Building flow

Install Pre-requisites and Build

You need Git to clone the repo.

Clone the repo

From your command line:

git clone https://github.com/andrewdavidmackenzie/flow.git

Install build tools

You need make and a rust toolchain (cargo, rustc, clippy) to build from source (I suggest using rustup).

Once you have those, you can install the remaining pre-requisites using:

make config

These include libraries like ssl and tools like mdbook, mdbook-linkcheck and graphviz to build the book.

The make config target should install them all for you. It should work on macos and linux variants using apt-get or yum package managers (PRs to Makefile are welcome for other linux package managers).

Build and test

To build and test (including running the examples and checking their output is correct) as well as building the book and ensuring all links are value, use:

make

NOTE The first time you build (using make or make all), it will take a long time. This is due the function implementations in the flowstdlib standard library being compiled to WASM. After the first build, dependencies are tracked by the flowc compiler and implementations are only re-compiled when required.

Make book changes

The book is rebuilt as part of every PR and Merge to master to ensure it is not broken. The book is rebuild and deployed here on every release.

Project components and structure

The Project is structured into a number of rust crates that form part of a rust cargo "workspace".

Currently, two binaries are built: flowc the flow compiler two flow runners flowrcli and flowrgui.

See the Project Components and Structure section of the book for more details.

Contributing

I organize all issues in a Github Project and chose things to work on from the "Next" column. I have only marked a couple of issues with "help wanted" label but I can do more if there is interest. If in doubt reach out to me by email, or GitHub issue.