Cross compilation

[sromovskypeter]

Hello,

Is it possible to do cross-compilation with node-gyp? I want to compile native addon for linux while running node-gyp build on Windows machine.
I am able to build addon on each of the platforms, but I would like to do cross compilation.

Thank You,
Peter

[bnoordhuis]

It's not explicitly supported at the moment and there are a few places in node-gyp where it assumes that the host arch/os == the target arch/os although you can probably work around that without too much effort.

More importantly, add-ons need to be compatible with cross-compiling. Add-ons with simple binding.gyp files probably are but more complex ones need not be.

[cdaringe]

@bnoordhuis, i have a similar question. I've been toying with electron-rebuild. as you may be aware, my node version !== electron's node version, so electron-rebuild has to recompile some modules against it's version. I see the rebuild module doing something like npm rebuild --target=TARGET_VERSION --arch=ARCH_VERSION. That doesn't seem to reliably product builds to my expectation. e.g. node v0.12.7 has process.versions.modules == 14, while my electron's === 44. the above command still seems to build against 14, vs 44 like I expect.

Do you have any tips on how I can best use npm to recompile against a target version? Assume that I have the target header files already downloaded. I need to use npm vs explicit node-gyp as there may be other lifecycle hooks that must be run for a module at install.

I will gladly add to the README with pertinent docs if you can assist!

[bnoordhuis]

@cdaringe You probably need to specify --nodedir /path/to/sources, otherwise it's assumed you're targeting the same binary that is used to execute node-gyp.

[cdaringe]

@bnoordhuis, thanks, I'll check it out. I did trace my original problem to the fact that some npm lifecycle scripts were conditionally rebuilding based on process.xzy, where the process was the sys process vs. the electron node process. I updated my stuff to rebuild using electron's node by appending env: ATOM_SHELL_INTERNAL_RUN_AS_NODE. yahtzee!

[ricardoespsanto]

+1

[PaulBGD]

Has any progress been made on this? Also is changing the OS inside node-gyp enough to make it cross compile?

[tyduptyler13]

Well, I need to cross compile, so I'll be messing around with node-gyp or alternatively using raw gyp. I'll let you know how it goes.

[rlabrecque]

Any update on this @tyduptyler13 ?

[tyduptyler13]

I have yet to prove this but I am pretty sure you can pull it off if you compile node itself from the platform you are compiling on as well. The reason being, it needs the same mangling scheme as your addon. I will get around to doing this soon. I am currently moving and starting a new job so I'm a bit busy lately.

It would be nice if there is a way to create a translation layer between windows and linux compiled code so that you can still do the dynamic linking at runtime (how node calls your stuff)

[PaulBGD]

@tyduptyler13 So uh.. webassembly?

[piranna]

@tyduptyler13 So uh.. webassembly?

That's would be cool :-P