commit e91224bfaa043bb85cdfa6394f417e400522ff53
parent 807bc00dd68dccb55d5aa12e0a568d2551b08d04
Author: Alex Díaz <4808907+akdev1l@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2025 08:54:17 -0600
build: support static build #34728
Diffstat:
2 files changed, 27 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/BUILD.md b/BUILD.md
@@ -259,6 +259,29 @@ cmake --build build
- Using `ninja` is strongly recommended.
4. If treesitter parsers are not bundled, they need to be available in a `parser/` runtime directory (e.g. `/usr/share/nvim/runtime/parser/`).
+### How to build static binary (on Linux)
+
+1. Use a linux distribution which uses musl C. We will use Alpine Linux but any distro with musl should work. (glibc does not support static linking)
+2. Run make passing the `STATIC_BUILD` variable: `make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DSTATIC_BUILD=1"`
+
+In case you are not using Alpine Linux you can use a container to do the build the binary:
+
+```bash
+podman run \
+ --rm \
+ -it \
+ -v "$PWD:/workdir" \
+ -w /workdir \
+ alpine:latest \
+ bash -c 'apk add build-base cmake coreutils curl gettext-tiny-dev && make CMAKE_EXTRA_FLAGS="-DSTATIC_BUILD=1"'
+```
+
+The resulting binary in `build/bin/nvim` will have all the dependencies statically linked:
+
+```
+build/bin/nvim: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, BuildID[sha1]=b93fa8e678d508ac0a76a2e3da20b119105f1b2d, with debug_info, not stripped
+```
+
#### Debian 10 (Buster) example:
```sh
diff --git a/src/nvim/CMakeLists.txt b/src/nvim/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -748,7 +748,11 @@ endif()
target_sources(nlua0 PUBLIC ${NLUA0_SOURCES})
+if(STATIC_BUILD)
+ target_link_options(nvim_bin PRIVATE -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ -static)
+endif()
target_link_libraries(nvim_bin PRIVATE main_lib PUBLIC libuv)
+
install_helper(TARGETS nvim_bin)
if(MSVC)
install(FILES $<TARGET_PDB_FILE:nvim_bin> DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_BINDIR} OPTIONAL)
