# breaking changes to zig build API and improved caching · gitcafe/zig

[View on GitCafe](https://git.cafe/gitcafe/zig/commit/91955dee587214722daa09e6f3dbff059ac3752e)

Repository: [gitcafe/zig](https://git.cafe/gitcafe/zig)

Visibility: public

Requested revision: 91955dee587214722daa09e6f3dbff059ac3752e

Requested commit: 91955dee587214722daa09e6f3dbff059ac3752e

Commit: 91955dee587214722daa09e6f3dbff059ac3752e

Tree: 7f56bf31f93081c63a4bcf03b9e38b7c5b1ca29c

Author: Andrew Kelley

Committer: Andrew Kelley

## Message

```
breaking changes to zig build API and improved caching

 * in Zig build scripts, getOutputPath() is no longer a valid function
   to call, unless setOutputDir() was used, or within a custom make()
   function. Instead there is more convenient API to use which takes
   advantage of the caching system. Search this commit diff for
   `exe.run()` for an example.
 * Zig build by default enables caching. All build artifacts will go
   into zig-cache. If you want to access build artifacts in a convenient
   location, it is recommended to add an `install` step. Otherwise
   you can use the `run()` API mentioned above to execute programs
   directly from their location in the cache. Closes #330.
   `addSystemCommand` is available for programs not built with Zig
   build.
 * Please note that Zig does no cache evicting yet. You may have to
   manually delete zig-cache directories periodically to keep disk
   usage down. It's planned for this to be a simple Least Recently
   Used eviction system eventually.
 * `--output`, `--output-lib`, and `--output-h` are removed. Instead,
   use `--output-dir` which defaults to the current working directory.
   Or take advantage of `--cache on`, which will print the main output
   path to stdout, and the other artifacts will be in the same directory
   with predictable file names. `--disable-gen-h` is available when
   one wants to prevent .h file generation.
 * `@cImport` is always independently cached now. Closes #2015.
   It always writes the generated Zig code to disk which makes debug
   info and compile errors better. No more "TODO: remember C source
   location to display here"
 * Fix .d file parsing. (Fixes the MacOS CI failure)
 * Zig no longer creates "temporary files" other than inside a
   zig-cache directory.

This breaks the CLI API that Godbolt uses. The suggested new invocation
can be found in this commit diff, in the changes to `test/cli.zig`.

```

## Parents

- [1e634a384ccc0ae57e0343369f7adb0b1b4b9875](https://git.cafe/gitcafe/zig/commit/1e634a384ccc0ae57e0343369f7adb0b1b4b9875?format=markdown)

[Source at this commit](https://git.cafe/gitcafe/zig/tree/91955dee587214722daa09e6f3dbff059ac3752e?format=markdown)