1# Perfetto build instructions 2 3The source of truth for the Perfetto codebase lives in AOSP: 4https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/perfetto/ 5 6A read-only mirror is also available at https://github.com/google/perfetto . 7 8Perfetto can be built both from the Android tree (AOSP) and standalone. 9Standalone builds are meant only for local testing and are not shipped. 10Due to the reduced dependencies, the standalone workflow is faster to iterate on 11and the suggested way to work on Perfetto, unless you are working on code that 12has non-NDK depedencies into Android internals. Profilers and internal HAL/AIDL 13dependencies will not be built in the standalone build. 14 15If you are chromium contributor, AOSP is still the place you should send CLs to. 16The code inside chromium's 17[third_party/perfetto](https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:third_party/perfetto/?q=f:third_party%2Fperfetto&ss=chromium) 18is a direct mirror of the AOSP repo. The 19[AOSP->Chromium autoroller](https://autoroll.skia.org/r/perfetto-chromium-autoroll) 20takes care of keeping chromium's DEPS up to date. 21 22## Standalone builds 23 24#### Get the code 25 26```bash 27git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/perfetto/ 28``` 29 30#### Pull dependent libraries and toolchains 31 32```bash 33tools/install-build-deps [--android] [--ui] [--linux-arm] 34``` 35 36`--android` will pull the Android NDK, emulator and other deps required 37to build for `target_os = "android"`. 38 39`--ui` will pull NodeJS and all the NPM modules required to build the 40Web UI. See the [UI Development](#ui-development) section below for more. 41 42`--linux-arm` will pull the sysroots for cross-compiling for Linux ARM/64. 43 44WARNING: Note that if you're using an M1 or any later ARM Mac, your Python 45version should be at least 3.9.1 to work around 46[this Python Bug](https://bugs.python.org/issue42704). 47 48#### Generate the build files via GN 49 50Perfetto uses [GN](https://gn.googlesource.com/gn/+/HEAD/docs/quick_start.md) 51as primary build system. See the [Build files](#build-files) section below for 52more. 53 54```bash 55tools/gn args out/android 56``` 57 58This will open an editor to customize the GN args. Enter: 59 60```python 61# Set only when building for Android, omit when building for linux, mac or win. 62target_os = "android" 63target_cpu = "arm" / "arm64" / "x64" 64 65is_debug = true / false 66cc_wrapper = "ccache" # [Optional] speed up rebuilds with ccache. 67``` 68 69See the [Build Configurations](#build-configurations) and 70[Building on Windows](#building-on-windows) sections below for more. 71 72TIP: If you are a chromium developer and have depot_tools installed you can 73avoid the `tools/` prefix below and just use gn/ninja from depot_tools. 74 75#### Build native C/C++ targets 76 77```bash 78# This will build all the targets. 79tools/ninja -C out/android 80 81# Alternatively, list targets explicitly. 82tools/ninja -C out/android \ 83 traced \ # Tracing service. 84 traced_probes \ # Ftrace interop and /proc poller. 85 perfetto \ # Cmdline client. 86 trace_processor_shell \ # Trace parsing. 87 traceconv # Trace conversion. 88... 89``` 90 91## Android tree builds 92 93Follow these instructions if you are an AOSP contributor. 94 95The source code lives in [`external/perfetto` in the AOSP tree](https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:external/perfetto/). 96 97Follow the instructions on https://source.android.com/setup/build/building . 98 99Then: 100 101```bash 102mmma external/perfetto 103# or 104m traced traced_probes perfetto 105``` 106 107This will generate artifacts `out/target/product/XXX/system/`. 108 109Executables and shared libraries are stripped by default by the Android build 110system. The unstripped artifacts are kept into `out/target/product/XXX/symbols`. 111 112## UI development 113 114This command pulls the UI-related dependencies (notably, the NodeJS binary) 115and installs the `node_modules` in `ui/node_modules`: 116 117```bash 118tools/install-build-deps --ui 119``` 120 121Build the UI: 122 123```bash 124# Will build into ./out/ui by default. Can be changed with --out path/ 125# The final bundle will be available at ./ui/out/dist/. 126# The build script creates a symlink from ./ui/out to $OUT_PATH/ui/. 127ui/build 128``` 129 130Test your changes on a local server using: 131 132```bash 133# This will automatically build the UI. There is no need to manually run 134# ui/build before running ui/run-dev-server. 135ui/run-dev-server 136``` 137 138Navigate to http://localhost:10000/ to see the changes. 139 140The server supports live reloading of CSS and TS/JS contents. Whenever a ui 141source file is changed it, the script will automatically re-build it and show a 142prompt in the web page. 143 144UI unit tests are located next to the functionality being tested, and have 145`_unittest.ts` or `_jsdomtest.ts` suffixes. The following command runs all unit 146tests: 147 148```bash 149ui/run-unittests 150``` 151 152This command will perform the build first; which is not necessary if you 153already have a development server running. In this case, to avoid interference 154with the rebuild done by development server and to get the results faster, you 155can use 156 157```bash 158ui/run-unittests --no-build 159``` 160 161to skip the build steps. 162 163Script `ui/run-unittests` also supports `--watch` parameter, which would 164restart the testing when the underlying source files are changed. This can be 165used in conjunction with `--no-build`, and on its own as well. 166 167## Build files 168 169The source of truth of our build file is in the BUILD.gn files, which are based 170on [GN][gn-quickstart]. 171The Android build file ([Android.bp](/Android.bp)) is autogenerated from the GN 172files through `tools/gen_android_bp`, which needs to be invoked whenever a 173change touches GN files or introduces new ones. 174Likewise, the Bazel build file ([BUILD](/BUILD)) is autogenerated through the 175`tools/gen_bazel` script. 176 177A presubmit check checks that the Android.bp is consistent with GN files when 178submitting a CL through `git cl upload`. 179 180The generator has a list of root targets that will be translated into the 181Android.bp file. If you are adding a new target, add a new entry to the 182`default_targets` variable in [`tools/gen_android_bp`](/tools/gen_android_bp). 183 184## Supported platforms 185 186**Linux desktop** (Debian Testing/Rodete) 187 188- Hermetic clang + libcxx toolchain (both following chromium's revisions) 189- GCC-7 and libstdc++ 6 190- Cross-compiling for arm and arm64 (more below). 191 192**Android** 193 194- Android's NDK r15c (using NDK's libcxx) 195- AOSP's in-tree clang (using in-tree libcxx) 196 197**Mac** 198 199- XCode 9 / clang (maintained best-effort). 200 201**Windows** 202 203- Windows 10 with either MSVC 2019 or clang-cl (maintained best-effort). 204 205### Building on Windows 206 207Building on Windows is possible using both the MSVC 2019 compiler (you don't 208need the full IDE, just the build tools) or the LLVM clang-cl compiler. 209 210The Windows support in standalone builds has been introduced in v16 by 211[r.android.com/1711913](https://r.android.com/1711913). 212 213clang-cl support is more stable because that build configuration is actively 214covered by the Chromium project (Perfetto rolls into chromium and underpins 215chrome://tracing). The MSVC build is maintained best-effort. 216 217The following targets are supported on Windows: 218 219- `trace_processor_shell`: the trace importer and SQL query engine. 220- `traceconv`: the trace conversion tool. 221- `traced` and `perfetto`: the tracing service and cmdline client. They use an 222 alternative implementation of the [inter-process tracing protocol](/docs/design-docs/api-and-abi.md#tracing-protocol-abi) 223 based on a TCP socket and named shared memory. This configuration is only for 224 testing / benchmarks and is not shipped in production. 225 Googlers: see [go/perfetto-win](http://go/perfetto-win) for details. 226- `perfetto_unittests` / `perfetto_integrationtests`: although they support only 227 the subset of code that is supported on Windows (e.g. no ftrace). 228 229It is NOT possible to build the Perfetto UI from Windows. 230 231#### Prerequisites 232 233You need all of these both for MSVC and clang-cl: 234 235- [Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#build-tools-for-visual-studio-2019) 236- [Windows 10 SDK](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/windows-10-sdk/) 237- [Python 3](https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/) 238 239The [`win_find_msvc.py`](/gn/standalone/toolchain/win_find_msvc.py) script will 240locate the higest version numbers available from 241`C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10` and 242`C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019`. 243 244#### Pull dependent libraries and toolchains 245 246```bash 247# This will download also the LLVM clang-cl prebuilt used by chromium. 248python3 tools/install-build-deps 249``` 250 251#### Generate build files 252 253```bash 254python3 tools/gn gen out/win 255``` 256 257In the editor type: 258 259```bash 260is_debug = true | false 261 262is_clang = true # Will use the hermetic clang-cl toolchain. 263# or 264is_clang = false # Will use MSVC 2019. 265``` 266 267#### Build 268 269```bash 270python3 tools/ninja -C out/win perfetto traced trace_processor_shell 271``` 272 273### Cross-compiling for Linux ARM/64 274 275When cross-compiling for Linux you will need a sysroot. You have two options: 276 277#### 1. Use the built-in sysroots based on Debian Sid 278 279```bash 280tools/install-build-deps --linux-arm 281``` 282 283Then set the following GN args: 284 285```python 286target_os = "linux" 287target_cpu = "arm" 288# or 289target_cpu = "arm64" 290``` 291 292#### 2. Use your own sysroot 293 294In this case you need to manually specify the sysroot location and the 295toolchain prefix triplet to use. 296 297```python 298target_os = "linux" 299target_sysroot = "/path/to/sysroot" 300target_triplet = "aarch64-linux-gnu" # Or any other supported triplet. 301``` 302 303For more details see the [Using cutom toolchains](#custom-toolchain) section 304below. 305 306## Build configurations 307 308TIP: `tools/setup_all_configs.py` can be used to generate out/XXX folders for 309most of the supported configurations. 310 311The following [GN args][gn-quickstart] are supported: 312 313`target_os = "android" | "linux" | "mac"`: 314 315Defaults to the current host, set "android" to build for Android. 316 317`target_cpu = "arm" | "arm64" | "x64"` 318 319Defaults to `"arm"` when `target_os` == `"android"`, `"x64"` when targeting the 320host. 32-bit host builds are not supported. 321Note: x64 here really means x86_64. This is to keep it consistent with 322Chromium's choice, which in turn follows Windows naming convention. 323 324`is_debug = true | false` 325 326Toggles Debug (default) / Release mode. This affects, among other things: 327(i) the `-g` compiler flag; (ii) setting/unsetting `-DNDEBUG`; (iii) turning 328on/off `DCHECK` and `DLOG`. 329Note that debug builds of Perfetto are sensibly slower than release versions. We 330strongly encourage using debug builds only for local development. 331 332`is_clang = true | false` 333 334Use Clang (default: true) or GCC (false). 335On Linux, by default it uses the self-hosted clang (see `is_hermetic_clang`). 336On Android, by default it uses clang from the NDK (in `buildtools/ndk`). 337On Mac, by default it uses the system version of clang (requires Xcode). 338See also the [custom toolchain](#custom-toolchain) section below. 339 340`is_hermetic_clang = true | false` 341 342Use bundled toolchain from `buildtools/` rather than system-wide one. 343 344`non_hermetic_clang_stdlib = libc++ | libstdc++` 345 346If `is_hermetic_clang` is `false`, sets the `-stdlib` flag for clang 347invocations. `libstdc++` is default on Linux hosts and `libc++` is 348default everywhere else. 349 350`cc = "gcc" / cxx = "g++"` 351 352Uses a different compiler binary (default: autodetected depending on is_clang). 353See also the [custom toolchain](#custom-toolchain) section below. 354 355`cc_wrapper = "tool_name"` 356 357Prepends all build commands with a wrapper command. Using `"ccache"` here 358enables the [ccache](https://github.com/ccache/ccache) caching compiler, 359which can considerably speed up repeat builds. 360 361`is_asan = true` 362 363Enables [Address Sanitizer](https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/AddressSanitizer) 364 365`is_lsan = true` 366 367Enables [Leak Sanitizer](https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/AddressSanitizerLeakSanitizer) 368(Linux/Mac only) 369 370`is_msan = true` 371 372Enables [Memory Sanitizer](https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/MemorySanitizer) 373(Linux only) 374 375`is_tsan = true` 376 377Enables [Thread Sanitizer](https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerCppManual) 378(Linux/Mac only) 379 380`is_ubsan = true` 381 382Enables [Undefined Behavior Sanitizer](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer.html) 383 384### {#custom-toolchain} Using custom toolchains and CC / CXX / CFLAGS env vars 385 386When building Perfetto as part of some other build environment it might be 387necessary to switch off all the built-in toolchain-related path-guessing scripts 388and manually specify the path of the toolchains. 389 390```python 391# Disable the scripts that guess the path of the toolchain. 392is_system_compiler = true 393 394ar = "/path/to/ar" 395cc = "/path/to/gcc-like-compiler" 396cxx = "/path/to/g++-like-compiler" 397linker = "" # This is passed to -fuse-ld=... 398``` 399 400If you are using a build system that keeps the toolchain settings in 401environment variables, you can set: 402 403```python 404is_system_compiler = true 405ar="${AR}" 406cc="${CC}" 407cxx="${CXX}" 408``` 409 410`is_system_compiler = true` can be used also for cross-compilation. 411In case of cross-compilation, the GN variables have the following semantic: 412`ar`, `cc`, `cxx`, `linker` refer to the _host_ toolchain (sometimes also called 413_build_ toolchain). This toolchain is used to build: (i) auxiliary tools 414(e.g. the `traceconv` conversion util) and (ii) executable artifacts that are 415used during the rest of the build process for the target (e.g., the `protoc` 416compiler or the `protozero_plugin` protoc compiler plugin). 417 418The cross-toolchain used to build the artifacts that run on the device is 419prefixed by `target_`: `target_ar`, `target_cc`, `target_cxx`, `target_linker`. 420 421```python 422# Cross compilation kicks in when at least one of these three variables is set 423# to a value != than the host defaults. 424 425target_cpu = "x86" | "x64" | "arm" | "arm64" 426target_os = "linux" | "android" 427target_triplet = "arm-linux-gnueabi" | "x86_64-linux-gnu" | ... 428``` 429 430When integrating with GNU Makefile cross-toolchains build environments, a 431typical mapping of the corresponding environment variables is: 432 433```python 434ar="${BUILD_AR}" 435cc="${BUILD_CC}" 436cxx="${BUILD_CXX}" 437target_ar="${AR}" 438target_cc="${CC}" 439target_cxx="${CXX}" 440``` 441 442It is possible to extend the set of `CFLAGS` and `CXXFLAGS` through the 443`extra_xxxflags` GN variables as follows. The extra flags are always appended 444(hence, take precedence) to the set of flags that the GN build files generate. 445 446```python 447# These apply both to host and target toolchain. 448extra_cflags="${CFLAGS}" 449extra_cxxflags="${CXXFLAGS}" 450extra_ldflags="${LDFLAGS}" 451 452# These apply only to the host toolchain. 453extra_host_cflags="${BUILD_CFLAGS}" 454extra_host_cxxflags="${BUILD_CXXFLAGS}" 455extra_host_ldflags="${BUILD_LDFLAGS}" 456 457# These apply only to the target toolchain. 458extra_target_cflags="${CFLAGS}" 459extra_target_cxxflags="${CXXFLAGS} ${debug_flags}" 460extra_target_ldflags="${LDFLAGS}" 461``` 462 463[gn-quickstart]: https://gn.googlesource.com/gn/+/master/docs/quick_start.md 464 465## IDE setup 466 467Use a following command in the checkout directory in order to generate the 468compilation database file: 469 470```bash 471tools/gn gen out/default --export-compile-commands 472``` 473 474After generating, it can be used in CLion (File -> Open -> Open As Project), 475Visual Studio Code with C/C++ extension and any other tool and editor that 476supports the compilation database format. 477 478#### Useful extensions 479 480If you are using VS Code we suggest the following extensions: 481 482- [Clang-Format](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=xaver.clang-format) 483- [C/C++](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.cpptools) 484- [clangd](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd) 485- [Native Debug](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=webfreak.debug) 486- [GNFormat](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=persidskiy.vscode-gnformat) 487- [ESlint](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dbaeumer.vscode-eslint) 488- [markdownlint](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DavidAnson.vscode-markdownlint) 489 490#### Useful settings 491 492In `.vscode/settings.json`: 493 494```json 495{ 496 "C_Cpp.clang_format_path": "${workspaceRoot}/buildtools/mac/clang-format", 497 "C_Cpp.clang_format_sortIncludes": true, 498 "files.exclude": { 499 "out/*/obj": true, 500 "out/*/gen": true, 501 }, 502 "clangd.arguments": [ 503 "--compile-commands-dir=${workspaceFolder}/out/mac_debug", 504 "--completion-style=detailed", 505 "--header-insertion=never" 506 ], 507} 508``` 509 510Replace `/mac/` with `/linux64/` on Linux. 511 512### Debugging with VSCode 513 514Edit `.vscode/launch.json`: 515 516```json 517{ 518 "version": "0.2.0", 519 "configurations": [ 520 { 521 "request": "launch", 522 "type": "cppdbg", 523 "name": "Perfetto unittests", 524 "program": "${workspaceRoot}/out/mac_debug/perfetto_unittests", 525 "args": ["--gtest_filter=TracingServiceImplTest.StopTracingTriggerRingBuffer"], 526 "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/out/mac_debug", 527 "MIMode": "lldb", 528 }, 529 ] 530} 531``` 532 533Then open the command palette `Meta`+`Shift`+`P` -> `Debug: Start debugging`. 534