Building Options¶

An in depth guide of build options for WebKit.

Building for Apple platforms¶

Install Xcode and its command line tools if you haven't done so already:

Install Xcode Get Xcode from https://developer.apple.com/downloads. To build WebKit for OS X, Xcode 5.1.1 or later is required. To build WebKit for iOS Simulator, Xcode 7 or later is required.
Install the Xcode Command Line Tools In Terminal, run the command: xcode-select --install

Run the following command to build a macOS debug build with debugging symbols and assertions:

Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --debug

For performance testing, and other purposes, use --release instead.

Embedded Builds¶

To build for an embedded platform like iOS, tvOS, or watchOS, pass a platform argument to build-webkit.

For example, to build a debug build with debugging symbols and assertions for embedded simulators:

Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --debug --<platform>-simulator

or embedded devices:

Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --debug --<platform>-device

where platform is ios, tvos or watchos.

Using Xcode¶

You can open WebKit.xcworkspace to build and debug WebKit within Xcode. Select the "Everything up to WebKit + Tools" scheme to build the entire project.

If you don't use a custom build location in Xcode preferences, you have to update the workspace settings to use WebKitBuild directory. In menu bar, choose File > Workspace Settings, then click the Advanced button, select "Custom", "Relative to Workspace", and enter WebKitBuild for both Products and Intermediates.

Building the GTK Port¶

For production builds:

cmake -DPORT=GTK -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -GNinja
ninja
sudo ninja install

For development builds:

Tools/gtk/install-dependencies
Tools/Scripts/update-webkitgtk-libs
Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --gtk --debug

Building the WPE Port¶

For production builds:

cmake -DPORT=WPE -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -GNinja
ninja
sudo ninja install

For development builds:

Tools/wpe/install-dependencies
Tools/Scripts/update-webkitwpe-libs
Tools/Scripts/build-webkit --wpe --debug

Building Windows Port¶

For building WebKit on Windows, see Windows Port.

Running WebKit¶

With Safari and Other macOS Applications¶

Run the following command to launch Safari with your local build of WebKit:

Tools/Scripts/run-safari --debug

The run-safari script sets the DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH environment variable to point to your build products, and then launches /Applications/Safari.app. DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH tells the system loader to prefer your build products over the frameworks installed in /System/Library/Frameworks.

To run other applications with your local build of WebKit, run the following command:

Tools/Scripts/run-webkit-app <application-path>

iOS Simulator¶

Run the following command to launch iOS simulator with your local build of WebKit:

run-safari --debug --ios-simulator

In both cases, if you have built release builds instead, use --release instead of --debug.

Linux Ports¶

If you have a development build, you can use the run-minibrowser script, e.g.:

run-minibrowser --debug --wpe

Pass one of --gtk, --jsc-only, or --wpe to indicate the port to use.

Fixing mysterious build or runtime errors after Xcode upgrades¶

If you see mysterious build failures or if you’ve switched to a new version of macOS or Xcode, delete the WebKitBuild directory. make clean may not delete all the relevant files, and building after doing that without deleting the WebKitBuild directory may result in mysterious build or dyld errors.

Building with Address Sanitizer to investigate memory corruption bugs¶

To build Address Sanitizer or ASan builds to analyze security bugs, run Tools/Scripts/set-webkit-configuration --asan --release. This will enable ASan build. If want to attach a debugger, you can also specify --debug instead of --release. Once you don’t need to build or run ASan anymore, you can specify --no-asan in place of --asan to disable ASan. Note that this configuration is saved by creating a file called Asan in the WebKitBuild directory, so if you are trying to do a clean Asan build by deleting the build directory you need to rerun this command.

Building with compile_commands.json¶

macOS¶

make r EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=YES
generate-compile-commands WebKitBuild/Release

I would recommend running this command each time you pull the latest code. If you add or remove files during development, recompile with make r EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=YES and rerun generate-compile-commands WebKitBuild/Release.

Linux and Windows¶

cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=1