This directory contains all third-party dependencies of TheDarkMod, both the game and the updater. There are some rare exceptions when library is embedded and tightly integrated directly into the engine, but this way is generally avoided.
The dependecies are fetched and built using conan package manager. Note that the code directly uses the artefacts (headers and libs) without interacting with conan in any way. Conan only helps us to prepare these artefacts.
Here are the contents of this directory:
conanfile.py--- the main file, listing all libraries, options, and import rulescustom/*--- custom conan recipes for some libraries (in case stock recipe is not available or does not suit)profiles/*--- conan settings for building artefacts for supported platformsartefacts/*--- the resulting files (headers and libs) used by TDM projects
All third-party binaries must be inside artefacts directory!
Developers using DVCS for local changes should add the whole artefacts directory to their ignore filter.
By following these steps you should be able to rebuild all the third-party dependencies available.
You might want to delete the whole artefacts directory beforehand, to ensure a full rebuild.
First of all, make sure that you have latest Python 3 installed, e.g. from download page.
Next, install conan if not yet installed. Detailed instructions are provided here, the easiest way is via pip:
pip install conan
You might want to read some "Getting Started" conan docs to get brief understanding of what it is and how it works.
Conan builds packages inside a local cache, which by default is located somewhere in %USERPROFILE%/.conan and is in fact system-global.
In order to make the cache truly local, you can set environment variable in the shell you are going to use:
# set the path to a custom directory
set CONAN_USER_HOME=C:\tdm_conan
Note that if you do so, you should ensure that this environment variable takes effect for all the conan commands you run later. Detailed explanation is available here.
You can omit this step, then system-wide cache will be used for building libraries.
Recipes for most libraries are taken directly from central conan repository (i.e. "conan-center").
Some libraries need special handling for TDM, so we manage recipes for them ourselves. They are located in custom directory.
Before actually building the libs, it is necessary to copy these recipes into conan's "local cache". The easiest way to do that is to run the small helper script:
python 1_export_custom.py
It performs conan export custom/{libraryname} {libraryname}/{version}@thedarkmod/local for every library, which adds the corresponding recipe to local cache.
Now you are ready to download and build all the libraries.
You might want to delete the artefacts directory to surely get fresh libs.
If you want to build all artefacts and commit them to svn, it is recommended to run the helper script:
python 2_build_all.py
The script runs conan install, but with some specific parameters, including specific profiles.
Then build all libraries on Linux using GCC.
If you have GCC of version different from 5, you need to edit profiles/linuxXX and change compiler.version.
Given that produced artefacts may differ slightly on different machines (no two .lib-s are exactly equal), please commit new artefacts only for the libraries which you have actually changed, don't commit changes in libraries which you did not touch.
The SVN repo contains artefacts only for the main supported platforms, i.e. MSVC+Windows and GCC+Linux on x86/x64. If you want to build TDM for custom CPU architecture, custom OS, or with some custom settings, then you have to do custom steps.
First of all, find codename of your CPU architecture in .conan/settings.yml.
If it is not present there, then decide on a codename and add it to the following arrays in yml: arch_target, arch_build, arch.
For instance, for Elbrus-8C I added e2kv4 as architecture codename.
Same applies to your OS and compiler: if conan does not know it out of the box, then you have to add it to settings.yml somehow.
Before build, you need to import custom recipes via 1_export_custom.py, as described above.
In order to build dependencies, run conan install with additional arguments:
conan install . --build -s arch=e2kv4 -o platform_name=myelbrus
The additional setting arch=e2kv4 says: build for e2kv4 architecture (not necessary if conan supports your architecture out-of-the-box).
The additional option platform_name=myelbrus says: put resulting binaries into artefacts/{packagename}/lib/myelbrus subdirectories.
When building TDM, you have to pass the chosen value of platform_name as THIRDPARTY_PLATFORM_OVERRIDE option to CMake generate step:
cmake -B build/linux64 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DTHIRDPARTY_PLATFORM_OVERRIDE=myelbrus
Without this argument, CMake won't know where to get proper artefacts, and will most likely fail with linking error.
By default conan uses only one very official and stable remote: "conan-center". Now that you have remotes, you can search for recipes of a library like this:
conan search {libraryname} -r all
It might be useful to add asterisk at the beginning and at the ending of the library name.
If you manage to find the library, then choose one of the printed references and add it to the list in packages.yaml.
After that you can do usual build and your library will get downloaded and built.
If you fail to find ready-to-use conan recipe, then you have to add a custom one.
Note that going the custom recipe route most likely needs good conan skills from you!
You might want to search it on github with codenames conan and library name.
If you find someone else's recipe, you can add it to custom and it will probably work.
Also you can find some recipes in "bincrafters" remote, but you have to add this remote first.
Sometimes there is a recipe for a library, but it needs fine-tuning in order to be used in TDM.
In such case you should download the recipe, add it to custom too, and edit there.
Make sure to clearly mark all your changes to the recipe, or/and save its original version nearby.
Otherwise you have to create recipe yourself, or ask someone else to do it on forums.
As the last resort option (i.e. no time to waste or nobody agrees to write it), you can build the library manually and add artefacts to artefacts directory.
Make sure to adhere to existing directory structure and naming conventions.
Look into packages.yaml and find the library reference there.
Now do conan search for a newer version of the library.
If you find one, change the reference in conanfile.py and rebuild.
Otherwise, you are out of luck.
If you want to update a library with custom recipe, it gets more complicated.
In many cases you can apply an existing recipe to the newer version: just add source code URL and sha256 checksum for the new version in conandata.yml.
If this is custom-modified recipe, then you can fetch a newer recipe from central repository and try to reapply the same TDM-specified hacks to it.