Using Buildcache to Accelerate Firefox Builds by Caching WebIDL Code Generation
By
mbitsnbites
Hot, fresh, and worth queueing round the block for.
Summary
The article explains how to speed up Firefox builds by 17% using buildcache's Lua plugin system to cache the WebIDL binding code generation step. It details how WebIDL processing works in Firefox builds, the inefficiencies of the current approach, and how buildcache's custom wrapper system can cache these non-compiler steps to significantly reduce build times.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledWhen you build Firefox, one of the earlier steps runs python3 -m mozbuild.action.webidl to generate C++ binding code from hundreds of .webidl files.
One of them is its Lua plugin system, which lets you write custom wrappers for programs that aren't compilers in the traditional sense.
With Bug 2027655 now merged, we can use this to cache Firefox's WebIDL binding code generation.
It produces thousands of output files: headers, cpp files, forward declarations, and more.
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