path: root/doc/user/caching.xml

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE sconsdoc [
    <!ENTITY % scons SYSTEM "../scons.mod">
    %scons;

    <!ENTITY % builders-mod SYSTEM "../generated/builders.mod">
    %builders-mod;
    <!ENTITY % functions-mod SYSTEM "../generated/functions.mod">
    %functions-mod;
    <!ENTITY % tools-mod SYSTEM "../generated/tools.mod">
    %tools-mod;
    <!ENTITY % variables-mod SYSTEM "../generated/variables.mod">
    %variables-mod;

]>

<chapter id="chap-caching"
         xmlns="http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0 http://www.scons.org/dbxsd/v1.0/scons.xsd">
<title>Caching Built Files</title>

<!--

  MIT License

  Copyright The SCons Foundation

  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
  a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
  "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
  without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
  distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
  permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
  the following conditions:

  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
  in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
  KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
  WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
  NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
  LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
  OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
  WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

-->

  <para>

  On multi-developer software projects,
  you can sometimes speed up every developer's builds a lot by
  allowing them to share a cache of the derived files that they build.
  After all, it is relatively rare that any in-progress change affects
  more than a few derived files, most will be unchanged.
  Using a cache can also help an individual developer:
  for example if you wish to start work on a new feature in a clean tree,
  those build artifacts which could be reused can be
  retrieved from the cache to populate the tree and save
  a lot of initial build time.
  &SCons; makes this easy and reliable.

  </para>

  <section>
  <title>Specifying the Derived-File Cache Directory</title>

    <para>

    To enable caching of derived files,
    use the &f-link-CacheDir; function
    in any &SConscript; file:

    </para>

    <scons_example name="caching_ex1">
       <file name="SConstruct">
env = Environment()
env.Program('hello.c')
CacheDir('cache')
       </file>
       <file name="hello.c">
hello.c
       </file>
       <directory name="cache">
       </directory>
       <file name="not_used" printme="1">
CacheDir('/usr/local/build_cache')
       </file>
    </scons_example>

    <para>

    The cache directory you specify must
    have read and write access for all developers
    who will be accessing the cached files
    (if <option>--cache-readonly</option> is used,
    only read access is required).
    It should also be in some central location
    that all builds will be able to access.
    In environments where developers are using separate systems
    (like individual workstations) for builds,
    this directory would typically be
    on a shared or NFS-mounted file system.
    While &SCons; will create the specified cache directory as needed,
    in this multi user scenario it is usually best
    to create it ahead of time so the access rights
    can be set up correctly.

    </para>

    <para>

    Here's what happens:
    When a build has a &CacheDir; specified,
    every time a file is built,
    it is stored in that cache directory
    indexed by its &buildsig;.
    On subsequent builds,
    before an action is invoked to build a file,
    the &buildsig; is computed and &SCons; checks
    the derived-file cache directory
    to see if a file with the exact same &buildsig;
    already exists.

      <footnote>
      <para>
      A few inside details: &SCons; tracks two main kinds of cryptographic
      hashes: a <emphasis>&contentsig;</emphasis>,
      which is a hash of the contents of a file participating in the
      build (depepdencies as well as targets);
      and a <emphasis>&buildsig;</emphasis>, which is a hash of the
      elements needed to build a target, such as the command line,
      the contents of the sources, and possibly information about
      tools used in the build. The hash function produces a unique signature
      from its inputs, no other set of inputs can produce that same
      signature.  The &buildsig; from building
      a target is used as the filename of the target file in the
      derived-file cache - that way lookups are efficient, just compute
      a &buildsig; and see if a file exists with that as the name.
      </para>

      <para>
      The use of the &buildsig; provides protection from concflicts:
      if two developers have different setups, so they would produce
      built objects that are not identical, then because the difference in
      tools will show up in the &buildsig;, which is used as the
      name of the cache entry, they will end up being
      stored as separate entries.
      </para>
      </footnote>

    If so, the derived file will not be built locally,
    but will be copied into the local build directory
    from the derived-file cache directory,
    like this:

    </para>

    <scons_output example="caching_ex1" suffix="1">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

    <para>

    Note that the &CacheDir; feature requires that the &buildsig;
    be calculated,
    even if you configure &SCons; to use timestamps
    to decide if files are up to date
    (see the <xref linkend="chap-depends"></xref>
    chapter for information about the &f-link-Decider; function),
    since the &buildsig; is used to determine if a target file
    exists in the cache.
    Consequently, using &CacheDir; may reduce or negate any performance
    improvements from using timestamps for up-to-date decisions.

    </para>

  </section>

  <section>
  <title>Keeping Build Output Consistent</title>

    <para>

    One potential drawback to using a derived-file cache
    is that the output printed by &SCons;
    can be inconsistent from invocation to invocation,
    because any given file may be rebuilt one time
    and retrieved from the derived-file cache the next time.
    This can make analyzing build output more difficult,
    especially for automated scripts that
    expect consistent output each time.

    </para>

    <para>

    If, however, you use the <option>--cache-show</option> option,
    &SCons; will print the command line that it
    <emphasis>would</emphasis> have executed
    to build the file,
    even when it is retrieving the file from the derived-file cache.
    This keeps the build output consistent across builds:

    </para>

    <scons_output example="caching_ex1" suffix="2">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q --cache-show</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

    <para>

    The trade-off, of course, is that you no longer
    know whether or not &SCons;
    has retrieved a derived file from cache
    or has rebuilt it locally.

    </para>

  </section>

  <section>
  <title>Not Using the Derived-File Cache for Specific Files</title>

    <para>

    You may want to disable caching for certain
    specific files in your configuration.
    For example, if you only want to put
    executable files in a central cache,
    but not the intermediate object files,
    you can use the &f-link-NoCache;
    function to specify that the
    object files should not be cached:

    </para>

    <scons_example name="ex-NoCache">
       <file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
env = Environment()
obj = env.Object('hello.c')
env.Program('hello.c')
CacheDir('cache')
NoCache('hello.o')
       </file>
       <file name="hello.c">
hello.c
       </file>
       <directory name="cache">
       </directory>
    </scons_example>

    <para>

    Then when you run &scons; after cleaning
    the built targets,
    it will recompile the object file locally
    (since it doesn't exist in the derived-file cache directory),
    but still realize that the derived-file cache directory
    contains an up-to-date executable program
    that can be retrieved instead of re-linking:

    </para>

    <!--

    <scons_output example="caching_ex1" suffix="3">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

    -->

    <screen>
% <userinput>scons -Q</userinput>
cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
cc -o hello hello.o
% <userinput>scons -Q -c</userinput>
Removed hello.o
Removed hello
% <userinput>scons -Q</userinput>
cc -o hello.o -c hello.c
Retrieved `hello' from cache
    </screen>

  </section>

  <section>
  <title>Disabling the Derived-File Cache</title>

    <para>

    Retrieving an already-built file
    from the derived-file cache
    is usually a significant time-savings
    over rebuilding the file,
    but how much of a savings
    (or even whether it saves time at all)
    can depend a great deal on your
    system or network configuration.
    For example, retrieving cached files
    from a busy server over a busy network
    might end up being slower than
    rebuilding the files locally.

    </para>

    <para>

    In these cases, you can specify
    the <option>--cache-disable</option>
    command-line option to tell &SCons;
    to not retrieve already-built files from the
    derived-file cache directory:

    </para>

    <scons_output example="caching_ex1" suffix="4">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q --cache-disable</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

  </section>

  <section>
  <title>Populating a Derived-File Cache With Already-Built Files</title>

    <para>

    Sometimes, you may have one or more derived files
    already built in your local build tree
    that you wish to make available to other people doing builds.
    For example, you may find it more effective to perform
    integration builds with the cache disabled
    (per the previous section)
    and only populate the derived-file cache directory
    with the built files after the integration build
    has completed successfully.
    This way, the cache will only get filled up
    with derived files that are part of a complete, successful build
    not with files that might be later overwritten
    while you debug integration problems.

    </para>

    <para>

    In this case, you can use the
    the <option>--cache-force</option> option
    to tell &SCons; to put all derived files in the cache,
    even if the files already exist in your local tree
    from having been built by a previous invocation:

    </para>

    <scons_output example="caching_ex1" suffix="5">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q --cache-disable</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q -c</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q --cache-disable</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q --cache-force</scons_output_command>
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

    <para>

    Notice how the above sample run
    demonstrates that the <option>--cache-disable</option>
    option avoids putting the built
    <filename>hello.o</filename>
    and
    <filename>hello</filename> files in the cache,
    but after using the <option>--cache-force</option> option,
    the files have been put in the cache
    for the next invocation to retrieve.

    </para>

  </section>

  <section>
  <title>Minimizing Cache Contention:  the <option>--random</option> Option</title>

    <para>

    If you allow multiple builds to update the
    derived-file cache directory simultaneously,
    two builds that occur at the same time
    can sometimes start "racing"
    with one another to build the same files
    in the same order.
    If, for example,
    you are linking multiple files into an executable program:

    </para>

    <scons_example name="caching_ex-random">
       <file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
Program('prog', ['f1.c', 'f2.c', 'f3.c', 'f4.c', 'f5.c'])
       </file>
       <file name="f1.c">f1.c</file>
       <file name="f2.c">f2.c</file>
       <file name="f3.c">f3.c</file>
       <file name="f4.c">f4.c</file>
       <file name="f5.c">f5.c</file>
       <file name="f6.c">f6.c</file>
    </scons_example>

    <para>

    &SCons; will normally build the input object files
    on which the program depends in their normal, sorted order:

    </para>

    <scons_output example="caching_ex-random" suffix="1">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

    <para>

    But if two such builds take place simultaneously,
    they may each look in the cache at nearly the same
    time and both decide that <filename>f1.o</filename>
    must be rebuilt and pushed into the derived-file cache directory,
    then both decide that <filename>f2.o</filename>
    must be rebuilt (and pushed into the derived-file cache directory),
    then both decide that <filename>f3.o</filename>
    must be rebuilt...
    This won't cause any actual build problems--both
    builds will succeed,
    generate correct output files,
    and populate the cache--but
    it does represent wasted effort.

    </para>

    <para>

    To alleviate such contention for the cache,
    you can use the <option>--random</option> command-line option
    to tell &SCons; to build dependencies
    in a random order:

    </para>

    <!--

    The following <screen> output was generated by this:

    <scons_output example="caching_ex-random" suffix="2">
      <scons_output_command>scons -Q - -random</scons_output_command>
    </scons_output>

We captured it directly here to guarantee a "random" order,
guarding against the potential for - -random to happen
to return things in the original sorted order.

-->

    <screen>
  % <userinput>scons -Q --random</userinput>
  cc -o f3.o -c f3.c
  cc -o f1.o -c f1.c
  cc -o f5.o -c f5.c
  cc -o f2.o -c f2.c
  cc -o f4.o -c f4.c
  cc -o prog f1.o f2.o f3.o f4.o f5.o
    </screen>

    <para>

    Multiple builds using the <option>--random</option> option
    will usually build their dependencies in different,
    random orders,
    which minimizes the chances for a lot of
    contention for same-named files
    in the derived-file cache directory.
    Multiple simultaneous builds might still race to try to build
    the same target file on occasion,
    but long sequences of inefficient contention
    should be rare.

    </para>

    <para>

    Note, of course,
    the <option>--random</option> option
    will cause the output that &SCons; prints
    to be inconsistent from invocation to invocation,
    which may be an issue when
    trying to compare output from different build runs.

    </para>

    <para>

    If you want to make sure dependencies will be built
    in a random order without having to specify
    the <option>--random</option> on very command line,
    you can use the &f-link-SetOption; function to
    set the <literal>random</literal> option
    within any &SConscript; file:

    </para>

    <scons_example name="caching_ex-random">
       <file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
SetOption('random', 1)
Program('prog', ['f1.c', 'f2.c', 'f3.c', 'f4.c', 'f5.c'])
       </file>
       <file name="f1.c">f1.c</file>
       <file name="f2.c">f2.c</file>
       <file name="f3.c">f3.c</file>
       <file name="f4.c">f4.c</file>
       <file name="f5.c">f5.c</file>
       <file name="f6.c">f6.c</file>
    </scons_example>

  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Using a Custom CacheDir Class</title>

    <para>

    &SCons;' internal <classname>CacheDir</classname> class can be extended to support customization
    around the details of caching behaviors, for example using compressed cache files,
    encrypted cache files, gathering statistics and data, or many other aspects.

    </para>

    <para>

    To create your own custom cache class,
    your custom class must be a subclass
    of the <classname>SCons.CacheDir.CacheDir</classname> class.
    You can then pass your custom class to the &f-link-CacheDir;
    method or set the &consvar;
    &cv-link-CACHEDIR_CLASS; to the class before configuring the cache
    in that environment.
    SCons will internally invoke and use your custom class when performing
    cache operations.
    The below example shows a simple use case of overriding the
    <function>copy_from_cache</function>
    method to record the total number of bytes pulled from the cache.

    </para>

    <scons_example name="custom_caching">
      <file name="SConstruct" printme="1">
import SCons
import os

class CustomCacheDir(SCons.CacheDir.CacheDir):
    total_retrieved = 0

    @classmethod
    def copy_from_cache(cls, env, src, dst):
        # record total bytes pulled from cache
        cls.total_retrieved += os.stat(src).st_size
        super().copy_from_cache(env, src, dst)

env = Environment()
env.CacheDir('scons-cache', CustomCacheDir)
# ...
      </file>
    </scons_example>

  </section>

  <!--

  <section>
  <title>Troubleshooting Shared Caching:  the &cache-debug; Option</title>

    <para>

    XXX describe the - - cache-debug option
    XXX maybe point to the troubleshooting appendix?

    </para>

  </section>

  -->

  <!--

  <section>

    <para>

    XXX describe CacheDir management:  monitoring, deleting, etc.

    </para>

  </section>

  -->

</chapter>