GN Reference

GN Reference

This page is automatically generated from gn help --markdown all.

–args: Specifies build arguments overrides.

  See "gn help buildargs" for an overview of how build arguments work.

  Most operations take a build directory. The build arguments are taken
  from the previous build done in that directory. If a command specifies
  --args, it will override the previous arguments stored in the build
  directory, and use the specified ones.

  The args specified will be saved to the build directory for subsequent
  commands. Specifying --args="" will clear all build arguments.

Formatting

  The value of the switch is interpreted in GN syntax. For typical usage
  of string arguments, you will need to be careful about escaping of
  quotes.

Examples

  gn gen out/Default --args="foo=\"bar\""

  gn gen out/Default --args='foo="bar" enable=true blah=7'

  gn check out/Default --args=""
    Clears existing build args from the directory.

  gn desc out/Default --args="some_list=[1, false, \"foo\"]"

–[no]color: Forces colored output on or off.

  Normally GN will try to detect whether it is outputting to a terminal
  and will enable or disable color accordingly. Use of these switches
  will override the default.

Examples

  gn gen out/Default --color

  gn gen out/Default --nocolor

–dotfile: Override the name of the “.gn” file.

  Normally GN loads the ".gn"file  from the source root for some basic
  configuration (see "gn help dotfile"). This flag allows you to
  use a different file.

  Note that this interacts with "--root" in a possibly incorrect way.
  It would be nice to test the edge cases and document or fix.

–markdown: write the output in the Markdown format.

–[no]color: Forces colored output on or off.

  Normally GN will try to detect whether it is outputting to a terminal
  and will enable or disable color accordingly. Use of these switches
  will override the default.

Examples

  gn gen out/Default --color

  gn gen out/Default --nocolor

-q: Quiet mode. Don’t print output on success.

  This is useful when running as a part of another script.

–root: Explicitly specify source root.

  Normally GN will look up in the directory tree from the current
  directory to find a ".gn" file. The source root directory specifies
  the meaning of "//" beginning with paths, and the BUILD.gn file
  in that directory will be the first thing loaded.

  Specifying --root allows GN to do builds in a specific directory
  regardless of the current directory.

Examples

  gn gen //out/Default --root=/home/baracko/src

  gn desc //out/Default --root="C:\Users\BObama\My Documents\foo"

–runtime-deps-list-file: Save runtime dependencies for targets in file.

  --runtime-deps-list-file=<filename>

  Where <filename> is a text file consisting of the labels, one per
  line, of the targets for which runtime dependencies are desired.

  See "gn help runtime_deps" for a description of how runtime
  dependencies are computed.

Runtime deps output file

  For each target requested, GN will write a separate runtime dependency
  file. The runtime dependency file will be in the output directory
  alongside the output file of the target, with a ".runtime_deps"
  extension. For example, if the target "//foo:bar" is listed in the
  input file, and that target produces an output file "bar.so", GN
  will create a file "bar.so.runtime_deps" in the build directory.

  If a source set, action, copy, or group is listed, the runtime deps
  file will correspond to the .stamp file corresponding to that target.
  This is probably not useful; the use-case for this feature is
  generally executable targets.

  The runtime dependency file will list one file per line, with no
  escaping. The files will be relative to the root_build_dir. The first
  line of the file will be the main output file of the target itself
  (in the above example, "bar.so").

–time: Outputs a summary of how long everything took.

  Hopefully self-explanatory.

Examples

  gn gen out/Default --time

–tracelog: Writes a Chrome-compatible trace log to the given file.

  The trace log will show file loads, executions, scripts, and writes.
  This allows performance analysis of the generation step.

  To view the trace, open Chrome and navigate to "chrome://tracing/",
  then press "Load" and specify the file you passed to this parameter.

Examples

  gn gen out/Default --tracelog=mytrace.trace

-v: Verbose logging.

  This will spew logging events to the console for debugging issues.
  Good luck!

gn args <out_dir> [–list] [–short] [–args]

  See also "gn help buildargs" for a more high-level overview of how
  build arguments work.

Usage

  gn args <out_dir>
      Open the arguments for the given build directory in an editor
      (as specified by the EDITOR environment variable). If the given
      build directory doesn't exist, it will be created and an empty
      args file will be opened in the editor. You would type something
      like this into that file:
          enable_doom_melon=false
          os="android"

      Note: you can edit the build args manually by editing the file
      "args.gn" in the build directory and then running
      "gn gen <out_dir>".

  gn args <out_dir> --list[=<exact_arg>] [--short]
      Lists all build arguments available in the current configuration,
      or, if an exact_arg is specified for the list flag, just that one
      build argument.

      The output will list the declaration location, default value, and
      comment preceeding the declaration. If --short is specified,
      only the names and values will be printed.

      If the out_dir is specified, the build configuration will be
      taken from that build directory. The reason this is needed is that
      the definition of some arguments is dependent on the build
      configuration, so setting some values might add, remove, or change
      the default values for other arguments. Specifying your exact
      configuration allows the proper arguments to be displayed.

      Instead of specifying the out_dir, you can also use the
      command-line flag to specify the build configuration:
        --args=<exact list of args to use>

Examples

  gn args out/Debug
    Opens an editor with the args for out/Debug.

  gn args out/Debug --list --short
    Prints all arguments with their default values for the out/Debug
    build.

  gn args out/Debug --list=target_cpu
    Prints information about the "target_cpu" argument for the out/Debug
    build.

  gn args --list --args="os=\"android\" enable_doom_melon=true"
    Prints all arguments with the default values for a build with the
    given arguments set (which may affect the values of other
    arguments).

gn check <out_dir> [<label_pattern>] [–force]

  "gn check" is the same thing as "gn gen" with the "--check" flag
  except that this command does not write out any build files. It's
  intended to be an easy way to manually trigger include file checking.

  The <label_pattern> can take exact labels or patterns that match more
  than one (although not general regular expressions). If specified,
  only those matching targets will be checked. See
  "gn help label_pattern" for details.

  The .gn file may specify a list of targets to be checked. Only these
  targets will be checked if no label_pattern is specified on the
  command line. Otherwise, the command-line list is used instead. See
  "gn help dotfile".

Command-specific switches

  --force
      Ignores specifications of "check_includes = false" and checks
      all target's files that match the target label.

Examples

  gn check out/Debug
      Check everything.

  gn check out/Default //foo:bar
      Check only the files in the //foo:bar target.

  gn check out/Default "//foo/*
      Check only the files in targets in the //foo directory tree.

gn clean <out_dir>

  Deletes the contents of the output directory except for args.gn and
  creates a Ninja build environment sufficient to regenerate the build.

gn desc <out_dir> [] [–blame]

  Displays information about a given labeled target for the given build.
  The build parameters will be taken for the build in the given
  <out_dir>.

Possibilities for

  (If unspecified an overall summary will be displayed.)

  sources
      Source files.

  inputs
      Additional input dependencies.

  public
      Public header files.

  check_includes
      Whether "gn check" checks this target for include usage.

  allow_circular_includes_from
      Permit includes from these targets.

  visibility
      Prints which targets can depend on this one.

  testonly
      Whether this target may only be used in tests.

  configs
      Shows configs applied to the given target, sorted in the order
      they're specified. This includes both configs specified in the
      "configs" variable, as well as configs pushed onto this target
      via dependencies specifying "all" or "direct" dependent
      configs.

  deps
      Show immediate or recursive dependencies. See below for flags that
      control deps printing.

  public_configs
  all_dependent_configs
      Shows the labels of configs applied to targets that depend on this
      one (either directly or all of them).

  forward_dependent_configs_from
      Shows the labels of dependencies for which dependent configs will
      be pushed to targets depending on the current one.

  script
  args
  depfile
      Actions only. The script and related values.

  outputs
      Outputs for script and copy target types.

  defines       [--blame]
  include_dirs  [--blame]
  cflags        [--blame]
  cflags_cc     [--blame]
  cflags_cxx    [--blame]
  ldflags       [--blame]
  lib_dirs
  libs
      Shows the given values taken from the target and all configs
      applying. See "--blame" below.

  runtime_deps
      Compute all runtime deps for the given target. This is a
      computed list and does not correspond to any GN variable, unlike
      most other values here.

      The output is a list of file names relative to the build
      directory. See "gn help runtime_deps" for how this is computed.
      This also works with "--blame" to see the source of the
      dependency.

Shared flags

  --blame
      Used with any value specified by a config, this will name
      the config that specified the value. This doesn't currently work
      for libs and lib_dirs because those are inherited and are more
      complicated to figure out the blame (patches welcome).

Flags that control how deps are printed

  --all
      Collects all recursive dependencies and prints a sorted flat list.
      Also usable with --tree (see below).

  --as=(buildfile|label|output)
      How to print targets.

      buildfile
          Prints the build files where the given target was declared as
          file names.
      label  (default)
          Prints the label of the target.
      output
          Prints the first output file for the target relative to the
          current directory.

  --testonly=(true|false)
      Restrict outputs to targets with the testonly flag set
      accordingly. When unspecified, the target's testonly flags are
      ignored.

  --tree
      Print a dependency tree. By default, duplicates will be elided
      with "..." but when --all and -tree are used together, no
      eliding will be performed.

      The "deps", "public_deps", and "data_deps" will all be
      included in the tree.

      Tree output can not be used with the filtering or output flags:
      --as, --type, --testonly.

  --type=(action|copy|executable|group|shared_library|source_set|
          static_library)
      Restrict outputs to targets matching the given type. If
      unspecified, no filtering will be performed.

Note

  This command will show the full name of directories and source files,
  but when directories and source paths are written to the build file,
  they will be adjusted to be relative to the build directory. So the
  values for paths displayed by this command won't match (but should
  mean the same thing).

Examples

  gn desc out/Debug //base:base
      Summarizes the given target.

  gn desc out/Foo :base_unittests deps --tree
      Shows a dependency tree of the "base_unittests" project in
      the current directory.

  gn desc out/Debug //base defines --blame
      Shows defines set for the //base:base target, annotated by where
      each one was set from.

gn format [–dump-tree] [–in-place] [–stdin] BUILD.gn

  Formats .gn file to a standard format.

Arguments

  --dry-run
      Does not change or output anything, but sets the process exit code
      based on whether output would be different than what's on disk.
      This is useful for presubmit/lint-type checks.
      - Exit code 0: successful format, matches on disk.
      - Exit code 1: general failure (parse error, etc.)
      - Exit code 2: successful format, but differs from on disk.

  --dump-tree
      For debugging only, dumps the parse tree.

  --in-place
      Instead of writing the formatted file to stdout, replace the input
      file with the formatted output. If no reformatting is required,
      the input file will not be touched, and nothing printed.

  --stdin
      Read input from stdin (and write to stdout). Not compatible with
      --in-place of course.

Examples

  gn format //some/BUILD.gn
  gn format some\BUILD.gn
  gn format /abspath/some/BUILD.gn
  gn format --stdin

gn gen: Generate ninja files.

  gn gen <out_dir>

  Generates ninja files from the current tree and puts them in the given
  output directory.

  The output directory can be a source-repo-absolute path name such as:
      //out/foo
  Or it can be a directory relative to the current directory such as:
      out/foo

  See "gn help" for the common command-line switches.

gn help

  Yo dawg, I heard you like help on your help so I put help on the help
  in the help.

gn ls <out_dir> [<label_pattern>] [–all-toolchains] [–as=…]

      [--type=...] [--testonly=...]

  Lists all targets matching the given pattern for the given build
  directory. By default, only targets in the default toolchain will
  be matched unless a toolchain is explicitly supplied.

  If the label pattern is unspecified, list all targets. The label
  pattern is not a general regular expression (see
  "gn help label_pattern"). If you need more complex expressions,
  pipe the result through grep.

Options

  --as=(buildfile|label|output)
      How to print targets.

      buildfile
          Prints the build files where the given target was declared as
          file names.
      label  (default)
          Prints the label of the target.
      output
          Prints the first output file for the target relative to the
          current directory.

  --all-toolchains
      Matches all toolchains. When set, if the label pattern does not
      specify an explicit toolchain, labels from all toolchains will be
      matched. When unset, only targets in the default toolchain will
      be matched unless an explicit toolchain in the label is set.

  --testonly=(true|false)
      Restrict outputs to targets with the testonly flag set
      accordingly. When unspecified, the target's testonly flags are
      ignored.

  --type=(action|copy|executable|group|shared_library|source_set|
          static_library)
      Restrict outputs to targets matching the given type. If
      unspecified, no filtering will be performed.

Examples

  gn ls out/Debug
      Lists all targets in the default toolchain.

  gn ls out/Debug "//base/*"
      Lists all targets in the directory base and all subdirectories.

  gn ls out/Debug "//base:*"
      Lists all targets defined in //base/BUILD.gn.

  gn ls out/Debug //base --as=output
      Lists the build output file for //base:base

  gn ls out/Debug --type=executable
      Lists all executables produced by the build.

  gn ls out/Debug "//base/*" --as=output | xargs ninja -C out/Debug
      Builds all targets in //base and all subdirectories.

  gn ls out/Debug //base --all-toolchains
      Lists all variants of the target //base:base (it may be referenced
      in multiple toolchains).

gn path <out_dir> <target_one> <target_two>

  Finds paths of dependencies between two targets. Each unique path
  will be printed in one group, and groups will be separate by newlines.
  The two targets can appear in either order: paths will be found going
  in either direction.

  Each dependency will be annotated with its type. By default, only the
  first path encountered will be printed, which is not necessarily the
  shortest path.

Options

  --all
     Prints all paths found rather than just the first one.

Example

  gn path out/Default //base //tools/gn

gn refs <out_dir> (<label_pattern>|||@<response_file>)* [–all]

        [--all-toolchains] [--as=...] [--testonly=...] [--type=...]

  Finds reverse dependencies (which targets reference something). The
  input is a list containing:

   - Target label: The result will be which targets depend on it.

   - Config label: The result will be which targets list the given
     config in its "configs" or "public_configs" list.

   - Label pattern: The result will be which targets depend on any
     target matching the given pattern. Patterns will not match
     configs. These are not general regular expressions, see
     "gn help label_pattern" for details.

   - File name: The result will be which targets list the given file in
     its "inputs", "sources", "public", "data", or "outputs".
     Any input that does not contain wildcards and does not match a
     target or a config will be treated as a file.

   - Response file: If the input starts with an "@", it will be
     interpreted as a path to a file containing a list of labels or
     file names, one per line. This allows us to handle long lists
     of inputs without worrying about command line limits.

Options

  --all
      When used without --tree, will recurse and display all unique
      dependencies of the given targets. For example, if the input is
      a target, this will output all targets that depend directly or
      indirectly on the input. If the input is a file, this will output
      all targets that depend directly or indirectly on that file.

      When used with --tree, turns off eliding to show a complete tree.

  --all-toolchains
      Normally only inputs in the default toolchain will be included.
      This switch will turn on matching all toolchains.

      For example, a file is in a target might be compiled twice:
      once in the default toolchain and once in a secondary one. Without
      this flag, only the default toolchain one will be matched and
      printed (potentially with its recursive dependencies, depending on
      the other options). With this flag, both will be printed
      (potentially with both of their recursive dependencies).

  --as=(buildfile|label|output)
      How to print targets.

      buildfile
          Prints the build files where the given target was declared as
          file names.
      label  (default)
          Prints the label of the target.
      output
          Prints the first output file for the target relative to the
          current directory.

  -q
     Quiet. If nothing matches, don't print any output. Without this
     option, if there are no matches there will be an informational
     message printed which might interfere with scripts processing the
     output.

  --testonly=(true|false)
      Restrict outputs to targets with the testonly flag set
      accordingly. When unspecified, the target's testonly flags are
      ignored.

  --tree
      Outputs a reverse dependency tree from the given target.
      Duplicates will be elided. Combine with --all to see a full
      dependency tree.

      Tree output can not be used with the filtering or output flags:
      --as, --type, --testonly.

  --type=(action|copy|executable|group|shared_library|source_set|
          static_library)
      Restrict outputs to targets matching the given type. If
      unspecified, no filtering will be performed.

Examples (target input)

  gn refs out/Debug //tools/gn:gn
      Find all targets depending on the given exact target name.

  gn refs out/Debug //base:i18n --as=buildfiles | xargs gvim
      Edit all .gn files containing references to //base:i18n

  gn refs out/Debug //base --all
      List all targets depending directly or indirectly on //base:base.

  gn refs out/Debug "//base/*"
      List all targets depending directly on any target in //base or
      its subdirectories.

  gn refs out/Debug "//base:*"
      List all targets depending directly on any target in
      //base/BUILD.gn.

  gn refs out/Debug //base --tree
      Print a reverse dependency tree of //base:base

Examples (file input)

  gn refs out/Debug //base/macros.h
      Print target(s) listing //base/macros.h as a source.

  gn refs out/Debug //base/macros.h --tree
      Display a reverse dependency tree to get to the given file. This
      will show how dependencies will reference that file.

  gn refs out/Debug //base/macros.h //base/at_exit.h --all
      Display all unique targets with some dependency path to a target
      containing either of the given files as a source.

  gn refs out/Debug //base/macros.h --testonly=true --type=executable
          --all --as=output
      Display the executable file names of all test executables
      potentially affected by a change to the given file.

action: Declare a target that runs a script a single time.

  This target type allows you to run a script a single time to produce
  or more output files. If you want to run a script once for each of a
  set of input files, see "gn help action_foreach".

Inputs

  In an action the "sources" and "inputs" are treated the same:
  they're both input dependencies on script execution with no special
  handling. If you want to pass the sources to your script, you must do
  so explicitly by including them in the "args". Note also that this
  means there is no special handling of paths since GN doesn't know
  which of the args are paths and not. You will want to use
  rebase_path() to convert paths to be relative to the root_build_dir.

  You can dynamically write input dependencies (for incremental rebuilds
  if an input file changes) by writing a depfile when the script is run
  (see "gn help depfile"). This is more flexible than "inputs".

  It is recommended you put inputs to your script in the "sources"
  variable, and stuff like other Python files required to run your
  script in the "inputs" variable.

  The "deps" and "public_deps" for an action will always be
  completed before any part of the action is run so it can depend on
  the output of previous steps. The "data_deps" will be built if the
  action is built, but may not have completed before all steps of the
  action are started. This can give additional parallelism in the build
  for runtime-only dependencies.

Outputs

  You should specify files created by your script by specifying them in
  the "outputs".

  The script will be executed with the given arguments with the current
  directory being that of the root build directory. If you pass files
  to your script, see "gn help rebase_path" for how to convert
  file names to be relative to the build directory (file names in the
  sources, outputs, and inputs will be all treated as relative to the
  current build file and converted as needed automatically).

File name handling

  All output files must be inside the output directory of the build.
  You would generally use |$target_out_dir| or |$target_gen_dir| to
  reference the output or generated intermediate file directories,
  respectively.

Variables

  args, data, data_deps, depfile, deps, outputs*, script*,
  inputs, sources
  * = required

Example

  action("run_this_guy_once") {
    script = "doprocessing.py"
    sources = [ "my_configuration.txt" ]
    outputs = [ "$target_gen_dir/insightful_output.txt" ]

    # Our script imports this Python file so we want to rebuild if it
    # changes.
    inputs = [ "helper_library.py" ]

    # Note that we have to manually pass the sources to our script if
    # the script needs them as inputs.
    args = [ "--out", rebase_path(target_gen_dir, root_build_dir) ] +
           rebase_path(sources, root_build_dir)
  }

action_foreach: Declare a target that runs a script over a set of files.

  This target type allows you to run a script once-per-file over a set
  of sources. If you want to run a script once that takes many files as
  input, see "gn help action".

Inputs

  The script will be run once per file in the "sources" variable. The
  "outputs" variable should specify one or more files with a source
  expansion pattern in it (see "gn help source_expansion"). The output
  file(s) for each script invocation should be unique. Normally you
  use "{
  {source_name_part}}" in each output file.

  If your script takes additional data as input, such as a shared
  configuration file or a Python module it uses, those files should be
  listed in the "inputs" variable. These files are treated as
  dependencies of each script invocation.

  You can dynamically write input dependencies (for incremental rebuilds
  if an input file changes) by writing a depfile when the script is run
  (see "gn help depfile"). This is more flexible than "inputs".

  The "deps" and "public_deps" for an action will always be
  completed before any part of the action is run so it can depend on
  the output of previous steps. The "data_deps" will be built if the
  action is built, but may not have completed before all steps of the
  action are started. This can give additional parallelism in the build
  for runtime-only dependencies.

Outputs

  The script will be executed with the given arguments with the current
  directory being that of the root build directory. If you pass files
  to your script, see "gn help rebase_path" for how to convert
  file names to be relative to the build directory (file names in the
  sources, outputs, and inputs will be all treated as relative to the
  current build file and converted as needed automatically).

File name handling

  All output files must be inside the output directory of the build.
  You would generally use |$target_out_dir| or |$target_gen_dir| to
  reference the output or generated intermediate file directories,
  respectively.

Variables

  args, data, data_deps, depfile, deps, outputs*, script*,
  inputs, sources*
  * = required

Example

  # Runs the script over each IDL file. The IDL script will generate
  # both a .cc and a .h file for each input.
  action_foreach("my_idl") {
    script = "idl_processor.py"
    sources = [ "foo.idl", "bar.idl" ]

    # Our script reads this file each time, so we need to list is as a
    # dependency so we can rebuild if it changes.
    inputs = [ "my_configuration.txt" ]

    # Transformation from source file name to output file names.
    outputs = [ "$target_gen_dir/{
  {source_name_part}}.h",
                "$target_gen_dir/{
  {source_name_part}}.cc" ]

    # Note that since "args" is opaque to GN, if you specify paths
    # here, you will need to convert it to be relative to the build
    # directory using "rebase_path()".
    args = [
      "{
  {source}}",
      "-o",
      rebase_path(relative_target_gen_dir, root_build_dir) +
        "/{
  {source_name_part}}.h" ]
  }

assert: Assert an expression is true at generation time.

  assert(<condition> [, <error string>])

  If the condition is false, the build will fail with an error. If the
  optional second argument is provided, that string will be printed
  with the error message.

Examples:

  assert(is_win)
  assert(defined(sources), "Sources must be defined")

config: Defines a configuration object.

  Configuration objects can be applied to targets and specify sets of
  compiler flags, includes, defines, etc. They provide a way to
  conveniently group sets of this configuration information.

  A config is referenced by its label just like a target.

  The values in a config are additive only. If you want to remove a flag
  you need to remove the corresponding config that sets it. The final
  set of flags, defines, etc. for a target is generated in this order:

   1. The values specified directly on the target (rather than using a
      config.
   2. The configs specified in the target's "configs" list, in order.
   3. Public_configs from a breadth-first traversal of the dependency
      tree in the order that the targets appear in "deps".
   4. All dependent conf