flutter_flutter/frontend_server
Alexander Aprelev 97b22348c8
Leave only widget creation tracker kernel pass in flutter frontend server. (#4727)
* Leave only widget creation tracker kernel pass in flutter frontend server.

This is follow-up to https://dart-review.googlesource.com/c/sdk/+/43888.

* Adapt to updated interface

* Tyop

* Fix imports. Compiler interface extension

* Add trivial test back. Rename library to flutter_frontend_server.
2018-03-02 07:52:19 -08:00
..

Frontend Server

Frontend server is simple wrapper around Dart Frontend. It is a Dart application that compiles Dart source into Dart Kernel binary (.dill-file). Documentation on Dart Kernel (semantic, binary format, etc) can be found here: https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/wiki/Kernel-Documentation.

Frontend server runs in two modes:

  • immediate mode, where Dart source file name is provided as command line argument;
  • interactive mode, where communication is happening over stdin/stdout.

Interactive mode instructions

Compile/Recompile

compile <input.dart>

Compiles <input.dart> Dart source file with Dart Frontend. Replies with result response.

recompile <boundary-key>
<path/to/updated/file1.dart>
<path/to/updated/file2.dart>
...
<boundary-key>

Incrementally recompiles Dart program previously compiled in current session, taking into account changes in the listed files. Replies with result response.

Relative paths should be relative to current working directory for the shell that launched Frontend Server.

Accept/Reject

accept

Accepts results of incremental compilation, so that on next recompilation request Dart Frontend will not include these recompiled files.

reject

Rejects results of incremental compilation, so that on next recompilation request Dart Frontend will include compilation results from previously rejected recompilation in addition to what it will recompile based on newly changed files. Small technical detail is that Dart Frontend will not recompile files from previously rejected recompilation attempts (unless they were changed since then), it will just include appropriate kernel binaries it kept around from those previously rejected compilation requests.

One use of accept and reject instructions is in the context of Dart VM hot-reload. Dart VM can reject user-provided incremental change to what is currently running. It could happen for variety of Dart VM internal reasons. For example, if incremental update changes some class to enum, such update can not be hot-reloaded by VM at this point, will be rejected.

Quit

quit

Stops the server.

Response from the server

result <boundary-key>
<compiler output>
<boundary-key> [<output.dill>]

Response from the Dart Frontend compiler is bracketed by <boundary-key> tags. If the compiler was able to produce a Dart Kernel file, the name of this file <output.dill> is provided too. If the compiler encountered unrecoverable errors, there will be no output file name provided.