cli

lcui-cli

Introduction

(English/中文)

LCUI CLI is command line interface for rapid LCUI development. providing:

• Project scaffolding.
• A compiler similar to Webpack that can load specific types of files and compile them into C code using a loader. The following loaders exist:
  • ts-loader: Load JavaScript and TypeScript files, supporting JSX syntax. You can write LCUI widgets like you would write React components.
  • css-loader: Load CSS files, supporting the CSS Modules.
  • sass-loader: Load the Sass/SCSS file and compile it into CSS.
  • json-loader: Load JSON files, allowing you to describe the interface in JSON format.
  • xml-loader: Load an XML file, allowing you to describe the interface in XML format.
  • yaml-loader: Load YAML files, allowing you to describe the interface in YAML format.

Installation

Before installing this tool, you need to install these dependencies on your computer:

• Git
• Node.js (which comes with npm)
• XMake

Afterwards, run:

npm install -g @lcui/cli
# Or
yarn global add @lcui/cli

Usage

Create an LCUI application project:

lcui create my-project

Compile all files in the src directory:

lcui build

Compile a single file:

lcui build app/page.tsx

Incremental build

lcui build is incremental by default. A build manifest is persisted at .lcui/build/manifest.json and tracks, for every source file:

• A sha256 of the source file content
• The loader chain and options that produced it
• The list of dependencies that the loaders read (imports, @use / @import partials, postcss.config.js, tailwind.config.js, …)
• The list of output files (.mjs modules, .c / .h for components, resources copied into dist/) together with their sha256

On the next build a file is rebuilt only when its source hash, its dependency hashes or its output hashes do not match the manifest. Everything else is skipped — its outputs are reused as-is.

In addition every write goes through writeIfChanged: if the new bytes are identical to the existing file we do not touch it, so downstream tools that rely on mtime (most notably xmake) will not see spurious changes and will not trigger a full C rebuild.

Available options:

• --force — ignore the manifest and rebuild everything. Useful if you suspect the cache is stale, or after editing files that the dependency tracker cannot see.
• --skip-xmake — do not invoke xmake after compilation, even if xmake.lua exists.

The manifest is automatically invalidated when:

• @lcui/cli is upgraded
• The compiler configuration changes
• tsconfig.json, postcss.config.*, tailwind.config.* or lcui.config.js change

License

MIT