Compilation times

A rebuild of the full solutions can be as long as 10 mins, depending on the configuration. A few tricks can be used to reduce build times.

1. Unity build: Cmake offers an option to batch source files to reduce the number of files for faster compilation. This is used on some build servers and on some development workstations.
2. Caching using buildcache. When GitHub actions was introduced, there was a need to have a build cache working for both Linux and Windows. At that time, buildcache was the only option for one crossplatform tool. buildcache caching is now used on ResInsight GitHub Actions.
3. Recent deveopment has now made ccache easily available on Windows. The speedup in compilation time can be quite impressive. A complete rebuild of the ResInsight solution takes 1.10 on one workstation.

Configuration and use of ccache (Windows)

1. Download and install ccache https://ccache.dev/download.html
2. In the ResInsight CMake defines, set the full path to the ccache.exe for the define “ccache_exe”
3. Make sure that all CXX_* compiler flags use /Z7 instead of /Zi. If /Zi is used, ccache will not work.
4. To see where your cache is located on your system, use the ccache -p

References

buildcache

Unity build for CMake

GitHub Action for ResInsight

CMake config for ccache

CMake config for Unity build