gn-dist

Binary distributions of GN (generate-ninja) for Linux (glibc and musl).

Installation

python3 -m pip install gn-dist

# convenience wrapper script
GN_WRAPPER=$(which gn)
$GN_WRAPPER --version

# actual binary
GN_EXE=$(python3 -c "from gn_dist import GN; print(str(GN))")
$GN_EXE --version

# to add the actual binary to PATH, you can do e.g.:
GN_DIR="$(dirname $GN_EXE)"  # or use GN.parent above
export PATH="$GN_DIR:$PATH"
# ^ add this to your ~/.bashrc if you want

For Windows and macOS, you'll want Google's builds from CIPD:
https://chrome-infra-packages.appspot.com/p/gn/gn

Updating

To make a new release, first update the GN_REV in build_gn.py and rebuild locally.

Then run src/gn_dist/gn --version and manually update the version field in pyproject.toml.
Also, you may want to update utils/install-static-clang.sh and the cibuildwheel pin in build_one.yaml.

Commit and push the changes. Finally, go to the Actions panel and run Build with the publish option checked.

History

See below for some background why gn-dist was created:

• https://groups.google.com/g/pdfium/c/1__HW-wzJ8c/m/5MCYXAuDBQAJ
• https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/7593779/comments/fdd2633a_eb123349

Related work

If you are looking for PyPI builds of ninja, scikit-build/ninja-python-distributions is somewhat equivalent to this project. Note though, it uses Kitware's fork of ninja, not the original version.