CLion Dev

CLion is an IDE

Prerequisite: Checking out and building the chromium code base

Setting up CLion

  1. Install CLion

  2. Authenticate License

  3. Run CLion

  4. Increase CLion's memory allocation

    • This step will help performance with large projects
    1. Option 1
      1. At the startup dialogue, in the bottom right corner, click configure
      2. Setup Edit Custom VM Options:
        -Xss2m
-Xms1g
-Xmx5g
      3. Setup Edit Custom Properties:
        idea.max.intellisense.filesize=12500
    2. Option 2; 2017 and prior versions may not include the options to setup your VM Options and Properties in the configure menu. Instead:
      1. Create New Project
      2. Help > Edit Custom VM Options
      3. Help > Edit Custom Properties

Chromium in CLion

  1. Import project

    • At the startup dialogue, select Import Project and select your chromium directory

  2. Modify the CMakeList.txt file

    1. Open the CMakeList.txt file
    2. Add the following to the top
      set(CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Debug)
include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src)
    3. Remove any other include_directories the file contains
      • the head should look like
        cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(chromium)

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)

set(CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Debug)

include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src)

add_executable(chromium
    ...)

Building, Running, and Debugging within CLion

  1. Run > Edit Configurations
  2. Click + in the top left and select Application
  3. Setup:
    Target: All targets
Executable: src/out/Defaults/chrome
Program arguments (optional): --disable-seccomp-sandbox --single-process
Working directory: .../chromium/src/out/Default
  4. Click + next to the Before launch section and select Run External tool
  5. In the dialog that appears, click + and setup:
    Program: .../depot_tools/ninja
Arguments: -C out/Default -j 1000 chrome
Working directory: .../chromium/src
  6. Click OK to close all three dialogs
  7. Run > Run or Run > Debug

Note on installing CLion on Linux

For some reason, when installing 2018.1 through a package manager, it did not create a desktop entry when I tried it. If you experience this as well:

  1. Option 1
    1. cd /usr/share/applications/
    2. touch clion-2018-1.desktop
    3. open clion-2018-1.desktop and insert:
      [Desktop Entry]
Name=CLion 2018.1
Exec=/opt/clion-2018.1/bin/clion.sh %u
Icon=/opt/clion-2018.1/bin/clion.svg
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;IDE;Java;
StartupWMClass=jetbrains-clion
X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.23
  2. Option 2
    1. Run CLion through the terminal /opt/clion-2018.1/bin/clion.sh
    2. At the startup dialogue, in the bottom right corner, click configure
    3. Click Create Desktop Entry

Optional Performance Steps

Mark directories as Library Files

To speed up CLion, you may optionally mark directories such as src/third_party as Library Files

  1. Open the Project navigation (default Alt 1)
  2. Right click the directory > Mark directory as > Library Files
  3. See https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2015/12/mark-dir-as/ for more details