Zinc

Zinc is a stand-alone version of [sbt]'s incremental compiler meant to be run in nailgun. This version is derived from

github.com/twitter-forks/zinc.git:

Add 'zinc/' from commit '609ee645c61dc7970b008c25c7a7dd94c21be865'

git-subtree-dir: zinc git-subtree-mainline: 85fd6a4a0560fd4ab624ab12345e1087b51ce2f6 git-subtree-split: 609ee645c61dc7970b008c25c7a7dd94c21be865

Build

Zinc is built using pants:

./pants test zinc:

To build a jar use:

./pants binary.dup --exclude-files="['rootdoc.txt']" zinc

To consume a jar, add a zinc target in BUILD.tools. To force pants to re-resolve and re-shade the artifact, use a new rev whenever the artifact has changed.

jar_library(name = 'zinc',
            jars = [
              jar(org = 'org.pantsbuild', name = 'zinc', rev = ???,
                  url = 'file:///Users/user/pants/dist/zinc.jar'),
            ])

Options

To get information about options

./pants run zinc: -- -help

Compile

As for scalac the main options for compiling are -classpath for specifying the classpath elements, and -d for selecting the output directory. Anything passed on the command-line that is not an option is considered to be a source file.

Scala

Zinc needs to locate the Scala compiler jar, Scala library jar, and any extra Scala jars (like Scala reflect). There are three alternative ways to specify the Scala jars.

Using -scala-home point to the base directory of a Scala distribution (which needs to contain a lib directory with the Scala jars).

Using -scala-path the compiler, library, and any extra jars (like scala reflect) can be listed directly as a path.

Using -scala-library to directly specify the Scala library, -scala-compiler to specify the Scala compiler, and -scala-extra to specify any extra Scala jars.

If no options are passed to locate a version of Scala then Scala 2.9.2 is used by default (which is bundled with zinc).

To pass options to scalac simply prefix with -S. For example, deprecation warnings can be enabled with -S-deprecation. For multi-part options add the -S prefix to all parts. For example, the sourcepath option can be specified with -S-sourcepath -S/the/source/path.

Java

To select a different javac to compile Java sources, use the -java-home option. To pass options to javac, prefix with -C.

If mixed Java and Scala sources are being compiled then the compile order can be specified with -compile-order, where the available orders are Mixed, JavaThenScala, or ScalaThenJava. The default order is Mixed.

If only Java sources are being compiled then the -java-only option can be added to avoid the Scala library jar being automatically added to the classpath.

Nailed

Zinc assumes that it will be run in Nailgun. Running with Nailgun provides zinc as a server, communicating commands via a client, keeping cached compilers in a warm running JVM and avoiding startup and load times.

Logging

The log level can be set directly with -log-level debug|info|warn|error. Or to set to debug use -debug. To silence all logging use -quiet.

Analysis

The analysis used to determine which files to incrementally recompile is stored in a file. The default location for the analysis cache is relative to the output directory. To specify a different location for the analysis cache use the -analysis-cache option. When compiling multiple projects, and the analysis cache is not at the default location, then a mapping from output directory to cache file for any upstreams projects should also be provided with the -analysis-map option.

Incremental Compiler

There are options for configuring the incremental compiler. One useful option is -transactional, which will restore the previous class files on compilation failure. This allows fixes to be made before retrying incremental compilation, rather than forcing recompilation of larger parts of the source tree due to the error and deleted class files.

See zinc -help for information about all options.

License

Copyright 2012 Typesafe, Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this software except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.