Building Dawn

System requirements

• Linux

  • The pkg-config command:

    # Install pkg-config on Ubuntu
    sudo apt-get install pkg-config
    

• Mac

  • Xcode 12.2+.
  • The macOS 11.0 SDK. Run xcode-select to check whether you have it.

    ls `xcode-select -p`/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs
    

Install depot_tools

Dawn uses the Chromium build system and dependency management so you need to install depot_tools and add it to the PATH.

Get the code

# Clone the repo as "dawn"
git clone https://dawn.googlesource.com/dawn dawn && cd dawn

# Bootstrap the gclient configuration
cp scripts/standalone.gclient .gclient

# Fetch external dependencies and toolchains with gclient
gclient sync

Build Dawn

Then generate build files using gn args out/Debug or gn args out/Release. A text editor will appear asking build options, the most common option is is_debug=true/false; otherwise gn args out/Release --list shows all the possible options.

On macOS you‘ll want to add the use_system_xcode=true in most cases. (and if you’re a googler please get XCode from go/xcode).

Then use ninja -C out/Release to build dawn and for example ./out/Release/dawn_end2end_tests to run the tests.