kdesrc-build User's Manual
kdesrc-build
Downloads, builds and installs software.
kdesrc-build OPTIONS Module name | Module set name

DESCRIPTION
The kdesrc-build command is used in order to download and build software directly from its source Git repositories. It interfaces with the project database, and supports controlling which options are passed to make(1) and cmake(1). The operation of kdesrc-build is driven by a configuration file, typically ~/.config/kdesrc-buildrc ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kdesrc-buildrc, if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set).
The module name or module set name as given on the command line should be as those names were defined in the configuration file (either in a module definition or use-modules declaration, or in a module-set definition). In addition, it can be the name of a module listed in the project database (and you can precede the module name with + to force this).
kdesrc-build is designed to be able to be completely headless (however, see ENVIRONMENT), and so typically ignores its input completely. Command output is logged instead of being shown on the kdesrc-build output.
Modules are built one after the other. If a module fails to update then it is not built. kdesrc-build will not abort just because of a module failure, instead it will keep trying to update and build subsequent modules. By default, kdesrc-build will commence building a module as soon as the source code update is complete for that module, even if other updates are occurring concurrently.
At the end kdesrc-build will show which modules failed to build, and where the logs were kept for that build run.

OPTIONS
NOTE: Some options have short forms, but the kdesrc-build option parser does not support combining short options into one at this point. (E.g. running kdesrc-build -pv would not be the same as kdesrc-build --pretend --verbose).
-h, --help 	 Shows a brief synopsis and frequently-used command line options.
--show-info 	 Shows information about kdesrc-build and the operating system which may be useful in bug reports or when requesting help on forums or mailing lists.
--initial-setup 	 Performs one-time setup for users running kdesrc-build on common distributions. This includes installation of known system dependencies, a default configuration file setup, and changes to your ~/.bashrc to make the software installed by kdesrc-build accessible. This is exactly equivalent to using "--install-distro-packages --generate-config" at the same time. In kdesrc-build (perl implementation) it additionally uses "--install-distro-packages-perl".
--install-distro-packages 	 Installs distro packages (on supported distributions) necessary to prepare the system for kdesrc-build to operate, and for the newly-installed software to run.
--generate-config 	 Generate the kdesrc-build configuration file.
-p, --pretend 	 Operate in a "dry run" mode. No network accesses are made, no log files are created, no modules are built, and no other permanent changes to disk are made. One important exception is that if you try to build a module that comes from the project database, and the database hasn't been downloaded yet, the database will be downloaded since the pretend-mode output may change significantly based on the database results.
--install-only 	 Skips the update and build phase and immediately attempts to install the modules given.
--uninstall 	 Skips the update and build phase and immediately attempts to uninstall the modules given. NOTE: This is only supported for buildsystems that supports the make uninstall command (e.g. CMake-based).
-S, --no-src 	 Skips the source update phase. Other phases are included as normal.
-M, --no-metadata 	 Skips the metadata update phase for KDE modules. Other phases (including the source update phase) are included as normal. If you wish to avoid all network updates you should also pass --no-src.
This option can be useful if you are frequently running kdesrc-build since the metadata itself does not change very often.
--no-install 	 Skips the install phase from the build. Other phases are included as normal.
--no-build 	 Skips the build phase for the build. Internally the install phase depends on the build phase completing so this is effectively equivalent to --src-only, but the semantics may change in the future (e.g. when test suites are moved into their own phase).
--no-tests 	 Disables running the test suite for CMake-based modules. To be fully effective this requires re-running CMake, which can be forced by using the --reconfigure or --refresh-build options.
-s, --src-only 	 Only performs the source update phase, does not build or install.
--build-only 	 Forces the build process to be performed without updating source code first. In addition, installation is not performed. (Testing is still performed if applicable, but this will change in a future release)
--metadata-only 	 Only updates the build metadata needed for KDE modules, then exits. This is useful to allow the --pretend option to work if you've never run kdesrc-build. See also --no-metadata.
-r, --refresh-build 	 Removes the build directory for a module before the build phase starts. This has the desired side effect of forcing kdesrc-build to re-configure the module and build it from a "pristine" state with no existing temporary or intermediate output files. Use this option if you have problems getting a module to build but realize it will take longer (possibly much longer) for the build to complete as a result. When in doubt use this option for the entire kdesrc-build run.
--reconfigure 	 Force CMake to be re-run, but without deleting the build directory. Usually you actually want --refresh-build, but if you are 100% sure your change to cmake-options will not invalidate your current intermediate output then this can save some time.
--build-system-only 	 Interrupts the build process for each module built: The build process consists of normal setup up to and including running cmake or configure (as appropriate), but make is not run and no installation is attempted. This is mostly only useful to get things like configure --help and cmake-gui to work. Normally you want --reconfigure or --refresh-build.
--resume-from=foo, --from=foo, -f foo, 	 Use this option to skip module processing until the module foo is encountered. foo and all subsequent modules will be processed normally as if they had been specified on the command line. If you use this option because of a build failure you may want to consider using --no-src in addition to skip the resultant source update phase.
--resume-after=foo, --after=foo, -a foo 	 This is just like --resume-from, except that the module foo is not included in the list of modules to consider. You might use this if you've manually built/installed foo after fixing the build and just want to resume from there.
--resume 	 This option can be used to run kdesrc-build after it has had a build failure.
It resumes the build from the module that failed, using the list of modules that were waiting to be built before, and disables source and metadata updates as well. The use case is when a simple mistake or missing dependency causes the build failure. Once you correct the error you can quickly get back into building the modules you were building before, without fiddling with --resume-from and --stop-before.
--stop-before=foo, --until=foo 	 This is similar to the --resume-from flag. This option causes the module list for the given build to be truncated just before foo would normally have been built. foo is not built (but see --stop-after).
This flag may be used with --resume-from or --resume-after.
--stop-after=foo, --to=foo 	 This is just like --stop-before, except that the given module is included in the build.
This flag may be used with --resume-from or --resume-after.
-d, --include-dependencies 	 This causes kdesrc-build to include not only the modules it would normally build (either because they were specified on the command line, or mentioned in the configuration file), but also to include known dependencies of those modules in the build. This is normally the default; you can use --no-include-dependencies to disable this effect.
Dependencies are known to kdesrc-build based on the contents of the special kde-build-metadata git repository, which is managed for you by the script (see also the --metadata-only option). The KDE community keeps the dependency information in that module up to date, so if kdesrc-build appears to show the wrong dependencies then it may be due to missing or incorrect dependency information.
All known dependencies will be included, which may be more than you need. Consider using the --resume-from option (and similar options) to control the build list when using this option.
-D, --no-include-dependencies 	 This is the negation of --include-dependencies, for use if you have configured dependencies to be included by default.
--rebuild-failures 	 Use this option to build only those modules which failed to build on a previous kdesrc-build run. This is useful if a significant number of failures occurred mixed with successful builds. After fixing the issue causing the build failures you can then easily build only the modules that failed previously.
Note that the list of previously-failed modules is reset every time a kdesrc-build run finishes with some module failures. However it is not reset by a completely successful build, so you can successfully rebuild a module or two and this flag will still work.
This option was added for kdesrc-build 15.09.
--stop-on-failure, --no-stop-on-failure 	 This option causes the build to abort as soon as a failure occurs. This is the default. With negative flag, kdesrc-build will try to press on with the rest of the modules in the build to avoid wasting time in case the problem is with a single module.
-!, --ignore-modules 	 Forces ALL modules that follow this option to be excluded from consideration by kdesrc-build. This might be useful if you know you want to process all modules except for specific exceptions.
--rc-file=foo 	 Use the given file, foo, for the configuration instead of ./kdesrc-buildrc or ~/.config/kdesrc-buildrc. The file can be empty, but it must exist.
--nice=foo 	 Changes the CPU priority given to kdesrc-build (and all processes used by kdesrc-build e.g. make(1)). foo should be an integer number between -20 and 19. Positive values are "nicer" to the rest of the system (i.e. lower priority).
Note that the possible priorities available on your system may be different than listed here, see nice(2) for more information. Note also that this only changes CPU priority, often you want to change I/O priority on systems where that is supported. There is no command-line option for I/O priority adjustment, but there is a configuration file option: use-idle-io-priority (although like all options, there is a generic way to set this from the command line).
--run=foo 	 Runs the program named by foo using prefix.sh environment variables. All command line arguments present after this option are passed to foo as it is run.
--query=mode 	 This command causes kdesrc-build to query a parameter of the modules in the build list (either passed on the command line or read in from the configuration file), outputting the result to screen (one module per line).
This option must be provided with a query mode, which should be one of the following:
source-dir, which causes kdesrc-build to output the full path to where the module's source code is stored.
build-dir, which causes kdesrc-build to output the full path to where the module build process occurs.
install-dir, which causes kdesrc-build to output the full path to where the module will be installed.
project-path, which causes kdesrc-build to output the location of the module within the hierarchy of KDE source code repositories.
branch, which causes kdesrc-build to output the resolved git branch that will be used for each module, based on the tag, branch and branch-group settings in effect.
module-set, which causes kdesrc-build to output the name of module-set which contains the module. This can be used to generate zsh autocompletion cache.
build-system, which causes kdesrc-build to output the name of build system detected for the module. This can be used to debug build system auto-detection problems, or when developing tests for specific build systems.
Otherwise, option names that are valid for modules in the configuration file can be used, the resolved value of which will be listed for each module.
This option was added with kdesrc-build 16.05.
For example, the command kdesrc-build --query branch kactivities kdepim might end up with output like:

kactivities: master
kdepim: master

--dependency-tree 	 Takes all actions up to and including dependency reordering of the modules specified on the command line (or configuration file), and prints dependency information for each selected module in a (recursive) tree output format. Generated information includes which specific commit/branch/tag is depended on, as well as whether the module would be built. Note that the output can become quite large for applications with many dependencies or when many modules are (implicitly) selected.
The kde-project metadata is downloaded first (though, see --pretend or --no-src).
The output is not fully compatible with usage by scripts as other output messages may be generated until the module list is shown.
--color 	 Enables "colorful output". (Enabled by default).
--no-color 	 Disables "colorful output". This can be made permanent by setting the colorful-output option to false (or 0) in your configuration file.
--async 	 Have kdesrc-build start the build process for a module as soon as the source code has finished downloading. Without this option kdesrc-build performs all source updates at once and only then starts with the build process. This option is enabled by default.
--no-async 	 Disables asynchronous building of modules. See --async for a more detailed description. Note that kdesrc-build's output will be slightly different in this mode.
--verbose 	 Increases the level of verbosity of kdesrc-build output (which is already fairly verbose!)
-q, --quiet 	 Makes kdesrc-build less noisy. Only important messages are shown.
--really-quiet 	 Makes kdesrc-build even less noisy. Only warnings/errors are shown.
--debug 	 This will fill your terminal with descriptions and debugging output, usually unintelligible, describing what kdesrc-build is doing (and thinks it should be doing). The flag is included since the output may sometimes prove useful for debugging.
--force-build 	 Normally when kdesrc-build notices that there is no source update on a module which was previously successfully installed, it does not attempt to build or install that module. You can pass this flag to disable that behavior and always run make.
--delete-my-patches 	 This option must be passed to allow kdesrc-build to remove conflicting source directories. Currently even this only happens when trying to clone a git-based module if an existing source directory is present. Never specify this option unless it is suggested by kdesrc-build, and only if you don't mind the source directories that are referenced being deleted and re-cloned.
--foo=bar 	 Any option not listed above is checked to see if it matches the list of possible configuration file options. If so, the configuration file option foo is temporarily set to bar for the duration of this run.
--set-module-option-value=module,foo,bar 	 Like above, but option foo is only set to bar for the module module. This does not work for module sets yet, you must repeat this for each module you want to be affected. (Of course, you could simply edit your configuration file...) This option worked slightly differently prior to version 1.16.

EXIT STATUS
0 	 Success
1 	 Normally this means some part of the update, build or install process failed, but is also used for any abnormal program end not otherwise covered below.
5 	 A signal was received that killed kdesrc-build, but it attempted to perform normal closedown.
8 	 Unknown option was passed on the command line.
99 	 An exception was raised that forced kdesrc-build to abort early.

ENVIRONMENT
HOME 	 Used for tilde-expansion of file names, and is the default base for the source, build, and installation directories.
PATH 	 This environment variable controls the default search path for executables. You can use the binpath configuration file option to add to this variable (e.g. for running from cron(8)).
LC_* 	 Environment variables starting with LC_ control the locale used by kdesrc-build. Although kdesrc-build is still not localizable at this point, many of the commands it uses are. kdesrc-build normally sets LC_ALL=C for commands that its must examine the output of but you can manually do this as well. If setting LC_ALL=C fixes a kdesrc-build problem please submit a bug report.
SSH_AGENT_PID 	 This environment variable is checked to see if ssh-agent(1) is running, but only if kdesrc-build determines that you are checking out a module that requires an SSH login (but you should know this as no module requires this by default).
KDESRC_BUILD_USE_TTY 	 If set, this variable forces kdesrc-build not to close its input while executing system processes. Normally kdesrc-build closes stdin since the stdout and stderr for its child processes are redirected and therefore the user would never see an input prompt anyways.
KDESRC_BUILD_DUMP_CONTEXT 	 If set, this variable prints out a description of its "build context" just after reading options and command line arguments and determining which modules to build. You pretty much never want to set this.
others 	 Many programs are used by kdesrc-build in the course of its execution, including git(1), make(1), and cmake(1). Each of these programs may have their own response to environment variables being set. kdesrc-build will pass environment variables that are set when it is run onto these processes. You can ensure certain environment variables (e.g. CC or CXX) are set by using the set-env configuration file option.

SIGNALS
kdesrc-build supports SIGHUP, which if received will cause kdesrc-build to exit after the current modules for the build thread (and update thread, if still active) have completed.

FILES
~/.config/kdesrc-buildrc ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kdesrc-buildrc, if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set) - Default global configuration file.
kdesrc-buildrc - If this file is found in the current directory when kdesrc-build is run, this file will be used for the configuration instead of ~/.config/kdesrc-buildrc.
~/.local/state/kdesrc-build-data ($XDG_STATE_DIR/kdesrc-buildrc, if $XDG_STATE_DIR is set) - kdesrc-build uses this file to store persistent data (such as last CMake options used, last revision successfully installed, etc.). It can be safely deleted.

BUGS
See https://bugs.kde.org/. Be sure to search against the kdesrc-build product.

EXAMPLE
$ kdesrc-build 	 Downloads, builds and installs all modules listed in the configuration file, in the order defined therein.
$ kdesrc-build --pretend 	 Same as above, except no permanent actions are taken (specifically no log files are created, downloads performed, build processes run, etc.). EXCEPTION: If you are trying to build a module defined in the project database, and the database has not been downloaded yet, kdesrc-build will download the database since this can significantly affect the final build order.
$ kdesrc-build --no-src --refresh-build kdebase 	 Deletes the build directory for the kdebase module set (--refresh-build) and then starts the build process again without updating the source code in-between.
$ kdesrc-build --rc-file /dev/null --pretend 	 Forces kdesrc-build to read an empty configuration file and simulate the resultant build process. This shows what would happen by default with no configuration file, without an error message about a missing configuration file.
$ kdesrc-build +kdebase/kde-baseapps 	 Downloads, builds and installs the kde-baseapps module from the project database. Since the module name is preceded by a + it is assumed to defined in the project database even if this hasn't been specifically configured in the configuration file.
The kdebase/ portion forces kdesrc-build to ignore any kde-baseapps modules that are not children of the kdebase supermodule in the project database (although it is contrived for this example).
$ kdesrc-build --refresh-build --cmake-options="-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug" 	 Downloads, builds and installs all modules defined in the configuration file but overrides the cmake-options option to have the value given on the command line for this run only. Any further kdesrc-build runs will use the cmake-options given in the configuration file.

SEE ALSO
build-tool - A program by Michael Jansen which can build software based on included recipes.

RESOURCES
Main web site: https://apps.kde.org/kdesrc_build/
Documentation: https://docs.kde.org/?application=kdesrc-build

COPYING
Copyright (C) 2003-2022 Michael Pyne.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA