unicorn/docs/COMPILE.md

This HOWTO introduces how to build Unicorn2 natively on Linux/Mac/Windows or cross-build to Windows from Linux host.

Note: By default, CMake will build both the shared and static libraries while only static libraries are built if unicorn is used as a Cmake subdirectory. In most cases, you don't need to care about which kind of library to build. ONLY use BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=noif you know what you are doing.

Native build on Linux/macOS

This builds Unicorn2 on Linux/macOS. Note that this also applies to Apple Silicon M1 users.

• Install cmake and pkg-config with your favorite package manager:

Ubuntu:

sudo apt install cmake pkg-config

macOS:

brew install cmake pkg-config

• Build with the following commands.

mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

Native build on Windows, with MSVC

This builds Unicorn2 on Windows, using Microsoft MSVC compiler.

• Require cmake & Microsoft Visual Studio (>=16.8).

• From Visual Studio Command Prompt, build with the following commands.

mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -G "NMake Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
nmake

Note, other generators like Ninja and Visual Studio 16 2019 would also work.

mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A "win32" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
msbuild unicorn.sln -p:Plaform=Win32 -p:Configuration=Release

Cross build with NDK

To cross-build and run Unicorn2 on the Android platform, firstly you need to download NDK.

For newer NDK, please make sure your cmake version is above 3.19.

Then generate the project like:

mkdir build; cd build;
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$NDK/build/cmake/android.toolchain.cmake -DANDROID_ABI=$ABI -DANDROID_NATIVE_API_LEVEL=$MINSDKVERSION
make

You may get the possible values from this page.

Unicorn2 support cross-build for armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86 and x86_64.

Note the build is only tested and guaranteed to work under Linux and macOS, however, other systems may still work.

Cross build from Linux host to Windows, with Mingw

This cross-builds Unicorn2 from Linux host to Windows, using Mingw compiler.

• Install required package.

sudo apt install mingw-w64-x86-64-dev

• Build Unicorn and samples with the following commands.

mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../mingw64-w64.cmake
make

Native build on Windows host, with MSYS2/Mingw

This builds Unicorn2 on Windows host, using MSYS2/Mingw compiler.

This requires MSYS2 to be installed on the Windows machine. You need to download & install MSYS2 from https://www.msys2.org.

Then from MSYS2 console, install packages below:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-ninja

• Build Unicorn and samples with the following commands.

export PATH=/mingw64/bin:$PATH
mkdir build; cd build
/mingw64/bin/cmake .. -G "Ninja"
ninja -C .

Note that the way to build on MSYS changes as time goes, please keep in mind that always use the cmake shipped with mingw64.

Cross build from Linux host to other architectures

This cross-builds Unicorn2 from Linux host to other architectures, using a cross compiler.

• Install cross compiler package. For example, cross-compile to ARM requires the below command.

sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

• Build Unicorn and samples with the following commands. The compiler name differs according to your targets.

mkdir build; cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf
make

Building from vcpkg

The Unicorn port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. The url of vcpkg is: https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg . You can download and install unicorn using the vcpkg dependency manager:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh  # ./bootstrap-vcpkg.bat for Windows
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install unicorn

If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.