tree-sitter build

The build command compiles your parser into a dynamically-loadable library, either as a shared object (.so, .dylib, or .dll) or as a Wasm module.

tree-sitter build [OPTIONS] [PATH] # Aliases: b

You can change the compiler executable via the CC environment variable and add extra flags via CFLAGS. For macOS or iOS, you can set MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET or IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET respectively to define the minimum supported version.

The path argument allows you to specify the directory of the parser to build. If you don't supply this argument, the CLI will attempt to build the parser in the current working directory.

On Unix platforms, the CLI will attempt to use nm to validate the symbols included in your parser library. Note that this safety check is not performed on Windows. If performed, this check ensures that:

• All non tree-sitter functions are marked static, to avoid conflicts when building with another tree-sitter project
• If an external scanner is used by your parser, all of the following symbols are present:
  • tree_sitter_<name>_external_scanner_create
  • tree_sitter_<name>_external_scanner_destroy
  • tree_sitter_<name>_external_scanner_serialize
  • tree_sitter_<name>_external_scanner_deserialize
  • tree_sitter_<name>_external_scanner_scan

Options

-w/--wasm

Compile the parser as a Wasm module. This command looks for the Wasi SDK indicated by the TREE_SITTER_WASI_SDK_PATH environment variable. If you don't have the binary, the CLI will attempt to download it for you to <CACHE_DIR>/tree-sitter/wasi-sdk/, where <CACHE_DIR> is resolved according to the XDG base directory or Window's Known_Folder_Locations.

-o/--output

Specify where to output the shared object file (native or Wasm). This flag accepts either an absolute path or a relative path. If you don't supply this flag, the CLI will attempt to figure out what the language name is based on the parent directory name to use for the output file. If the CLI can't figure it out, it will default to parser, thus generating parser.so or parser.wasm in the current working directory.

--reuse-allocator

Reuse the allocator that's set in the core library for the parser's external scanner. This is useful in applications where the author overrides the default allocator with their own, and wants to ensure every parser that allocates memory in the external scanner does so using their allocator.

-0/--debug

Compile the parser with debug flags enabled. This is useful when debugging issues that require a debugger like gdb or lldb.

-v/--verbose

Display verbose build information including working directory (if present), compiler, arguments, and environment variables.