njlr / 5-minutes-to-buck

A very quick Buck tutorial

5 Minutes to Buck

This is a very quick Buck tutorial. The final source-files are above.

🚨 This tutorial was written with Linux in mind. Windows and macOS users, please refer to Facebook's setup instructions. Otherwise, the steps are the same.

0. What tools will I need?

You will need GCC / Clang, a text editor and Buck.

You probably have the first two, so here's how to install Buck for Linux:

wget https://github.com/njlr/buck-warp/releases/download/v0.3.0/buck-2019.01.10.01-linux -O buck
chmod +x ./buck
sudo mv ./buck /usr/local/bin/buck
buck --version

1. How do I create an executable?

Create the files we need:

touch .buckconfig
touch BUCK
touch main.cpp

main.cpp will contain a hello-world application:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  cout << "Hello, world. " << endl;

  return 0;
}

BUCK will describe how to build our application:

cxx_binary(
  name = 'app',
  srcs = [
    'main.cpp',
  ],
)

Now you can run the application:

buck run :app

You should see:

Hello, world. 

2. How do I create a library?

These instructions follow on from the previous.

We will put our library into a folder called math. Create these files:

mkdir math
touch ./math/BUCK
touch ./math/square.hpp
touch ./math/square.cpp

You project should look like this:

tree . 
.
├── BUCK
├── main.cpp
└── math
    ├── BUCK
    ├── square.cpp
    └── square.hpp

1 directory, 5 files

Now we need to fill write the contents.

math/square.hpp

#ifndef MATH_SQUARE_HPP
#define MATH_SQUARE_HPP

int square(int x);

#endif

math/square.cpp

#include <math/square.hpp>

int square(int x) {
  return x * x;
}

math/BUCK:

cxx_library(
  name = 'math',
  exported_headers = [
    'square.hpp',
  ],
  srcs = [
    'square.cpp',
  ],
  visibility = [
    'PUBLIC',
  ],
)

Now we should be able to build the library:

buck build //math:math

Success!

We can request static or shared flavors:

# Shared
buck build //math:math#linux-x86_64,shared --show-output

# Static
buck build //math:math#linux-x86_64,static --show-output

The --show-output flag asks Buck where it put the file. In this case:

ls buck-out/gen/math/math\#linux-x86_64,shared
ls buck-out/gen/math/math#linux-x86_64,static/

3. How do I use the library from the application?

First, we need to edit BUCK to tell Buck that //:app depends on //math:math:

cxx_binary(
  name = 'app',
  srcs = [
    'main.cpp',
  ],
  deps = [
    '//math:math',
  ],
)

Notice how we added a deps property.

Now, we can change main.cpp to actually use the library:

#include <iostream>
#include <math/square.hpp>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  cout << "Hello, world. " << endl;
  cout << "square(4) = " << square(4) << endl;

  return 0;
}

And for the big finale buck run :app...

$ buck run :app
Parsing buck files: finished in 0.7 sec
Building: finished in 0.8 sec (100%) 8/8 jobs, 2 updated
  Total time: 1.8 sec
Hello, world. 
square(4) = 16