton Sanches, Srikanth Kandula
- https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2889222
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/cloudbuild-microsofts-distributed-and-caching-build-service/
From Laptop to Lambda: Outsourcing Everyday Jobs to Thousands of Transient Functional Containers
- 2019 USENIX Annual Technical Conference
- Sadjad Fouladi, Francisco Romero, Dan Iter, Qian Li, Shuvo Chatterjee, Christos Kozyrakis, Matei Zaharia, Keith Winstein
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc19/presentation/fouladi
- Outsourcing Everyday Jobs to Thousands of Cloud Functions with gg
  - https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/login_fall19_02_fouladi.pdf
- gg: The Stanford Builder
  - https://github.com/stanfordsnr/gg

Incremental Building

A Sound and Optimal Incremental Build System with Dynamic Dependencies
- SPLASH 2015 OOPSLA
- Sebastian Erdweg, Moritz Lichter, Manuel Weiel
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsgLSDMLLTo
- https://2015.splashcon.org/event/oopsla2015-a-sound-and-optimal-incremental-build-system
Bringing Incremental Builds to Continuous Integration
- SaTToSE (Seminar Series on Advanced Techniques & Tools for Software Evolution) 2017
- Guillaume Maudoux and Kim Mens
- https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:189543
- http://sattose.wdfiles.com/local--files/2017:schedule/SATToSE_2017_paper_3.pdf
Constructing Hybrid Incremental Compilers for Cross-Module Extensibility with an Internal Build System
- ‹Programming› 2020
- Jeff Smits, Gabriël Konat, Eelco Visser
- https://2020.programming-conference.org/details/programming-2020-papers/16/Constructing-Hybrid-Incremental-Compilers-for-Cross-Module-Extensibility-with-an-Inte
Scalable Incremental Building with Dynamic Task Dependencies
- Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2018
- Gabriël Konat, Sebastian Erdweg, Eelco Visser
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3238147.3238196
- https://eelcovisser.org/post/306/scalable-incremental-building-with-dynamic-task-dependencies
- https://www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~xx00seba/publications/pie-scalable-incremental-build.pdf

Reproducibility

An introduction to deterministic builds with C/C++
- https://blog.conan.io/2019/09/02/Deterministic-builds-with-C-C++.html
Automated Localization for Unreproducible Builds
- ICSE 2018
- Zhilei Ren, He Jiang, Jifeng Xuan, Zijiang Yang
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.06766
- https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/06/22/automated-localization-for-unreproducible-builds/
Deterministic builds with Clang and LLD
- http://blog.llvm.org/2019/11/deterministic-builds-with-clang-and-lld.html
Reproducible Builds — a set of software development practices that create an independently-verifiable path from source to binary code
- https://reproducible-builds.org/

Build Performance

Build Performance Readings

2 tips to make your C++ projects compile 3 times faster
- Tip #1: Distributing compilation load
- Tip #2: Using a distcc server container
- https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/05/15/2-tips-to-make-your-c-projects-compile-3-times-faster/
30% faster Windows builds with clang-cl and the new /Zc:dllexportInlines- flag
- http://blog.llvm.org/2018/11/30-faster-windows-builds-with-clang-cl_14.html
Anders Schau Knatten
- Another Reason to Avoid #includes in Headers
  - https://blog.knatten.org/2012/11/09/another-reason-to-avoid-includes-in-headers/
- How to avoid includes in headers
  - https://blog.knatten.org/2012/11/30/how-to-avoid-includes-in-headers/
Aras Pranckevičius
- Unreasonable Effectiveness of Profilers (profiling the build system) - http://aras-p.info/blog/2017/08/08/Unreasonable-Effectiveness-of-Profilers/
- Forced Inlining Might Be Slow - https://aras-p.info/blog/2017/10/09/Forced-Inlining-Might-Be-Slow/
- Best unknown MSVC flag: d2cgsummary - https://aras-p.info/blog/2017/10/23/Best-unknown-MSVC-flag-d2cgsummary/
- Slow to Compile Table Initializers - https://aras-p.info/blog/2017/10/24/Slow-to-Compile-Table-Initializers/
- Investigating compile times, and Clang -ftime-report - http://aras-p.info/blog/2019/01/12/Investigating-compile-times-and-Clang-ftime-report/
- Another cool MSVC flag: /d1reportTime
  - http://aras-p.info/blog/2019/01/21/Another-cool-MSVC-flag-d1reportTime/
  - Reports where the compiler frontend spends time.
  - Passing /d1reportTime to the MSVC compiler (cl.exe) will make it print:
    - Which header files are included (hierarchically), with time taken for each,
    - Which classes are being parsed, with time taken for each,
    - Which functions are being parsed, with time taken for each.
Big Project Build Times–Chromium
- https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/big-project-build-times-chromium/
C++ Compilation Speed
- Walter Bright - DDJ, August 17, 2010
- https://digitalmars.com/articles/b54.html
- http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/c-compilation-speed/228701711
C++ Compilation: Fixing It
- http://virtuallyrandom.com/c-compilation-fixing-it/
Faster C++ builds
- http://www.bitsnbites.eu/faster-c-builds/
Identifying and Understanding Header File Hotspots in C/C++ Build Processes
- Automated Software Engineering, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2016
- Shane McIntosh, Bram Adams, Meiyappan Nagappan, Ahmed E. Hassan
- http://rebels.ece.mcgill.ca/journalpaper/2015/07/08/identifying-and-understanding-header-file-hotspots-in-c-cpp-build-processes.html
Improving C++ Builds with Split DWARF
- https://www.productive-cpp.com/improving-cpp-builds-with-split-dwarf/
Improving Compilation Time of C/C++ Projects
- https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/improving-compilation-times-c-cpp-projects
Investigating C++ compile times
- My journey investigating slow compile times in C++
  - https://metanokid.github.io/coding-scars/investigating-cpp-compile-times-0
- Useful tools to investigate C++ compile times
  - https://metanokid.github.io/coding-scars/investigating-cpp-compile-times-1
- Understanding MSBuild to create flame graphs
  - https://metanokid.github.io/coding-scars/investigating-cpp-compile-times-2
- Improving C++ compile times using flame graphs
  - https://metanokid.github.io/coding-scars/investigating-cpp-compile-times-3
- Getting data from C++ Build Insights SDK
  - https://metanokid.github.io/coding-scars/investigating-cpp-compile-times-4
Physical Design of The Machinery
- http://ourmachinery.com/post/physical-design/
Reducing Build Time through Precompilations for Evolving Large Software
- International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM) 2005
- Yu, Yijun; Dayani-Fard, Homayoun; Mylopoulos, John and Andritsos, Periklis
- http://www.cs.toronto.edu/%7Eperiklis/pubs/icsm05.pdf
- http://oro.open.ac.uk/6944/
To Unify or Not to Unify: A Case Study on Unified Builds (in WebKit)
- Compiler Construction (CC) 2019
- Takafumi Kubota, Yusuke Suzuki, and Kenji Kono
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3302516.3307347

Build Performance Software

Cotire (compile time reducer)
- a CMake module that speeds up the build process of CMake based build systems by fully automating techniques as precompiled header usage and single compilation unit builds for C and C++.
- https://github.com/sakra/cotire

Benchmarking and Profiling

C++ Compile Health Watchdog
- Benchmark and accountability tool for C++ compile-time overhead / compile-time health.
- https://github.com/Philip-Trettner/cpp-compile-overhead
- Results: https://artificial-mind.net/projects/compile-health/
Clang -ftime-trace and ftime-trace-granularity=N
- http://releases.llvm.org/9.0.0/tools/clang/docs/ReleaseNotes.html#new-compiler-flags
- Clang Time Trace Feature
  - https://www.snsystems.com/technology/tech-blog/clang-time-trace-feature
- Clang Build Analyzer
  - Clang build analysis tool using -ftime-trace
  - https://github.com/aras-p/ClangBuildAnalyzer
  - https://aras-p.info/blog/2019/09/28/Clang-Build-Analyzer/
  - time-trace: timeline / flame chart profiler for Clang
    - https://aras-p.info/blog/2019/01/16/time-trace-timeline-flame-chart-profiler-for-Clang/
CTMark (Compile Time Mark)
- https://github.com/llvm-mirror/test-suite/tree/master/CTMark
Metabench: A simple framework for compile-time microbenchmarks
- http://metaben.ch/
- https://github.com/ldionne/metabench
Templight: Template Instantiation Profiler and Debugger
- a Clang-based tool to profile the time and memory consumption of template instantiations and to perform interactive debugging sessions to gain introspection into the template instantiation process
- https://github.com/mikael-s-persson/templight
- Use templight and Templar to debug C++ templates
  - https://baptiste-wicht.com/posts/2016/02/use-templight-and-templar-to-debug-cpp-templates.html
- Templight: A Clang Extension for Debugging and Profiling C++ Template Metaprograms
  - 2015 EuroLLVM Developers’ Meeting, Zoltan Porkolab
  - https://llvm.org/devmtg/2015-04/slides/EuroLLVM2015Templight.pdf
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djAPtopWhRU
Visual C++
- vcperf: A build analysis tool for the MSVC toolchain
  - https://github.com/microsoft/vcperf
- MSBuild Flame Graph: Turns MSBuild executions into flame graphs
  - https://github.com/MetanoKid/msbuild-flame-graph
- C++ Build Insights
  - Get started with C++ Build Insights
    - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/build-insights/get-started-with-cpp-build-insights
  - Introducing C++ Build Insights
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/introducing-c-build-insights/
  - Analyze your builds programmatically with the C++ Build Insights SDK
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/analyze-your-builds-programmatically-with-the-c-build-insights-sdk/
  - Finding build bottlenecks with C++ Build Insights
    - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/finding-build-bottlenecks-with-cpp-build-insights/

Caching

ccache: A Fast C/C++ Compiler Cache
- https://ccache.samba.org
distcc: A free distributed C/C++ compiler system
- https://github.com/distcc/distcc
icecream: Distributed compiler with a central scheduler to share build load
- https://github.com/icecc/icecream
sccache - Shared Compilation Cache
- https://github.com/mozilla/sccache

Dependencies Analysis and Optimization

cpp-dependencies: Tool to check C++ #include dependencies (dependency graphs created in .dot format)
- https://github.com/tomtom-international/cpp-dependencies
Header Hero: optimizing C++ codebase header #include dependencies
- A tool for optimizing C++ header files and reducing build times.
- https://bitbucket.org/bitsquid/header_hero
- https://bitsquid.blogspot.com/2011/10/caring-by-sharing-header-hero.html
- https://aras-p.info/blog/2018/01/17/Header-Hero-Improvements/
include-what-you-use
- A tool for use with clang to analyze #includes in C and C++ source files
- https://include-what-you-use.org/
- https://github.com/include-what-you-use/include-what-you-use

Build Performance Talks

Common-sense acceleration of your MLOC build
- CppCon 2014; Matt Hargett
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4M3yG1dWho
Compiling C++ is slow - let's go faster
- StockholmCpp 2020; Tobias Hieta
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4pyOtawqjg
- https://gist.github.com/tru/ad677ba2b1d543e238b0e09eb3aad3ac
LLVM Compile-Time: Challenges. Improvements. Outlook.
- 2017 LLVM Developers’ Meeting; Michael Zolotukhin
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYHMwyyZ6Mk
Optimizing builds on Windows
- 2019 LLVM Developers’ Meeting; Alexandre Ganea
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usPL_DROn4k
- https://llvm.org/devmtg/2019-10/slides/Ganea-OptimizingBuildesOnWindows.pdf
Optimizing compilation times with Templates
- CppCon 2017: Eddie Elizondo
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPWQ7xKfIHQ
- https://github.com/eduardo-elizondo/cppcon2017
Practical Techniques for Improving C++ Build Times
- CppCon 2017; Dmitry Panin
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8UoYG4dvH8
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Faster Builds
- Viktor Kirilov
- slides: https://slides.com/onqtam/faster_builds
- CppOnSea 2019 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anbOy47fBYI
- C++ Russia 2019 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rRLHRRqg5A
- code::dive 2018
  - Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSFbNhCbdJM
  - Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Y5JnJlypM
Visual Studio
- clcache.py - a compiler cache for Microsoft Visual Studio
  - https://github.com/frerich/clcache
- CompileTimer: Set of tests to benchmark the compile time of C++ constructs
  - https://github.com/janwilmans/CompileTimer
- Make VC++ Compiles Fast Through Parallel Compilation
  - https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/make-vc-compiles-fast-through-parallel-compilation/
- Visual Studio 2017 Throughput Improvements and Advice
  - https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2018/01/04/visual-studio-2017-throughput-improvements-and-advice/

Software

Build System Shootout: Comparison of build program expressive power
- https://github.com/ndmitchell/build-shootout
TraceCode: Trace a build to find out which source files are built in a binary
- https://github.com/nexB/tracecode-toolkit
- Debug your build by tracing and reversing: stracing your build from sources to binaries
  - https://fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/debugging_tools_stracing_build/

Talks

2019

Behind the Scenes of a C++ Build System
- CppCon 2019; Jussi Pakkanen
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34KzT2yvQuM
- https://github.com/CppCon/CppCon2019/tree/master/Presentations/behind_the_scenes_of_a_cpp_build_system
Building Modules
- CppCon 2019; Michael Spencer
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0SHHkBenss

2018

Build Systems: a Simple Solution to a Complicated Problem
- CppCon 2018; Peter Bindels
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWOmkwv8N_U
Creating the Complete Build Package
- CppCon 2018
- Panelists: Boris Kolpackov, Titus Winter, Robert Schumacher, Paddy McDonald, Manuel Klimek
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjdCxXdjaSA
Don't package your libraries, write packagable libraries!
- CppCon 2018; Robert Schumacher
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBP17HQAQjk
What to Expect from a Next-Generation C++ Build System
- CppCon 2018; Boris Kolpackov
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJP7SSLjvSI

2016

A New Architecture for Building Software
- 2016 LLVM Developers’ Meeting; Daniel Dunbar
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_T-eCToX1I
- http://www.llvm.org/devmtg/2016-11/#talk10
- llbuild: A low-level build system, used by Xcode and the Swift Package Manager
  - https://github.com/apple/swift-llbuild

2017

Building C++ Modules
- CppCon 2017; Boris Kolpackov
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8EbDcLQAoc
There Will Be Build Systems: I Configure Your Milkshake
- CppCon 2017; Isabella Muerte
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7THzO-D0ta4

Tags: tool reading build

Last modified 01 July 2021

Build tools and research

A collection of links around building, build systems, and build performance optimization

Readings

Caching

Correctness

Dependencies

Distributed

Incremental Building

Reproducibility

Build Performance

Build Performance Readings

Build Performance Software

Benchmarking and Profiling

Caching

Dependencies Analysis and Optimization

Build Performance Talks

Software

Talks

2019

2018

2016

2017