Clone this repository, and then run:

% git submodule update --init

The submodule update step is required to pull in dependencies used for testing infrastructure as well as the glslang compiler that we currently use for generating SPIR-V.

If you are using Visual Studio on Windows, then you can just open slang.sln and build your desired platform/configuration. slang.sln and associated project files are actually just generated using premake5. See instructions in premake section below for further explanation.

Whilst using the provided slang.sln solution is a fast and easy way to get a build to work, it does not make all binary dependencies available which can add features and improve performance (such as slang-llvm). To get the binary dependencies create the solution using premake5 described in a later section.

Slang uses premake5 to generate projects (such as Makefiles) that can then be used to build Slang binaries from source.

For Linux and other targets the section below on premake describes the process.

Some targets below are described as 'unofficial'. In practice this means that they are not tested as part of contiguous integration. Thus unfortunately it is quite possible from time to time for them to break on a merge of a PR. That said, if broken it is likely only very minor changes are needed to make them work again.

Slang as part of it's build process generates header files, which are then used to compile the main Slang project. If you use premake to create your project, it will automatically generate these files before compiling the rest of the Slang. These are the current header generations which are created via the slang-generate and other tools...

• core.meta.slang -> core.meta.slang.h
• hlsl.meta.slang -> hlsl.meta.slang.h

Other files that are generated have generated as part of their name.

It may be necessary or desirable to create a build of Slang without using premake.

One way to do this would be to first compile slang-generate and then invoke it directly or as a dependency in your build. Another perhaps simpler way would be to first compile the same Slang source on another system that does support premake, or using a preexisting build mechanism (such as Visual Studio projects on Windows). Then copy the generated header files to your target system. This is appropriate because the generated files are indentical across platforms. It does of course mean that if core.meta.slang or hlsl.meta.slang files change the headers will need to be regenerated.

Slang uses the tool premake5 in order to generate projects that can be built on different targets. On Linux premake will generate Makefile/s and on windows it will generate a Visual Studio solution. Information on invoking premake for different kinds of targets can be found here.

Slang includes premake5 as part of slang-binaries which is in the external directory. For the external directory to be setup it is necessary to have updated submodules with git submodule update --init.

If you are on a unix-like operating system such as OSX/Linux, it may be necesary to make premake5 executable. Use

% chmod u+x external/slang-binaries/premake/***path to premake version and os***/premake5

Alternatively you can download and install premake5 on your build system.

Run premake5 with --help to in the root of the Slang project to see available command line options (assuming premake5 is in your PATH):

% premake5 --help

To download and use binaries for a particular architecture the slang-pack package manager can be invoked via the additional --deps and --arch options. If --arch isn't specified it defaults to x64. On Windows targets, the Visual Studio platform setting should be consistent with the --arch option such that the appropriate binary dependencies are available. The --deps=true option just indicates that on invoking premake it should make the binary dependencies for the arch available.

Supported --arch options are

• x64
• x86
• aarch64
• arm

For Unix like targets that might have clang or gcc compilers available you can select which one via the -cc option. For example...

% premake5 gmake --cc=clang --deps=true --arch=x64

or

% premake5 gmake --cc=gcc --deps=true --arch=x64

If you want to build the glslang library that Slang uses, add the option --build-glslang=true.

The Slang project does not include Makefiles by default - they need to be generated via premake. Please read the section on your target operating system on how to use premake to create Makefiles.

If building a Makefile based project, for example on Linux, OSX or Cygwin, the configuration needs to be specified when invoking make, the following are typical...

% make config=release_x64
% make config=debug_x64
% make config=release_x86
% make config=debug_x86
% make config=release_aarch64
% make config=debug_aarch64

To check what compiler is being used/command line options you can add verbose=1 to make command line. For example

% make config=debug_x64 verbose=1

First download and install premake5 on your build system. Open up a command line and go to the root directory of the slang source tree (ie the directory containing slang.h).

Assuming premake5 is in your PATH, you can create a Visual Studio 2017 project for Slang with the following command line

% premake5 vs2017 --deps=true --arch=x64

For Visual Studio 2019 use

% premake5 vs2019 --deps=true --arch=x64

These should create a slang.sln in the same directory and which you can then open in the appropriate Visual Studio. Building will build all of Slang, examples and it's test infrastructure.

On Linux we need to generate Makefiles using premake. Please read the premake section for more details.

In the terminal go to the root directory of the slang source tree (ie the directory containing slang.h). Assuming premake5 is in your PATH use

% premake5 gmake --deps=true --arch=x64

To create a release build use

% make config=release_x64

You can vary the compiler to use via the --cc option with 'gcc' or 'clang' for example

Note that OSX isn't an official target.

On Mac OSX to generate Makefiles or an XCode project we use premake. Please read the premake section for more details.

% premake5 gmake --deps=true --arch=x64

If you want to build glslang (necessary for Slang to output SPIR-V for example), then the additional --build-glslang option should be used

% premake5 gmake --build-glslang=true --deps=true --arch=x64

To build for release you can use...

% make config=release_x64

Slang can also be built within the Xcode IDE. Invoke premake as follows

% premake5 xcode4 --deps=true --arch=x64

Then open the slang.xcworkspace project inside of Xcode and build.

Note that Cygwin isn't an official target.

One issue with building on Cygwin, is that there isn't a binary version of premake currently available. It may be possible to make this work by building premake from source, and then just doing premake5 gmake. Here we use another approach - using the windows premake to create a Cygwin project. To do this use the command line...

% premake5 --target-detail=cygwin gmake --deps=true --arch=x64

When slang is built from source it also builds tools to be able to test the Slang compiler. Testing is achieved using the slang-test tool. The binaries are placed in the appropriate directory underneath bin. It is important that you initiate the test binary from the root directory of the slang source tree, such that all tests can be correctly located.

For example to run the tests on a windows release x64 build from the command line, in the root directory of slang source tree you can use...

% bin\windows-x64\release\slang-test

Note that on windows if you want to run all of the tests from inside visual studio, it is necessary to set the Working Directory under "slang-test project" > "Configuration Properties" > "Debugging" > "Working Directory" to the root directory of the slang source tree. You can do this by setting it to $(ProjectDir)/../.. for all configurations.

If you only see 'unit-tests' being run (unit tests are prefixed with 'unit-tests/') then the working directory is not correctly set. Most tests are text files describing the test held in the tests directory in the root of the slang project.

See the documentation on testing for more information.