Ninja (build system)

Ninja
Developer(s)Evan Martin
Initial release2012; 13 years ago (2012)[1]
Stable release
1.12.1[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 11 May 2024; 8 months ago (11 May 2024)
Repository
Written inC++, Python
Operating systemLinux, macOS, Windows
TypeSoftware development tools
LicenseApache License 2.0[3]
Websiteninja-build.org Edit this on Wikidata

Ninja is a build system developed by Evan Martin,[4] a Google employee. Ninja has a focus on speed and it differs from other build systems in two major respects: it is designed to have its input files generated by a higher-level build system, and it is designed to run builds as fast as possible.[5]

Build system

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In essence, Ninja is meant to replace Make, which is slow when performing incremental (or no-op) builds.[6] This can considerably slow down developers working on large projects, such as Google Chrome which compiles 40,000 input files into a single executable. In fact, Google Chrome is a main user and motivation for Ninja.[7] It's also used to build Android (via Makefile translation by Kati),[8] and is used by most developers working on LLVM.[9]

In contrast to Make, Ninja lacks features such as string manipulation, as Ninja build files are not meant to be written by hand. Instead, a "build generator" should be used to generate Ninja build files. Gyp, CMake, Meson, and gn[10] are popular build management software tools which support creating build files for Ninja.[11]

Example

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rule cc   command = gcc -c -o $out $in   description = CC $out   rule link   command = gcc -o $out $in   description = LINK $out   build source1.o: cc source1.c build source2.o: cc source2.c build myprogram: link source1.o source2.o

References

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  1. ^ Martin, Evan. "Google Groups: ninja-build". Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  2. ^ "Release 1.12.1". 11 May 2024. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
  3. ^ "COPYING". Github. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  4. ^ "Google man open sources Chrome build system".
  5. ^ "Ninja, a small build system with a focus on speed". ninja-build.org. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
  6. ^ Röthlisberger, David. "The Ninja build tool". LWN. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  7. ^ "Ninja". The Performance Of Open Source Applications. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  8. ^ "aosp mailing list".
  9. ^ "LLVM documentation".
  10. ^ "gn - Git at Google".
  11. ^ Kitware. "cmake Documentation". Retrieved 18 June 2017.
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