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| -# The MB (Meta-Build wrapper) design spec
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| -
|
| -[TOC]
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| -
|
| -## Intro
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| -
|
| -MB is intended to address two major aspects of the GYP -> GN transition
|
| -for Chromium:
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| -
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| -1. "bot toggling" - make it so that we can easily flip a given bot
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| - back and forth between GN and GYP.
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| -
|
| -2. "bot configuration" - provide a single source of truth for all of
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| - the different configurations (os/arch/`gyp_define` combinations) of
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| - Chromium that are supported.
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| -
|
| -MB must handle at least the `gen` and `analyze` steps on the bots, i.e.,
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| -we need to wrap both the `gyp_chromium` invocation to generate the
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| -Ninja files, and the `analyze` step that takes a list of modified files
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| -and a list of targets to build and returns which targets are affected by
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| -the files.
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| -
|
| -For more information on how to actually use MB, see
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| -[the user guide](user_guide.md).
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| -
|
| -## Design
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| -
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| -MB is intended to be as simple as possible, and to defer as much work as
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| -possible to GN or GYP. It should live as a very simple Python wrapper
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| -that offers little in the way of surprises.
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| -
|
| -### Command line
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| -
|
| -It is structured as a single binary that supports a list of subcommands:
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| -
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| -* `mb gen -c linux_rel_bot //out/Release`
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| -* `mb analyze -m tryserver.chromium.linux -b linux_rel /tmp/input.json /tmp/output.json`
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| -
|
| -### Configurations
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| -
|
| -`mb` will first look for a bot config file in a set of different locations
|
| -(initially just in //ios/build/bots). Bot config files are JSON files that
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| -contain keys for 'GYP_DEFINES' (a list of strings that will be joined together
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| -with spaces and passed to GYP, or a dict that will be similarly converted),
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| -'gn_args' (a list of strings that will be joined together), and an
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| -'mb_type' field that says whether to use GN or GYP. Bot config files
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| -require the full list of settings to be given explicitly.
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| -
|
| -If no matching bot config file is found, `mb` looks in the
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| -`//tools/mb/mb_config.pyl` config file to determine whether to use GYP or GN
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| -for a particular build directory, and what set of flags (`GYP_DEFINES` or `gn
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| -args`) to use.
|
| -
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| -A config can either be specified directly (useful for testing) or by specifying
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| -the master name and builder name (useful on the bots so that they do not need
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| -to specify a config directly and can be hidden from the details).
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| -
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| -See the [user guide](user_guide.md#mb_config.pyl) for details.
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| -
|
| -### Handling the analyze step
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| -
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| -The interface to `mb analyze` is described in the
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| -[user\_guide](user_guide.md#mb_analyze).
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| -
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| -The way analyze works can be subtle and complicated (see below).
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| -
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| -Since the interface basically mirrors the way the "analyze" step on the bots
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| -invokes `gyp_chromium` today, when the config is found to be a gyp config,
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| -the arguments are passed straight through.
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| -
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| -It implements the equivalent functionality in GN by calling `gn refs
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| -[list of files] --type=executable --all --as=output` and filtering the
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| -output to match the list of targets.
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| -
|
| -## Analyze
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| -
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| -The goal of the `analyze` step is to speed up the cycle time of the try servers
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| -by only building and running the tests affected by the files in a patch, rather
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| -than everything that might be out of date. Doing this ends up being tricky.
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| -
|
| -We start with the following requirements and observations:
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| -
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| -* In an ideal (un-resource-constrained) world, we would build and test
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| - everything that a patch affected on every patch. This does not
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| - necessarily mean that we would build 'all' on every patch (see below).
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| -
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| -* In the real world, however, we do not have an infinite number of machines,
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| - and try jobs are not infinitely fast, so we need to balance the desire
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| - to get maximum test coverage against the desire to have reasonable cycle
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| - times, given the number of machines we have.
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| -
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| -* Also, since we run most try jobs against tip-of-tree Chromium, by
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| - the time one job completes on the bot, new patches have probably landed,
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| - rendering the build out of date.
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| -
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| -* This means that the next try job may have to do a build that is out of
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| - date due to a combination of files affected by a given patch, and files
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| - affected for unrelated reasons. We want to rebuild and test only the
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| - targets affected by the patch, so that we don't blame or punish the
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| - patch author for unrelated changes.
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| -
|
| -So:
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| -
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| -1. We need a way to indicate which changed files we care about and which
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| - we don't (the affected files of a patch).
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| -
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| -2. We need to know which tests we might potentially want to run, and how
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| - those are mapped onto build targets. For some kinds of tests (like
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| - GTest-based tests), the mapping is 1:1 - if you want to run base_unittests,
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| - you need to build base_unittests. For others (like the telemetry and
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| - layout tests), you might need to build several executables in order to
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| - run the tests, and that mapping might best be captured by a *meta*
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| - target (a GN group or a GYP 'none' target like `webkit_tests`) that
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| - depends on the right list of files. Because the GN and GYP files know
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| - nothing about test steps, we have to have some way of mapping back
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| - and forth between test steps and build targets. That mapping
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| - is *not* currently available to MB (or GN or GYP), and so we have to
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| - enough information to make it possible for the caller to do the mapping.
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| -
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| -3. We might also want to know when test targets are affected by data files
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| - that aren't compiled (python scripts, or the layout tests themselves).
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| - There's no good way to do this in GYP, but GN supports this.
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| -
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| -4. We also want to ensure that particular targets still compile even if they
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| - are not actually tested; consider testing the installers themselves, or
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| - targets that don't yet have good test coverage. We might want to use meta
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| - targets for this purpose as well.
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| -
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| -5. However, for some meta targets, we don't necessarily want to rebuild the
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| - meta target itself, perhaps just the dependencies of the meta target that
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| - are affected by the patch. For example, if you have a meta target like
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| - `blink_tests` that might depend on ten different test binaries. If a patch
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| - only affects one of them (say `wtf_unittests`), you don't want to
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| - build `blink_tests`, because that might actually also build the other nine
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| - targets. In other words, some meta targets are *prunable*.
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| -
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| -6. As noted above, in the ideal case we actually have enough resources and
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| - things are fast enough that we can afford to build everything affected by a
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| - patch, but listing every possible target explicitly would be painful. The
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| - GYP and GN Ninja generators provide an 'all' target that captures (nearly,
|
| - see [crbug.com/503241](crbug.com/503241)) everything, but unfortunately
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| - neither GN nor GYP actually represents 'all' as a meta target in the build
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| - graph, so we will need to write code to handle that specially.
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| -
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| -7. In some cases, we will not be able to correctly analyze the build graph to
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| - determine the impact of a patch, and need to bail out (e.g,. if you change a
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| - build file itself, it may not be easy to tell how that affects the graph).
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| - In that case we should simply build and run everything.
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| -
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| -The interaction between 2) and 5) means that we need to treat meta targets
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| -two different ways, and so we need to know which targets should be
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| -pruned in the sense of 5) and which targets should be returned unchanged
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| -so that we can map them back to the appropriate tests.
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| -
|
| -So, we need three things as input:
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| -
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| -* `files`: the list of files in the patch
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| -* `test_targets`: the list of ninja targets which, if affected by a patch,
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| - should be reported back so that we can map them back to the appropriate
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| - tests to run. Any meta targets in this list should *not* be pruned.
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| -* `additional_compile_targets`: the list of ninja targets we wish to compile
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| - *in addition to* the list in `test_targets`. Any meta targets
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| - present in this list should be pruned (we don't need to return the
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| - meta targets because they aren't mapped back to tests, and we don't want
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| - to build them because we might build too much).
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| -
|
| -We can then return two lists as output:
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| -
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| -* `compile_targets`, which is a list of pruned targets to be
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| - passed to Ninja to build. It is acceptable to replace a list of
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| - pruned targets by a meta target if it turns out that all of the
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| - dependendencies of the target are affected by the patch (i.e.,
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| - all ten binaries that blink_tests depends on), but doing so is
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| - not required.
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| -* `test_targets`, which is a list of unpruned targets to be mapped
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| - back to determine which tests to run.
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| -
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| -There may be substantial overlap between the two lists, but there is
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| -no guarantee that one is a subset of the other and the two cannot be
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| -used interchangeably or merged together without losing information and
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| -causing the wrong thing to happen.
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| -
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| -The implementation is responsible for recognizing 'all' as a magic string
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| -and mapping it onto the list of all root nodes in the build graph.
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| -
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| -There may be files listed in the input that don't actually exist in the build
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| -graph: this could be either the result of an error (the file should be in the
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| -build graph, but isn't), or perfectly fine (the file doesn't affect the build
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| -graph at all). We can't tell these two apart, so we should ignore missing
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| -files.
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| -
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| -There may be targets listed in the input that don't exist in the build
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| -graph; unlike missing files, this can only indicate a configuration error,
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| -and so we should return which targets are missing so the caller can
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| -treat this as an error, if so desired.
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| -
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| -Any of the three inputs may be an empty list:
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| -
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| -* It normally doesn't make sense to call analyze at all if no files
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| - were modified, but in rare cases we can hit a race where we try to
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| - test a patch after it has already been committed, in which case
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| - the list of modified files is empty. We should return 'no dependency'
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| - in that case.
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| -
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| -* Passing an empty list for one or the other of test_targets and
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| - additional_compile_targets is perfectly sensible: in the former case,
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| - it can indicate that you don't want to run any tests, and in the latter,
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| - it can indicate that you don't want to do build anything else in
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| - addition to the test targets.
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| -
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| -* It doesn't make sense to call analyze if you don't want to compile
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| - anything at all, so passing [] for both test_targets and
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| - additional_compile_targets should probably return an error.
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| -
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| -In the output case, an empty list indicates that there was nothing to
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| -build, or that there were no affected test targets as appropriate.
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| -
|
| -Note that passing no arguments to Ninja is equivalent to passing
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| -`all` to Ninja (at least given how GN and GYP work); however, we
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| -don't want to take advantage of this in most cases because we don't
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| -actually want to build every out of date target, only the targets
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| -potentially affected by the files. One could try to indicate
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| -to analyze that we wanted to use no arguments instead of an empty
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| -list, but using the existing fields for this seems fragile and/or
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| -confusing, and adding a new field for this seems unwarranted at this time.
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| -
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| -There is an "error" field in case something goes wrong (like the
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| -empty file list case, above, or an internal error in MB/GYP/GN). The
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| -analyze code should also return an error code to the shell if appropriate
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| -to indicate that the command failed.
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| -
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| -In the case where build files themselves are modified and analyze may
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| -not be able to determine a correct answer (point 7 above, where we return
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| -"Found dependency (all)"), we should also return the `test_targets` unmodified
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| -and return the union of `test_targets` and `additional_compile_targets` for
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| -`compile_targets`, to avoid confusion.
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| -
|
| -### Examples
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| -
|
| -Continuing the example given above, suppose we have the following build
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| -graph:
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| -
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| -* `blink_tests` is a meta target that depends on `webkit_unit_tests`,
|
| - `wtf_unittests`, and `webkit_tests` and represents all of the targets
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| - needed to fully test Blink. Each of those is a separate test step.
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| -* `webkit_tests` is also a meta target; it depends on `content_shell`
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| - and `image_diff`.
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| -* `base_unittests` is a separate test binary.
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| -* `wtf_unittests` depends on `Assertions.cpp` and `AssertionsTest.cpp`.
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| -* `webkit_unit_tests` depends on `WebNode.cpp` and `WebNodeTest.cpp`.
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| -* `content_shell` depends on `WebNode.cpp` and `Assertions.cpp`.
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| -* `base_unittests` depends on `logging.cc` and `logging_unittest.cc`.
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| -
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| -#### Example 1
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| -
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| -We wish to run 'wtf_unittests' and 'webkit_tests' on a bot, but not
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| -compile any additional targets.
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| -
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| -If a patch touches WebNode.cpp, then analyze gets as input:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "files": ["WebNode.cpp"],
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| - "test_targets": ["wtf_unittests", "webkit_tests"],
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| - "additional_compile_targets": []
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| - }
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| -
|
| -and should return as output:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "status": "Found dependency",
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| - "compile_targets": ["webkit_unit_tests"],
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| - "test_targets": ["webkit_tests"]
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| - }
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| -
|
| -Note how `webkit_tests` was pruned in compile_targets but not in test_targets.
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| -
|
| -#### Example 2
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| -
|
| -Using the same patch as Example 1, assume we wish to run only `wtf_unittests`,
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| -but additionally build everything needed to test Blink (`blink_tests`):
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| -
|
| -We pass as input:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "files": ["WebNode.cpp"],
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| - "test_targets": ["wtf_unittests"],
|
| - "additional_compile_targets": ["blink_tests"]
|
| - }
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| -
|
| -And should get as output:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "status": "Found dependency",
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| - "compile_targets": ["webkit_unit_tests"],
|
| - "test_targets": []
|
| - }
|
| -
|
| -Here `blink_tests` was pruned in the output compile_targets, and
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| -test_targets was empty, since blink_tests was not listed in the input
|
| -test_targets.
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| -
|
| -#### Example 3
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| -
|
| -Build everything, but do not run any tests.
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| -
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| -Input:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "files": ["WebNode.cpp"],
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| - "test_targets": [],
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| - "additional_compile_targets": ["all"]
|
| - }
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| -
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| -Output:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "status": "Found dependency",
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| - "compile_targets": ["webkit_unit_tests", "content_shell"],
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| - "test_targets": []
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| - }
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| -
|
| -#### Example 4
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| -
|
| -Same as Example 2, but a build file was modified instead of a source file.
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| -
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| -Input:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "files": ["BUILD.gn"],
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| - "test_targets": ["wtf_unittests"],
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| - "additional_compile_targets": ["blink_tests"]
|
| - }
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| -
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| -Output:
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| -
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| - {
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| - "status": "Found dependency (all)",
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| - "compile_targets": ["webkit_unit_tests", "wtf_unittests"],
|
| - "test_targets": ["wtf_unittests"]
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| - }
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| -
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| -test_targets was returned unchanged, compile_targets was pruned.
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| -
|
| -## Random Requirements and Rationale
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| -
|
| -This section is collection of semi-organized notes on why MB is the way
|
| -it is ...
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| -
|
| -### in-tree or out-of-tree
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| -
|
| -The first issue is whether or not this should exist as a script in
|
| -Chromium at all; an alternative would be to simply change the bot
|
| -configurations to know whether to use GYP or GN, and which flags to
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| -pass.
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| -
|
| -That would certainly work, but experience over the past two years
|
| -suggests a few things:
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| -
|
| - * we should push as much logic as we can into the source repositories
|
| - so that they can be versioned and changed atomically with changes to
|
| - the product code; having to coordinate changes between src/ and
|
| - build/ is at best annoying and can lead to weird errors.
|
| - * the infra team would really like to move to providing
|
| - product-independent services (i.e., not have to do one thing for
|
| - Chromium, another for NaCl, a third for V8, etc.).
|
| - * we found that during the SVN->GIT migration the ability to flip bot
|
| - configurations between the two via changes to a file in chromium
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| - was very useful.
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| -
|
| -All of this suggests that the interface between bots and Chromium should
|
| -be a simple one, hiding as much of the chromium logic as possible.
|
| -
|
| -### Why not have MB be smarter about de-duping flags?
|
| -
|
| -This just adds complexity to the MB implementation, and duplicates logic
|
| -that GYP and GN already have to support anyway; in particular, it might
|
| -require MB to know how to parse GYP and GN values. The belief is that
|
| -if MB does *not* do this, it will lead to fewer surprises.
|
| -
|
| -It will not be hard to change this if need be.
|
| -
|
| -### Integration w/ gclient runhooks
|
| -
|
| -On the bots, we will disable `gyp_chromium` as part of runhooks (using
|
| -`GYP_CHROMIUM_NO_ACTION=1`), so that mb shows up as a separate step.
|
| -
|
| -At the moment, we expect most developers to either continue to use
|
| -`gyp_chromium` in runhooks or to disable at as above if they have no
|
| -use for GYP at all. We may revisit how this works once we encourage more
|
| -people to use GN full-time (i.e., we might take `gyp_chromium` out of
|
| -runhooks altogether).
|
| -
|
| -### Config per flag set or config per (os/arch/flag set)?
|
| -
|
| -Currently, mb_config.pyl does not specify the host_os, target_os, host_cpu, or
|
| -target_cpu values for every config that Chromium runs on, it only specifies
|
| -them for when the values need to be explicitly set on the command line.
|
| -
|
| -Instead, we have one config per unique combination of flags only.
|
| -
|
| -In other words, rather than having `linux_rel_bot`, `win_rel_bot`, and
|
| -`mac_rel_bot`, we just have `rel_bot`.
|
| -
|
| -This design allows us to determine easily all of the different sets
|
| -of flags that we need to support, but *not* which flags are used on which
|
| -host/target combinations.
|
| -
|
| -It may be that we should really track the latter. Doing so is just a
|
| -config file change, however.
|
| -
|
| -### Non-goals
|
| -
|
| -* MB is not intended to replace direct invocation of GN or GYP for
|
| - complicated build scenarios (aka ChromeOS), where multiple flags need
|
| - to be set to user-defined paths for specific toolchains (e.g., where
|
| - ChromeOS needs to specify specific board types and compilers).
|
| -
|
| -* MB is not intended at this time to be something developers use frequently,
|
| - or to add a lot of features to. We hope to be able to get rid of it once
|
| - the GYP->GN migration is done, and so we should not add things for
|
| - developers that can't easily be added to GN itself.
|
| -
|
| -* MB is not intended to replace the
|
| - [CR tool](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/CRUserManual). Not
|
| - only is it only intended to replace the gyp\_chromium part of `'gclient
|
| - runhooks'`, it is not really meant as a developer-facing tool.
|
|
|