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MacroLibX

xmake build

To build on Windows (if you don’t use WSL), the MacroLibX uses xmake, a build system which will download and compile all dependencies it won’t find on your computer.

💾 Install xmake

You can find how to install it on your system here. Note that you can also download a portable version of xmake if you wish not to install it.

⚙️ Configure the MacroLibX build

Just as the Makfile build system, you can configure how xmake should build the MacroLibX. The base command to configure it is xmake config [opts...] or xmake f [opts...].

Compile mode

You can configure xmake to build the mlx in debug mode or in release mode (release mode is enabled by default). To do so you can use xmake config --mode=debug or xmake config --mode=release.

Set the toolchain

To change the compilation toolchain you can use xmake config --toolchain=[gcc|clang|...]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Image optimisations ⚠️⚠️⚠️

If you run into glitches when writing or reading pixels from images you can turn off images optimisations by using xmake config --images_optimized=n.

You can force the mlx to use your integrated GPU using xmake config --force_integrated_gpu=y. Note that there are a lot of chances that your application crashes by using that.

Dump the graphics memory

The mlx can dump it’s graphics memory use to json files every two seconds by enabling this option xmake config --graphics_memory_dump=y.

A possible build configuration

As a configuration example here’s how the command can look like xmake config --mode=debug --toolchain=clang --graphics_memory_dump=y --images_optimized=n

🚧 Build the lib

Compile using command-line (first method)

Once you’re ready to compile the lib, run xmake (or xmake -jX if you wish not to use all your computer threads, with X being the number of threads you wish to use) and watch as the lib compiles.

Generate a project (second method)

xmake can also generate a project file for another tool:

  • Visual Studio : xmake project -k vs
  • CMakeLists.txt (which you can open in CLion and more) : xmake project -k cmake
  • Makefile : xmake project -k make
  • Ninja : xmake project -k ninja
  • XCode : xmake project -k xcode

You should now be able to open the project file with the tool of your choice.

😋 Enjoy

Enjoy you project built with the mlx

drawing