The xPack Build Framework

Tools to manage, configure and build complex, package based, multi-target projects.

Mission statement

In short: help developers manage dependencies.

Based on a simple multi-version dependencies 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 versioned software projects, 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 design the xPacks tools are multi-version, which means not only that packages can have multiple versions, but they can be installed in parallel, each project/configuration having its own set of dependencies, thus upgrading the system no longer impacts the project.

Note: Most of the tools are generic and do not mandate the use of a package manager; the binary xPacks are plain archives that can be extracted manually; the source xPacks can be linked to projects as Git submodules, etc; they all can be used in traditional environments too, just that it requires much more work.

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, xpack-dev-tools, micro-os-plus, xpack-3rd-party).

xPack Core Tools

The core xPack tools are:

xpm - the xPack Project Manager

Planned:

@xpack/xpbuild - the xPack Project Builder (under development)
@xpack/xpcdl - the xPack Build Configurator
@xpack/xpliquid - the xPack Liquid Template Engine
@xpack/xpjson - the xPack JSON Manager
@xpack/xpninja - the xPack Build Runner

These projects are hosted in the GitHub xpack organisation.

xPack based Development Tools

The main binary tools packed as xPacks are:

@xpack-dev-tools/gcc - the xPack GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) (C/C++/Obj-C/Obj-C++/Fortran)
@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/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/architecture-cortexm A source xPack with the µOS++ Arm Cortex-M architecture port
@micro-os-plus/architecture-riscv A source xPack with the µOS++ RISC-V architecture port
@micro-os-plus/architecture-synthetic-posix A source xPack with the µOS++ synthetic POSIX architecture port
@micro-os-plus/build-helper A source xPack to assist the µOS++ builds
@micro-os-plus/cmsis-os A source xPack with the µOS++ CMSIS RTOS compatibility layer
@micro-os-plus/devices-stm32f0-extras A source xPack with µOS++ complementary STM32F0 files
@micro-os-plus/devices-stm32f4-extras A source xPack with µOS++ complementary STM32F4 files
@micro-os-plus/diag-trace A source xPack with the µOS++ trace::printf() tracing infrastructure
@micro-os-plus/libs-c A source xPack with µOS++ complementary C library functions
@micro-os-plus/libs-cpp A source xPack with complementary C++ library functions
@micro-os-plus/libs-cpp-estd A source xPack with µOS++ embedded std:: support
@micro-os-plus/memory-allocators A source xPack with µOS++ memory allocators
@micro-os-plus/posix-io A source xPack with POSIX I/O
@micro-os-plus/rtos A source xPack with the µOS++ RTOS
@micro-os-plus/semihosting A source xPack with the portable semihosting definitions
@micro-os-plus/startup A source xPack with the µOS++ startup code for bare-metal platforms
@micro-os-plus/utils-lists A source xPack with C++ lists support for µOS++
@micro-os-plus/version A source xPack with the µOS++ version definitions

3rd Party

Packages with 3rd party content:

@xpack-3rd-party/freertos - FreeRTOS
@xpack-3rd-party/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.