Compiling

Automatic defaults

If you compile Duktape with no compiler options, Duktape will detect the compiler and the platform automatically and select defaults appropriate in most cases.

The default features are, at a high level:

Feature options (DUK_OPT_xxx)

If you wish to modify the defaults, you can provide feature options in the form of DUK_OPT_xxx compiler defines. These will be taken into account by the internal duk_features.h file, which resolves the final internal features based on feature requests, compiler features, and platform features.

The available feature options can be found in duk_features.h. The table below summarizes the available options (in no particular order):

Define Description
DUK_OPT_NO_PACKED_TVAL Don't use the packed 8-byte internal value representation even if otherwise possible. The packed representation has more platform/compiler portability issues than the unpacked one.
DUK_OPT_NO_REFERENCE_COUNTING Disable reference counting and use only mark-and-sweep for garbage collection. Although this reduces memory footprint of heap objects, the downside is much more fluctuation in memory usage.
DUK_OPT_NO_AUGMENT_ERRORS Don't augment Ecmascript error objects with custom fields like fileName, lineNumber, and traceback data. Implies DUK_OPT_NO_TRACEBACKS.
DUK_OPT_NO_TRACEBACKS Don't record traceback data into Ecmascript error objects (but still record fileName and lineNumber). Reduces footprint and makes error handling a bit faster, at the cost of less nformative Ecmascript errors.
DUK_OPT_NO_VERBOSE_ERRORS Don't provide error message strings or filename/line information for errors generated by Duktape. Reduces footprint, at the cost of much less informative Ecmascript errors.
DUK_OPT_TRACEBACK_DEPTH Override default traceback collection depth. The default is currently 10.
DUK_OPT_NO_FILE_IO Disable use of ANSI C file I/O which might be a portability issue on some platforms. Causes e.g. duk_eval_file() to throw an error.
DUK_OPT_SEGFAULT_ON_PANIC Cause the default panic handler to cause a segfault instead of using abort() or exit(). This is useful when debugging with valgrind, as a segfault provides a nice C traceback in valgrind.
DUK_OPT_SELF_TESTS Perform run-time self tests when a Duktape heap is created. Catches platform/compiler problems which cannot be reliably detected during compile time. Not enabled by default because of the extra footprint.
DUK_OPT_ASSERTIONS Enable internal assert checks. These slow down execution considerably so only use when debugging.
DUK_OPT_DEBUG Enable debug printouts.
DUK_OPT_DDEBUG Enable more debug printouts.
DUK_OPT_DDDEBUG Enable even more debug printouts. Not recommended unless you have grep handy.
DUK_OPT_DPRINT_COLORS Enable coloring of debug prints with ANSI escape codes. The behavior is not sensitive to terminal settings.
DUK_OPT_DPRINT_RDTSC Print RDTSC cycle count in debug prints if available.
DUK_OPT_HAVE_CUSTOM_H Enable user-provided duk_custom.h customization header (see below for details). Not recommended unless really necessary.

DUK_OPT_HAVE_CUSTOM_H and duk_custom.h

Normally you define DUK_OPT_xxx feature options and the internal duk_features.h header resolves these with platform/compiler constraints to determine effective compilation options for Duktape internals. The effective options are provided as DUK_USE_xxx defines which you normally never see.

If you define DUK_OPT_HAVE_CUSTOM_H, Duktape will include duk_custom.h after determining the appropriate DUK_USE_xxx defines but before compiling any code. The duk_custom.h header, which you provide, can then tweak the active DUK_USE_xxx defines freely. See duk_features.h for the available defines.

This approach is useful when the DUK_OPT_xxx feature options don't provide enough flexibility to tweak the build. The downside is that you can easily create inconsistent DUK_USE_xxx flags, the customization header will be version specific, and you need to peek into Duktape internals to know what defines to tweak.

DUK_PANIC_HANDLER

The default panic handler will print an error message to stdout unless I/O is disabled by DUK_OPT_NO_FILE_IO. It will then call abort() or cause a segfault if DUK_OPT_SEGFAULT_ON_PANIC is defined.

You can override the entire panic handler by defining DUK_PANIC_HANDLER. For example, you could add the following to your compiler options:

'-DDUK_PANIC_HANDLER(code,msg)={printf("*** %d:%s\n",(code),(msg));abort();}'

Or perhaps:

'-DDUK_PANIC_HANDLER(code,msg)={my_panic_handler((code),(msg))}'

which calls your custom handler:

void my_panic_handler(int code, const char *msg) {
    /* Your panic handling.  Must not return. */
}

Adding new feature options

This section only applies if you customize Duktape internals and wish to submit a patch to be included in the mainline distribution: