Quick Start

Installation

NOTE

Xmake is not recommended for root installation, because this is very insecure. If you must install as root and Xmake fails to run, please pass the --root parameter as prompted or set XMAKE_ROOT=y. The environment variable is forcibly enabled, but please be aware of the risk of operating system file errors under root.

curl

curl -fsSL https://xmake.io/shget.text | bash

wget

wget https://xmake.io/shget.text -O - | bash

powershell

Invoke-Expression (Invoke-Webrequest 'https://xmake.io/psget.text' -UseBasicParsing).Content

If you want to install a specific version or branch, you can append the version number or branch parameter at the end

curl -fsSL https://xmake.io/shget.text | bash -s dev
curl -fsSL https://xmake.io/shget.text | bash -s v2.7.7
Invoke-Expression (Invoke-Webrequest 'https://xmake.io/psget.text' -UseBasicParsing).Content v2.7.7

NOTE

If the ps script execution prompt fails, you can try to execute it in administrator mode.

Windows

1. Download the Xmake windows installer from Releases
2. Run xmake-[version].[win32|win64].exe

NOTE

Releases/xmake-[version].[win32|win64].zip does not have an installer. We need to unzip it and add the PATH environment variable ourselves.

In addition, the installation package with xmake-tinyc-xxx.exe integrates the tinyc compiler environment and comes with libc and winapi header files. By installing this package, you can compile C programs without MSVC. This is very useful for users who want to write some C tests or algorithm code temporarily, but don't want to install MSVC. However, the installation package will be slightly larger (by 2-3MB).

scoop

scoop install xmake

winget

winget install xmake

Msys/Mingw

mingw64

pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-xmake

mingw32

pacman -Sy mingw-w64-i686-xmake

MacOS

brew install xmake

Linux distributions

Archlinux

sudo pacman -Sy xmake

Alpine

sudo apk add xmake

ubuntu

sudo apt install xmake

debian

sudo apt install xmake

fedora

sudo dnf install xmake

Ubuntu PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xmake-io/xmake
sudo apt update
sudo apt install xmake

Gentoo

1. Refer to here to add GURU to your system repository
2. Install dev-util/xmake

sudo emerge -a --autounmask dev-util/xmake

Other Linux

Download xmake xmake-x.x.x.gz.run install package from Releases

sudo chmod 777 ./xmake-x.x.x.gz.run
./xmake-x.x.x.gz.run

FreeBSD

Due to package name conflicts, only xmake-io can be used as the package name.

pkg install xmake-io

Termux (Android)

pkg install xmake

Bundle package

If you don't want to install, we also provide another Bundle packaging format, which does not require user installation, a single executable file, can be run and used after downloading, and is easy to distribute.

It will build all Lua scripts into the Xmake executable file, without the need for additional installation and configuration of any environment variables.

We can get them from Releases, and there are currently some Bundle packages as follows.

xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.arm64.exe
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.cosmocc
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.linux.x86_64
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.macos.arm64
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.macos.x86_64
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.win32.exe
xmake-bundle-v2.9.8.win64.exe

Among them, the package with the .cosmocc suffix provides the ability to run across platforms, but support for Windows is still relatively weak, so it is not recommended to use it on Windows.

The others are single executable files for specific platforms, and users can download and use them as needed according to their own systems.

Source compilation and installation

Download source code

git clone --recursive https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake.git
cd ./xmake

If you think the source from GitHub is too slow, you can clone it from the mirror source on Gitee or GitLab:

git clone --recursive https://gitee.com/tboox/xmake.git
git clone --recursive https://gitlab.com/tboox/xmake.git

NOTE

Since the current Xmake source maintains dependencies via git submodule, it is necessary to add the --recursive parameter to pull all submodules at the same time. Please do not download the tar.gz source directly, because GitHub does not automatically package submodules.

If you forget to add --recursive when cloning, you can also execute git submodule update --init to pull all submodules, for example:

git submodule update --init

Build and install

Linux

./configure
make -j4
./scripts/get.sh __local__ __install_only__
source ~/.xmake/profile

windows

cd ./core
xmake

NOTE

./get.sh __local__ is installed to ~/.local/xmake, and then loaded by source ~/.xmake/profile. So after installation, if the current terminal fails to execute Xmake, and the prompt says it is not found, manually execute source ~/.xmake/profile. The next time you open the terminal, you won't need to do this again.

If you encounter problems with readline, please install the readline-devel or libreadline-dev dependencies. This is optional and only needed when the xmake lua command executes REPL.

Update and Upgrade

Starting with v2.2.3, the xmake update command was added to quickly update and upgrade itself. By default, it upgrades to the latest version. Of course, you can also specify a version to upgrade or roll back to:

xmake update 2.7.1

You can also specify an update to the master/dev branch version:

xmake update master
xmake update dev

Update from a specified git source

xmake update github:xmake-io/xmake#master
xmake update gitee:tboox/xmake#dev # gitee mirror

If you just want to update the xmake lua script changes, you can add -s/--scriptonly to quickly update the lua script.

xmake update -s dev

Finally, if you want to uninstall Xmake, we're sorry to see you go! Still, it is supported: xmake update --uninstall.

Create Project

$ xmake create hello

And xmake will generate some files for a C++ language project:

hello
├── src
│   └─main.cpp
└── xmake.lua

It is a simple console program that only prints hello xmake!

The content of xmake.lua is very simple:

xmake.lua

add_rules("mode.debug", "mode.release")

target("hello")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.cpp")

Build Project

$ cd hello
$ xmake

Run Program

$ xmake run

Debug Program

To debug the hello program, you need to change to debug mode and build it.

$ xmake config -m debug
$ xmake

Then run the following command to debug the target program.

$ xmake run -d hello

It will start the debugger (e.g. lldb, gdb, windbg, vsjitdebugger, ollydbg, etc.) to load your program.

[lldb]$target create "build/hello"
Current executable set to 'build/hello' (x86_64).
[lldb]$b main
Breakpoint 1: where = hello`main, address = 0x0000000100000f50
[lldb]$r
Process 7509 launched: '/private/tmp/hello/build/hello' (x86_64)
Process 7509 stopped
* thread #1: tid = 0x435a2, 0x0000000100000f50 hello`main, queue = 'com.apple.main-thread', stop reason = breakpoint 1.1
    frame #0: 0x0000000100000f50 hello`main
hello`main:
->  0x100000f50 <+0>:  pushq  %rbp
    0x100000f51 <+1>:  movq   %rsp, %rbp
    0x100000f54 <+4>:  leaq   0x2b(%rip), %rdi          ; "hello world!"
    0x100000f5b <+11>: callq  0x100000f64               ; symbol stub for: puts
[lldb]$

To study more debug commands, please see the GDB to LLDB command map

If you want to use a specific debugger, try

$ xmake f --debugger=gdb
$ xmake run -d hello

What's Next?

Continue with the guide: Create Project Check out the examples: Examples Check out the API reference: API Reference