The xPack `binaries` definitions

To keep packages small, binary xPacks do not include the platform specific binaries; instead they include only links to the binary archives, and checksums to validate the downloads.

Example:

{
  "name": "@xpack-dev-tools/cmake",
  "version": "3.28.6-1.1",
  "description": "A binary xPack with the CMake executables",
  "...": "...",
  "xpack": {
    "minimumXpmRequired": "0.16.3",
    "binaries": {
      "destination": "./.content",
      "baseUrl": "https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/cmake-xpack/releases/download/v3.28.6-1",
      "skip": 1,
      "platforms": {
        "darwin-arm64": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz",
          "sha256": "a2f4f7d4963a3ee41ed3ef80a6dfed1e161b0b33b519fe2c4f11f4d9d310c36e"
        },
        "darwin-x64": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz",
          "sha256": "bafce78a57bab8c82268b32c0849ab875b437b90bed9bec83aad4c82af320103"
        },
        "linux-arm": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-linux-arm.tar.gz",
          "sha256": "d73889f852b310f974e20246775eb16b272384dbf6fdc236583395af40bf7b54"
        },
        "linux-arm64": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz",
          "sha256": "c80bd91b0e2b473d57b0ff30ea6ffc28480576946d6e69b65204f9d26dadfa52"
        },
        "linux-x64": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-linux-x64.tar.gz",
          "sha256": "b05343bda081b988b2c91896133b56ce286a8269c8550d986cc2e71a243684e1"
        },
        "win32-x64": {
          "fileName": "xpack-cmake-3.28.6-1-win32-x64.zip",
          "sha256": "c1c07b1b51e0352e1fb1c9e6d87b743e975484df29f2a72c26d7385ad23fb679"
        }
      }
    },
    "bin": {
      "ccmake": "./.content/bin/ccmake",
      "cmake": "./.content/bin/cmake",
      "cpack": "./.content/bin/cpack",
      "ctest": "./.content/bin/ctest"
    }
  }
}

The platforms object define the location of platform specific archives.

The platforms names

The platform names are exactly those defined by Node.js, as process.platform and process.arch:

darwin-arm64 - macOS arm64
darwin-x64 - macOS x64
linux-arm - GNU/Linux Arm 32-bit (since 0.6.0)
linux-arm64 - GNU/Linux Arm 64-bit (since 0.6.0)
linux-x86 (deprecated)
linux-x32 (deprecated)
linux-ia32 - GNU/Linux x86 (since 0.6.0; deprecated)
linux-x64 - GNU/Linux x64
win32-x86 (deprecated)
win32-x32 (deprecated)
win32-ia32 - Windows x86 (since 0.6.0; deprecated)
win32-x64 - Windows x64

(win32 is not very inspired, but we have to live with it.)

The files are downloaded from <baseUrl>/<fileName>. The common use case is to have all files published in the same folder; in this case it is enough to define baseUrl once. However it is also possible to download files from different folders/servers, by defining it for each platform.

The archives are unpacked in the destination folder, defined as relative to the package root folder (usually ./.content).

To allow the archives to be manually expanded, the build scripts add an initial folder with the package name and version (like xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-13.3.1-1.1).

To shorten the paths, xpm can skip this folder, or any number of initial levels of folders in the archive, using the skip definition.