Mission statement
In short: help developers manage dependencies.
Based on a simple multi-version manager (built on top of npm), the xPack project aims to provide a set of cross-platform tools to manage, configure and build complex, modular, multi-target (multi-architecture, multi-board, multi-toolchain) projects, with an emphasis on C/C++ and bare-metal embedded projects.
The expected benefits are more efficient code sharing and reusing during the life cycle of libraries and applications.
xPacks overview
Did you ever face the situation when building a perfectly fine and functional project suddenly failed after upgrading the system? In other words, were you hit by the dependencies hell? If so, xPacks may help you.
xPacks are general purpose multi-version software packages, built on top of the highly successful npm packages in the Node.js JavaScript ecosystem. xPacks do not introduce a new package format, but use exactly the same format as npm packages, and can be stored in the same repositories.
By multi-version it is understood not only that packages can have multiple versions, but they can be installed in parallel, each project having its own set of dependencies, thus upgrading the system no longer impacts the project.
Except the package manager, most of the othr tools are generic and do not mandate the use of xPack packages, and can be used in traditional environments (although some of them may benefit when used in an xPack environment).
Although the focus is on C/C++, most of the tools are language agnostic and can be used with other programming languages as well.
Based on the installed content, there are currently two types of xPacks: source and binary:
- source xPacks are packages that install source files, generally libraries used by the project
- binary xPacks are packages that install binary/executable files, generally tools used during the build process, like toolchains, builders, etc.
For more details, read the xPack 101 page.
The entire xPack project is split amongst several groups, published as separated GitHub organisations.
xPack Core Tools
The core xPack tools are:
xpm- the xPack Package Manager@xpack/xpbuild- the xPack Basic Project Builder@xpack/xpninja- the xPack Build Runner (in design phase)@xpack/xpmake- the xPack Build Generator (in design phase)@xpack/xpcdl- the xPack Build Configurator (in design phase)@xpack/xpliquid- the xPack Liquid Template Engine (in design phase)@xpack/xpjson- the xPack JSON Manager (in design phase)
These projects are hosted in the GitHub
xpack organisation.
xPack based Development Tools
The main binary tools packed as xPacks are:
@xpack-dev-tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc- the xPack Arm Embedded GCC toolchain@xpack-dev-tools/openocd- the xPack OpenOCD@xpack-dev-tools/qemu-arm- the xPack QEMU Arm Cortex-M@xpack-dev-tools/riscv-none-embed-gcc- the xPack RISC-V Embedded GCC toolchain@xpack-dev-tools/windows-build-tools- the xPack Windows Build Tools@xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build- the xPack Ninja Build@xpack-dev-tools/cmake- the xPack CMake@xpack-dev-tools/meson-build- the xPack Meson Build
Under development:
@xpack-dev-tools/gcc- the xPack GNU GCC
Planned:
@xpack-dev-tools/gdb- the xPack GNU GDB@xpack-dev-tools/binutils- the xPack GNU binutils@xpack-dev-tools/coreutils- the xPack GNU coreutils@xpack-dev-tools/make- the xPack make
These projects are hosted in the GitHub
xpack-dev-tools group
(organization in GitHub parlance).
Source xPacks
µOS++
Packages part of the µOS++ framework:
@micro-os-plus/startup- µOS++ Startup@micro-os-plus/semihosting- µOS++ Semihosting@micro-os-plus/diag-trace- µOS++ Tracing@micro-os-plus/c-libs- µOS++ C library@micro-os-plus/cpp-libs- µOS++ C++ library
3rd Party
Packages with 3rd party content (mind the plural in the scope name):
@xpacks/freertos- FreeRTOS@xpacks/chan-fatfs- Chan-FatFS
xPack Build Box (XBB)
Scripts to create the development environments used to build the archives used by the binary xPacks.
The development environments are based on:
- Ubuntu 12 Docker images, used to build the Intel GNU/Linux and Windows distributions
- Ubuntu 16 Docker images, used to build the Arm GNU/Linux distributions
- macOS 10.10 tools, used to build the macOS Intel distributions
These scripts are hosted in the Github
xpack/xpack-build-box project.
Notifications
To stay up-to-date with new binary tools releases, the recommended way is to follow @xpack_project on Twitter.
Alternatively you can subscribe to this site RSS feed https://xpack.github.io/feed.xml.
To stay current with changes to individual projects, enable watching in the GitHub web interface for each project of interest.
License
Unless otherwise mentioned, all xPack tools with original content are provided free of charge under the terms of the MIT License.
Let us know if you enjoyed using this project!
If you enjoyed using this project, please let us know; here are some advices:
- the best way to praise us would be to donate; if you want to speed up development and help future versions include more and more great features, please consider donating; any contribution, small or generous, will be highly appreciated;
- star the projects you liked on GitHub (xPack or xPack Dev Tools);
- follow the project on Twitter, to get notifications on new releases.