1CCACHE(1)                        ccache Manual                       CCACHE(1)
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3
4

NAME

6       ccache - a fast C/C++ compiler cache
7

SYNOPSIS

9       ccache [options]
10       ccache compiler [compiler options]
11       compiler [compiler options]                   (via symbolic link)
12

DESCRIPTION

14       Ccache is a compiler cache. It speeds up recompilation by caching the
15       result of previous compilations and detecting when the same compilation
16       is being done again.
17
18       Ccache has been carefully written to always produce exactly the same
19       compiler output that you would get without the cache. The only way you
20       should be able to tell that you are using ccache is the speed.
21       Currently known exceptions to this goal are listed under CAVEATS. If
22       you discover an undocumented case where ccache changes the output of
23       your compiler, please let us know.
24

RUN MODES

26       There are two ways to use ccache. You can either prefix your
27       compilation commands with ccache or you can let ccache masquerade as
28       the compiler by creating a symbolic link (named as the compiler) to
29       ccache. The first method is most convenient if you just want to try out
30       ccache or wish to use it for some specific projects. The second method
31       is most useful for when you wish to use ccache for all your
32       compilations.
33
34       To use the first method, just make sure that ccache is in your PATH.
35
36       To use the symlinks method, do something like this:
37
38           cp ccache /usr/local/bin/
39           ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/gcc
40           ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/g++
41           ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/cc
42           ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/c++
43
44       And so forth. This will work as long as the directory with symlinks
45       comes before the path to the compiler (which is usually in /usr/bin).
46       After installing you may wish to run “which gcc” to make sure that the
47       correct link is being used.
48
49           Warning
50           The technique of letting ccache masquerade as the compiler works
51           well, but currently doesn’t interact well with other tools that do
52           the same thing. See Using ccache with other compiler wrappers.
53
54           Warning
55           Use a symbolic links for masquerading, not hard links.
56

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

58       These command line options only apply when you invoke ccache as
59       “ccache”. When invoked as a compiler (via a symlink as described in the
60       previous section), the normal compiler options apply and you should
61       refer to the compiler’s documentation.
62
63   Common options
64       -c, --cleanup
65           Clean up the cache by removing old cached files until the specified
66           file number and cache size limits are not exceeded. This also
67           recalculates the cache file count and size totals. Normally, there
68           is no need to initiate cleanup manually as ccache keeps the cache
69           below the specified limits at runtime and keeps statistics up to
70           date on each compilation. Forcing a cleanup is mostly useful if you
71           manually modify the cache contents or believe that the cache size
72           statistics may be inaccurate.
73
74       -C, --clear
75           Clear the entire cache, removing all cached files, but keeping the
76           configuration file.
77
78       --config-path PATH
79           Let the subsequent command line options operate on configuration
80           file PATH instead of the default. Using this option has the same
81           effect as setting the environment variable CCACHE_CONFIGPATH
82           temporarily.
83
84       -d, --directory PATH
85           Let the subsequent command line options operate on cache directory
86           PATH instead of the default. For example, to show statistics for a
87           cache directory at /shared/ccache you can run ccache -d
88           /shared/ccache -s. Using this option has the same effect as setting
89           the environment variable CCACHE_DIR temporarily.
90
91       --evict-older-than AGE
92           Remove files older than AGE from the cache.  AGE should be an
93           unsigned integer with a d (days) or s (seconds) suffix.
94
95       -h, --help
96           Print a summary of command line options.
97
98       -F NUM, --max-files NUM
99           Set the maximum number of files allowed in the cache to NUM. Use 0
100           for no limit. The value is stored in a configuration file in the
101           cache directory and applies to all future compilations.
102
103       -M SIZE, --max-size SIZE
104           Set the maximum size of the files stored in the cache.  SIZE should
105           be a number followed by an optional suffix: k, M, G, T (decimal),
106           Ki, Mi, Gi or Ti (binary). The default suffix is G. Use 0 for no
107           limit. The value is stored in a configuration file in the cache
108           directory and applies to all future compilations.
109
110       -X LEVEL, --recompress LEVEL
111           Recompress the cache to level LEVEL using the Zstandard algorithm.
112           The level can be an integer, with the same semantics as the
113           compression_level configuration option), or the special value
114           uncompressed for no compression. See Cache compression for more
115           information. This can potentionally take a long time since all
116           files in the cache need to be visited. Only files that are
117           currently compressed with a different level than LEVEL will be
118           recompressed.
119
120       -o KEY=VALUE, --set-config KEY=VALUE
121           Set configuration option KEY to VALUE. See Configuration for more
122           information.
123
124       -x, --show-compression
125           Print cache compression statistics. See Cache compression for more
126           information. This can potentionally take a long time since all
127           files in the cache need to be visited.
128
129       -p, --show-config
130           Print current configuration options and from where they originate
131           (environment variable, configuration file or compile-time default)
132           in human-readable format.
133
134       -s, --show-stats
135           Print a summary of configuration and statistics counters in
136           human-readable format.
137
138       -V, --version
139           Print version and copyright information.
140
141       -z, --zero-stats
142           Zero the cache statistics (but not the configuration options).
143
144   Options for scripting or debugging
145       --checksum-file PATH
146           Print the checksum (64 bit XXH3) of the file at PATH.
147
148       --dump-manifest PATH
149           Dump manifest file at PATH in text format to standard output. This
150           is only useful when debugging ccache and its behavior.
151
152       --dump-result PATH
153           Dump result file at PATH in text format to standard output. This is
154           only useful when debugging ccache and its behavior.
155
156       --extract-result PATH
157           Extract data stored in the result file at PATH. The data will be
158           written to ccache-result.* files in to the current working
159           directory. This is only useful when debugging ccache and its
160           behavior.
161
162       -k KEY, --get-config KEY
163           Print the value of configuration option KEY. See Configuration for
164           more information.
165
166       --hash-file PATH
167           Print the hash (160 bit BLAKE3) of the file at PATH. This is only
168           useful when debugging ccache and its behavior.
169
170       --print-stats
171           Print statistics counter IDs and corresponding values in
172           machine-parsable (tab-separated) format.
173
174   Extra options
175       When run as a compiler, ccache usually just takes the same command line
176       options as the compiler you are using. The only exception to this is
177       the option --ccache-skip. That option can be used to tell ccache to
178       avoid interpreting the next option in any way and to pass it along to
179       the compiler as-is.
180
181           Note
182           --ccache-skip currently only tells ccache not to interpret the next
183           option as a special compiler option — the option will still be
184           included in the direct mode hash.
185
186       The reason this can be important is that ccache does need to parse the
187       command line and determine what is an input filename and what is a
188       compiler option, as it needs the input filename to determine the name
189       of the resulting object file (among other things). The heuristic ccache
190       uses when parsing the command line is that any argument that exists as
191       a file is treated as an input file name. By using --ccache-skip you can
192       force an option to not be treated as an input file name and instead be
193       passed along to the compiler as a command line option.
194
195       Another case where --ccache-skip can be useful is if ccache interprets
196       an option specially but shouldn’t, since the option has another meaning
197       for your compiler than what ccache thinks.
198

CONFIGURATION

200       ccache’s default behavior can be overridden by options in configuration
201       files, which in turn can be overridden by environment variables with
202       names starting with CCACHE_. Ccache normally reads configuration from
203       two files: first a system-level configuration file and secondly a
204       cache-specific configuration file. The priorities of configuration
205       options are as follows (where 1 is highest):
206
207        1. Environment variables.
208
209        2. The primary (cache-specific) configuration file (see below).
210
211        3. The secondary (system-wide read-only) configuration file
212           <sysconfdir>/ccache.conf (typically /etc/ccache.conf or
213           /usr/local/etc/ccache.conf).
214
215        4. Compile-time defaults.
216
217       As a special case, if the the environment variable CCACHE_CONFIGPATH is
218       set it specifies the primary configuration file and the secondary
219       (system-wide) configuration file won’t be read.
220
221   Location of the primary configuration file
222       The location of the primary (cache-specific) configuration is
223       determined like this:
224
225        1. If CCACHE_CONFIGPATH is set, use that path.
226
227        2. Otherwise, if the environment variable CCACHE_DIR is set then use
228           $CCACHE_DIR/ccache.conf.
229
230        3. Otherwise, if cache_dir is set in the secondary (system-wide)
231           configuration file then use <cache_dir>/ccache.conf.
232
233        4. Otherwise, if there is a legacy $HOME/.ccache directory then use
234           $HOME/.ccache/ccache.conf.
235
236        5. Otherwise, if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set then use
237           $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ccache/ccache.conf.
238
239        6. Otherwise, use %APPDATA%/ccache/ccache.conf (Windows),
240           $HOME/Library/Preferences/ccache/ccache.conf (macOS) or
241           $HOME/.config/ccache/ccache.conf (other systems).
242
243   Configuration file syntax
244       Configuration files are in a simple “key = value” format, one option
245       per line. Lines starting with a hash sign are comments. Blank lines are
246       ignored, as is whitespace surrounding keys and values. Example:
247
248           # Set maximum cache size to 10 GB:
249           max_size = 10G
250
251   Boolean values
252       Some configuration options are boolean values (i.e. truth values). In a
253       configuration file, such values must be set to the string true or
254       false. For the corresponding environment variables, the semantics are a
255       bit different:
256
257       •   A set environment variable means “true” (even if set to the empty
258           string).
259
260       •   The following case-insensitive negative values are considered an
261           error (instead of surprising the user): 0, false, disable and no.
262
263       •   An unset environment variable means “false”.
264
265       Each boolean environment variable also has a negated form starting with
266       CCACHE_NO. For example, CCACHE_COMPRESS can be set to force compression
267       and CCACHE_NOCOMPRESS can be set to force no compression.
268
269   Configuration options
270       Below is a list of available configuration options. The corresponding
271       environment variable name is indicated in parentheses after each
272       configuration option key.
273
274       absolute_paths_in_stderr (CCACHE_ABSSTDERR)
275           This option specifies whether ccache should rewrite relative paths
276           in the compiler’s standard error output to absolute paths. This can
277           be useful if you use base_dir with a build system (e.g. CMake with
278           the "Unix Makefiles" generator) that executes the compiler in a
279           different working directory, which makes relative paths in compiler
280           errors or warnings incorrect. The default is false.
281
282       base_dir (CCACHE_BASEDIR)
283           This option should be an absolute path to a directory. If set,
284           ccache will rewrite absolute paths into paths relative to the
285           current working directory, but only absolute paths that begin with
286           base_dir. Cache results can then be shared for compilations in
287           different directories even if the project uses absolute paths in
288           the compiler command line. See also the discussion under Compiling
289           in different directories. If set to the empty string (which is the
290           default), no rewriting is done.
291
292           A typical path to use as base_dir is your home directory or another
293           directory that is a parent of your project directories. Don’t use /
294           as the base directory since that will make ccache also rewrite
295           paths to system header files, which typically is contraproductive.
296
297           For example, say that Alice’s current working directory is
298           /home/alice/project1/build and that she compiles like this:
299
300               ccache gcc -I/usr/include/example -I/home/alice/project2/include -c /home/alice/project1/src/example.c
301
302           Here is what ccache will actually execute for different base_dir
303           values:
304
305               # Current working directory: /home/alice/project1/build
306
307               # With base_dir = /:
308               gcc -I../../../../usr/include/example -I../../project2/include -c ../src/example.c
309
310               # With base_dir = /home or /home/alice:
311               gcc -I/usr/include/example -I../../project2/include -c ../src/example.c
312
313               # With base_dir = /home/alice/project1 or /home/alice/project1/src:
314               gcc -I/usr/include/example -I/home/alice/project2/include -c ../src/example.c
315
316           If Bob has put project1 and project2 in /home/bob/stuff and both
317           users have set base_dir to /home or /home/$USER, then Bob will get
318           a cache hit (if they share ccache directory) since the actual
319           command line will be identical to that of Alice:
320
321               # Current working directory: /home/bob/stuff/project1/build
322
323               # With base_dir = /home or /home/bob:
324               gcc -I/usr/include/example -I../../project2/include -c ../src/example.c
325
326           Without base_dir there will be a cache miss since the absolute
327           paths will differ. With base_dir set to / there will be a cache
328           miss since the relative path to /usr/include/example will be
329           different. With base_dir set to /home/bob/stuff/project1 there will
330           a cache miss since the path to project2 will be a different
331           absolute path.
332
333       cache_dir (CCACHE_DIR)
334           This option specifies where ccache will keep its cached compiler
335           outputs. The default is $XDG_CACHE_HOME/ccache if XDG_CACHE_HOME is
336           set, otherwise $HOME/.cache/ccache. Exception: If the legacy
337           directory $HOME/.ccache exists then that directory is the default.
338
339           See also Location of the primary configuration file.
340
341           If you want to use another CCACHE_DIR value temporarily for one
342           ccache invocation you can use the -d/--directory command line
343           option instead.
344
345       compiler (CCACHE_COMPILER or (deprecated) CCACHE_CC)
346           This option can be used to force the name of the compiler to use.
347           If set to the empty string (which is the default), ccache works it
348           out from the command line.
349
350       compiler_check (CCACHE_COMPILERCHECK)
351           By default, ccache includes the modification time (“mtime”) and
352           size of the compiler in the hash to ensure that results retrieved
353           from the cache are accurate. This option can be used to select
354           another strategy. Possible values are:
355
356           content
357               Hash the content of the compiler binary. This makes ccache very
358               slightly slower compared to mtime, but makes it cope better
359               with compiler upgrades during a build bootstrapping process.
360
361           mtime
362               Hash the compiler’s mtime and size, which is fast. This is the
363               default.
364
365           none
366               Don’t hash anything. This may be good for situations where you
367               can safely use the cached results even though the compiler’s
368               mtime or size has changed (e.g. if the compiler is built as
369               part of your build system and the compiler’s source has not
370               changed, or if the compiler only has changes that don’t affect
371               code generation). You should only use none if you know what you
372               are doing.
373
374           string:value
375               Hash value. This can for instance be a compiler revision number
376               or another string that the build system generates to identify
377               the compiler.
378
379           a command string
380               Hash the standard output and standard error output of the
381               specified command. The string will be split on whitespace to
382               find out the command and arguments to run. No other
383               interpretation of the command string will be done, except that
384               the special word %compiler% will be replaced with the path to
385               the compiler. Several commands can be specified with semicolon
386               as separator. Examples:
387
388                   %compiler% -v
389
390                   %compiler% -dumpmachine; %compiler% -dumpversion
391
392               You should make sure that the specified command is as fast as
393               possible since it will be run once for each ccache invocation.
394
395               Identifying the compiler using a command is useful if you want
396               to avoid cache misses when the compiler has been rebuilt but
397               not changed.
398
399               Another case is when the compiler (as seen by ccache) actually
400               isn’t the real compiler but another compiler wrapper — in that
401               case, the default mtime method will hash the mtime and size of
402               the other compiler wrapper, which means that ccache won’t be
403               able to detect a compiler upgrade. Using a suitable command to
404               identify the compiler is thus safer, but it’s also slower, so
405               you should consider continue using the mtime method in
406               combination with the prefix_command option if possible. See
407               Using ccache with other compiler wrappers.
408
409       compiler_type (CCACHE_COMPILERTYPE)
410           Ccache normally guesses the compiler type based on the compiler
411           name. The compiler_type option lets you force a compiler type. This
412           can be useful if the compiler has a non-standard name but is
413           actually one of the known compiler types. Possible values are:
414
415           auto
416               Guess one of the types below based on the compiler name
417               (following symlinks). This is the default.
418
419           clang
420               Clang-based compiler.
421
422           gcc
423               GCC-based compiler.
424
425           nvcc
426               NVCC (CUDA) compiler.
427
428           other
429               Any compiler other than the known types.
430
431           pump
432               distcc’s "pump" script.
433
434       compression (CCACHE_COMPRESS or CCACHE_NOCOMPRESS, see Boolean values
435       above)
436           If true, ccache will compress data it puts in the cache. However,
437           this option has no effect on how files are retrieved from the
438           cache; compressed and uncompressed results will still be usable
439           regardless of this option. The default is true.
440
441           Compression is done using the Zstandard algorithm. The algorithm is
442           fast enough that there should be little reason to turn off
443           compression to gain performance. One exception is if the cache is
444           located on a compressed file system, in which case the compression
445           performed by ccache of course is redundant.
446
447           Compression will be disabled if file cloning (the file_clone
448           option) or hard linking (the hard_link option) is enabled.
449
450       compression_level (CCACHE_COMPRESSLEVEL)
451           This option determines the level at which ccache will compress
452           object files using the real-time compression algorithm Zstandard.
453           It only has effect if compression is enabled (which it is by
454           default). Zstandard is extremely fast for decompression and very
455           fast for compression for lower compression levels. The default is
456           0.
457
458           Semantics of compression_level:
459
460           > 0
461               A positive value corresponds to normal Zstandard compression
462               levels. Lower levels (e.g.  1) mean faster compression but
463               worse compression ratio. Higher levels (e.g.  19) mean slower
464               compression but better compression ratio. The maximum possible
465               value depends on the libzstd version, but at least up to 19 is
466               available for all versions. Decompression speed is essentially
467               the same for all levels. As a rule of thumb, use level 5 or
468               lower since higher levels may slow down compilations
469               noticeably. Higher levels are however useful when recompressing
470               the cache with command line option -X/--recompress.
471
472           < 0
473               A negative value corresponds to Zstandard’s “ultra-fast”
474               compression levels, which are even faster than level 1 but with
475               less good compression ratios. For instance, level -3
476               corresponds to “--fast=3” for the zstd command line tool. In
477               practice, there is little use for levels lower than -5 or so.
478
479           0 (default)
480               The value 0 means that ccache will choose a suitable level,
481               currently 1.
482
483           See the Zstandard documentation for more information.
484
485       cpp_extension (CCACHE_EXTENSION)
486           This option can be used to force a certain extension for the
487           intermediate preprocessed file. The default is to automatically
488           determine the extension to use for intermediate preprocessor files
489           based on the type of file being compiled, but that sometimes
490           doesn’t work. For example, when using the “aCC” compiler on HP-UX,
491           set the cpp extension to i.
492
493       debug (CCACHE_DEBUG or CCACHE_NODEBUG, see Boolean values above)
494           If true, enable the debug mode. The debug mode creates per-object
495           debug files that are helpful when debugging unexpected cache
496           misses. Note however that ccache performance will be reduced
497           slightly. See Cache debugging for more information. The default is
498           false.
499
500       debug_dir (CCACHE_DEBUGDIR)
501           Specifies where to write per-object debug files if the debug mode
502           is enabled. If set to the empty string, the files will be written
503           next to the object file. If set to a directory, the debug files
504           will be written with full absolute paths in that directory,
505           creating it if needed. The default is the empty string.
506
507           For example, if debug_dir is set to /example, the current working
508           directory is /home/user and the object file is build/output.o then
509           the debug log will be written to
510           /example/home/user/build/output.o.ccache-log. See also Cache
511           debugging.
512
513       depend_mode (CCACHE_DEPEND or CCACHE_NODEPEND, see Boolean values
514       above)
515           If true, the depend mode will be used. The default is false. See
516           The depend mode.
517
518       direct_mode (CCACHE_DIRECT or CCACHE_NODIRECT, see Boolean values
519       above)
520           If true, the direct mode will be used. The default is true. See The
521           direct mode.
522
523       disable (CCACHE_DISABLE or CCACHE_NODISABLE, see Boolean values above)
524           When true, ccache will just call the real compiler, bypassing the
525           cache completely. The default is false.
526
527       extra_files_to_hash (CCACHE_EXTRAFILES)
528           This option is a list of paths to files that ccache will include in
529           the the hash sum that identifies the build. The list separator is
530           semicolon on Windows systems and colon on other systems.
531
532       file_clone (CCACHE_FILECLONE or CCACHE_NOFILECLONE, see Boolean values
533       above)
534           If true, ccache will attempt to use file cloning (also known as
535           “copy on write”, “CoW” or “reflinks”) to store and fetch cached
536           compiler results.  file_clone has priority over hard_link. The
537           default is false.
538
539           Files stored by cloning cannot be compressed, so the cache size
540           will likely be significantly larger if this option is enabled.
541           However, performance may be improved depending on the use case.
542
543           Unlike the hard_link option, file_clone is completely safe to use,
544           but not all file systems support the feature. For such file
545           systems, ccache will fall back to use plain copying (or hard links
546           if hard_link is enabled).
547
548       hard_link (CCACHE_HARDLINK or CCACHE_NOHARDLINK, see Boolean values
549       above)
550           If true, ccache will attempt to use hard links to store and fetch
551           cached object files. The default is false.
552
553           Files stored via hard links cannot be compressed, so the cache size
554           will likely be significantly larger if this option is enabled.
555           However, performance may be improved depending on the use case.
556
557               Warning
558               Do not enable this option unless you are aware of these
559               caveats:
560
561           •   If the resulting file is modified, the file in the cache will
562               also be modified since they share content, which corrupts the
563               cache entry. As of version 4.0, ccache makes stored and fetched
564               object files read-only as a safety measure guard. Furthermore,
565               a simple integrity check is made for cached object files by
566               verifying that their sizes are correct. This means that
567               mistakes like strip file.o or echo >file.o will be detected
568               even if the object file is made writeable, but a modification
569               that doesn’t change the file size will not.
570
571           •   Programs that don’t expect that files from two different
572               identical compilations are hard links to each other can fail.
573
574           •   Programs that rely on modification times (like “make”) can be
575               confused if several users (or one user with several build
576               trees) use the same cache directory. The reason for this is
577               that the object files share i-nodes and therefore modification
578               times. If file.o is in build tree A (hard-linked from the
579               cache) and file.o then is produced by ccache in build tree B by
580               hard-linking from the cache, the modification timestamp will be
581               updated for file.o in build tree A as well. This can retrigger
582               relinking in build tree A even though nothing really has
583               changed.
584
585       hash_dir (CCACHE_HASHDIR or CCACHE_NOHASHDIR, see Boolean values above)
586           If true (which is the default), ccache will include the current
587           working directory (CWD) in the hash that is used to distinguish two
588           compilations when generating debug info (compiler option -g with
589           variations). Exception: The CWD will not be included in the hash if
590           base_dir is set (and matches the CWD) and the compiler option
591           -fdebug-prefix-map is used. See also the discussion under Compiling
592           in different directories.
593
594           The reason for including the CWD in the hash by default is to
595           prevent a problem with the storage of the current working directory
596           in the debug info of an object file, which can lead ccache to
597           return a cached object file that has the working directory in the
598           debug info set incorrectly.
599
600           You can disable this option to get cache hits when compiling the
601           same source code in different directories if you don’t mind that
602           CWD in the debug info might be incorrect.
603
604       ignore_headers_in_manifest (CCACHE_IGNOREHEADERS)
605           This option is a list of paths to files (or directories with
606           headers) that ccache will not include in the manifest list that
607           makes up the direct mode. Note that this can cause stale cache hits
608           if those headers do indeed change. The list separator is semicolon
609           on Windows systems and colon on other systems.
610
611       ignore_options (CCACHE_IGNOREOPTIONS)
612           This option is a space-delimited list of compiler options that
613           ccache will exclude from the hash. Excluding a compiler option from
614           the hash can be useful when you know it doesn’t affect the result
615           (but ccache doesn’t know that), or when it does and you don’t care.
616           If a compiler option in the list is suffixed with an asterisk (*)
617           it will be matched as a prefix. For example, -fmessage-length=*
618           will match both -fmessage-length=20 and -fmessage-length=70.
619
620       inode_cache (CCACHE_INODECACHE or CCACHE_NOINODECACHE, see Boolean
621       values above)
622           If true, enables caching of source file hashes based on device,
623           inode and timestamps. This will reduce the time spent on hashing
624           included files as the result can be resused between compilations.
625
626           The feature is still experimental and thus off by default. It is
627           currently not available on Windows.
628
629           The feature requires temporary_dir to be located on a local
630           filesystem.
631
632       keep_comments_cpp (CCACHE_COMMENTS or CCACHE_NOCOMMENTS, see Boolean
633       values above)
634           If true, ccache will not discard the comments before hashing
635           preprocessor output. This can be used to check documentation with
636           -Wdocumentation.
637
638       limit_multiple (CCACHE_LIMIT_MULTIPLE)
639           Sets the limit when cleaning up. Files are deleted (in LRU order)
640           until the levels are below the limit. The default is 0.8 (= 80%).
641           See Automatic cleanup for more information.
642
643       log_file (CCACHE_LOGFILE)
644           If set to a file path, ccache will write information on what it is
645           doing to the specified file. This is useful for tracking down
646           problems.
647
648           If set to syslog, ccache will log using syslog() instead of to a
649           file. If you use rsyslogd, you can add something like this to
650           /etc/rsyslog.conf or a file in /etc/rsyslog.d:
651
652               # log ccache to file
653               :programname, isequal, "ccache"         /var/log/ccache
654               # remove from syslog
655               & ~
656
657       max_files (CCACHE_MAXFILES)
658           This option specifies the maximum number of files to keep in the
659           cache. Use 0 for no limit (which is the default). See also Cache
660           size management.
661
662       max_size (CCACHE_MAXSIZE)
663           This option specifies the maximum size of the cache. Use 0 for no
664           limit. The default value is 5G. Available suffixes: k, M, G, T
665           (decimal) and Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti (binary). The default suffix is G. See
666           also Cache size management.
667
668       path (CCACHE_PATH)
669           If set, ccache will search directories in this list when looking
670           for the real compiler. The list separator is semicolon on Windows
671           systems and colon on other systems. If not set, ccache will look
672           for the first executable matching the compiler name in the normal
673           PATH that isn’t a symbolic link to ccache itself.
674
675       pch_external_checksum (CCACHE_PCH_EXTSUM or CCACHE_NOPCH_EXTSUM, see
676       Boolean values above)
677           When this option is set, and ccache finds a precompiled header
678           file, ccache will look for a file with the extension “.sum” added
679           (e.g. “pre.h.gch.sum”), and if found, it will hash this file
680           instead of the precompiled header itself to work around the
681           performance penalty of hashing very large files.
682
683       prefix_command (CCACHE_PREFIX)
684           This option adds a list of prefixes (separated by space) to the
685           command line that ccache uses when invoking the compiler. See also
686           Using ccache with other compiler wrappers.
687
688       prefix_command_cpp (CCACHE_PREFIX_CPP)
689           This option adds a list of prefixes (separated by space) to the
690           command line that ccache uses when invoking the preprocessor.
691
692       read_only (CCACHE_READONLY or CCACHE_NOREADONLY, see Boolean values
693       above)
694           If true, ccache will attempt to use existing cached results, but it
695           will not add new results to the cache. Statistics counters will
696           still be updated, though, unless the stats option is set to false.
697
698           If you are using this because your ccache directory is read-only,
699           you need to set temporary_dir since ccache will fail to create
700           temporary files otherwise. You may also want to set stats to false
701           make ccache not even try to update stats files.
702
703       read_only_direct (CCACHE_READONLY_DIRECT or CCACHE_NOREADONLY_DIRECT,
704       see Boolean values above)
705           Just like read_only except that ccache will only try to retrieve
706           results from the cache using the direct mode, not the preprocessor
707           mode. See documentation for read_only regarding using a read-only
708           ccache directory.
709
710       recache (CCACHE_RECACHE or CCACHE_NORECACHE, see Boolean values above)
711           If true, ccache will not use any previously stored result. New
712           results will still be cached, possibly overwriting any pre-existing
713           results.
714
715       run_second_cpp (CCACHE_CPP2 or CCACHE_NOCPP2, see Boolean values above)
716           If true, ccache will first run the preprocessor to preprocess the
717           source code (see The preprocessor mode) and then on a cache miss
718           run the compiler on the source code to get hold of the object file.
719           This is the default.
720
721           If false, ccache will first run preprocessor to preprocess the
722           source code and then on a cache miss run the compiler on the
723           preprocessed source code instead of the original source code. This
724           makes cache misses slightly faster since the source code only has
725           to be preprocessed once. The downside is that some compilers won’t
726           produce the same result (for instance diagnostics warnings) when
727           compiling preprocessed source code.
728
729           A solution to the above mentioned downside is to set run_second_cpp
730           to false and pass -fdirectives-only (for GCC) or -frewrite-includes
731           (for Clang) to the compiler. This will cause the compiler to leave
732           the macros and other preprocessor information, and only process the
733           #include directives. When run in this way, the preprocessor
734           arguments will be passed to the compiler since it still has to do
735           some preprocessing (like macros).
736
737       sloppiness (CCACHE_SLOPPINESS)
738           By default, ccache tries to give as few false cache hits as
739           possible. However, in certain situations it’s possible that you
740           know things that ccache can’t take for granted. This option makes
741           it possible to tell ccache to relax some checks in order to
742           increase the hit rate. The value should be a comma-separated string
743           with one or several of the following values:
744
745           clang_index_store
746               Ignore the Clang compiler option -index-store-path and its
747               argument when computing the manifest hash. This is useful if
748               you use Xcode, which uses an index store path derived from the
749               local project path. Note that the index store won’t be updated
750               correctly on cache hits if you enable this sloppiness.
751
752           file_stat_matches
753               Ccache normally examines a file’s contents to determine whether
754               it matches the cached version. With this sloppiness set, ccache
755               will consider a file as matching its cached version if the
756               mtimes and ctimes match.
757
758           file_stat_matches_ctime
759               Ignore ctimes when file_stat_matches is enabled. This can be
760               useful when backdating files' mtimes in a controlled way.
761
762           include_file_ctime
763               By default, ccache will not cache a file if it includes a
764               header whose ctime is too new. This sloppiness disables that
765               check. See also Handling of newly created header files.
766
767           include_file_mtime
768               By default, ccache will not cache a file if it includes a
769               header whose mtime is too new. This sloppiness disables that
770               check. See also Handling of newly created header files.
771
772           locale
773               Ccache includes the environment variables LANG, LC_ALL,
774               LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES in the hash by default since they may
775               affect localization of compiler warning messages. Set this
776               sloppiness to tell ccache not to do that.
777
778           pch_defines
779               Be sloppy about #defines when precompiling a header file. See
780               Precompiled headers for more information.
781
782           modules
783               By default, ccache will not cache compilations if -fmodules is
784               used since it cannot hash the state of compiler’s internal
785               representation of relevant modules. This sloppiness allows
786               caching in such a case. See C++ modules for more information.
787
788           system_headers
789               By default, ccache will also include all system headers in the
790               manifest. With this sloppiness set, ccache will only include
791               system headers in the hash but not add the system header files
792               to the list of include files.
793
794           time_macros
795               Ignore __DATE__, __TIME__ and __TIMESTAMP__ being present in
796               the source code.
797
798           See the discussion under Troubleshooting for more information.
799
800       stats (CCACHE_STATS or CCACHE_NOSTATS, see Boolean values above)
801           If true, ccache will update the statistics counters on each
802           compilation. The default is true.
803
804       temporary_dir (CCACHE_TEMPDIR)
805           This option specifies where ccache will put temporary files. The
806           default is /run/user/<UID>/ccache-tmp if /run/user/<UID> exists,
807           otherwise <cache_dir>/tmp.
808
809               Note
810               In previous versions of ccache, CCACHE_TEMPDIR had to be on the
811               same filesystem as the CCACHE_DIR path, but this requirement
812               has been relaxed.)
813
814       umask (CCACHE_UMASK)
815           This option specifies the umask for files and directories in the
816           cache directory. This is mostly useful when you wish to share your
817           cache with other users.
818

CACHE SIZE MANAGEMENT

820       By default, ccache has a 5 GB limit on the total size of files in the
821       cache and no limit on the number of files. You can set different limits
822       using the command line options -M/--max-size and -F/--max-files. Use
823       ccache -s/--show-stats to see the cache size and the currently
824       configured limits (in addition to other various statistics).
825
826       Cleanup can be triggered in two different ways: automatic and manual.
827
828   Automatic cleanup
829       Ccache maintains counters for various statistics about the cache,
830       including the size and number of all cached files. In order to improve
831       performance and reduce issues with concurrent ccache invocations, there
832       is one statistics file for each of the sixteen subdirectories in the
833       cache.
834
835       After a new compilation result has been written to the cache, ccache
836       will update the size and file number statistics for the subdirectory
837       (one of sixteen) to which the result was written. Then, if the size
838       counter for said subdirectory is greater than max_size / 16 or the file
839       number counter is greater than max_files / 16, automatic cleanup is
840       triggered.
841
842       When automatic cleanup is triggered for a subdirectory in the cache,
843       ccache will:
844
845        1. Count all files in the subdirectory and compute their aggregated
846           size.
847
848        2. Remove files in LRU (least recently used) order until the size is
849           at most limit_multiple * max_size / 16 and the number of files is
850           at most limit_multiple * max_files / 16, where limit_multiple,
851           max_size and max_files are configuration options.
852
853        3. Set the size and file number counters to match the files that were
854           kept.
855
856       The reason for removing more files than just those needed to not exceed
857       the max limits is that a cleanup is a fairly slow operation, so it
858       would not be a good idea to trigger it often, like after each cache
859       miss.
860
861   Manual cleanup
862       You can run ccache -c/--cleanup to force cleanup of the whole cache,
863       i.e. all of the sixteen subdirectories. This will recalculate the
864       statistics counters and make sure that the configuration options
865       max_size and max_files are not exceeded. Note that limit_multiple is
866       not taken into account for manual cleanup.
867

CACHE COMPRESSION

869       Ccache will by default compress all data it puts into the cache using
870       the compression algorithm Zstandard (zstd) using compression level 1.
871       The algorithm is fast enough that there should be little reason to turn
872       off compression to gain performance. One exception is if the cache is
873       located on a compressed file system, in which case the compression
874       performed by ccache of course is redundant. See the documentation for
875       the configuration options compression and compression_level for more
876       information.
877
878       You can use the command line option -x/--show-compression to print
879       information related to compression. Example:
880
881           Total data:              14.8 GB (16.0 GB disk blocks)
882           Compressed data:         11.3 GB (30.6% of original size)
883             - Original data:       36.9 GB
884             - Compression ratio:  3.267 x  (69.4% space savings)
885           Incompressible data:      3.5 GB
886
887       Notes:
888
889       •   The “disk blocks” size is the cache size when taking disk block
890           size into account. This value should match the “cache size” value
891           from “ccache --show-stats”. The other size numbers refer to actual
892           content sizes.
893
894       •   “Compressed data” refers to result and manifest files stored in the
895           cache.
896
897       •   “Incompressible data” refers to files that are always stored
898           uncompressed (triggered by enabling file_clone or hard_link) or
899           unknown files (for instance files created by older ccache
900           versions).
901
902       •   The compression ratio is affected by compression_level.
903
904       The cache data can also be recompressed to another compression level
905       (or made uncompressed) with the command line option -X/--recompress. If
906       you choose to disable compression by default or to use a low
907       compression level, you can (re)compress newly cached data with a higher
908       compression level after the build or at another time when there are
909       more CPU cycles available, for instance every night. Full recompression
910       potentially takes a lot of time, but only files that are currently
911       compressed with a different level than the target level will be
912       recompressed.
913

CACHE STATISTICS

915       ccache -s/--show-stats can show the following statistics:
916
917       ┌───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┐
918Name                       Description                
919       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
920       │                           │                            │
921       │autoconf compile/link      │ Uncachable compilation or  │
922       │                           │ linking by an autoconf     │
923       │                           │ test.                      │
924       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
925       │                           │                            │
926       │bad compiler arguments     │ Malformed compiler         │
927       │                           │ argument, e.g. missing a   │
928       │                           │ value for a compiler       │
929       │                           │ option that requires an    │
930       │                           │ argument or failure to     │
931       │                           │ read a file specified by a │
932       │                           │ compiler option argument.  │
933       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
934       │                           │                            │
935       │cache file missing         │ A file was unexpectedly    │
936       │                           │ missing from the cache.    │
937       │                           │ This only happens in rare  │
938       │                           │ situations, e.g. if one    │
939       │                           │ ccache instance is about   │
940       │                           │ to get a file from the     │
941       │                           │ cache while another        │
942       │                           │ instance removed the file  │
943       │                           │ as part of cache cleanup.  │
944       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
945       │                           │                            │
946       │cache hit (direct)         │ A result was successfully  │
947       │                           │ found using the direct     │
948       │                           │ mode.                      │
949       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
950       │                           │                            │
951       │cache hit (preprocessed)   │ A result was successfully  │
952       │                           │ found using the            │
953       │                           │ preprocessor mode.         │
954       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
955       │                           │                            │
956       │cache miss                 │ No result was found.       │
957       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
958       │                           │                            │
959       │cache size                 │ Current size of the cache. │
960       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
961       │                           │                            │
962       │called for link            │ The compiler was called    │
963       │                           │ for linking, not           │
964       │                           │ compiling. Ccache only     │
965       │                           │ supports compilation of a  │
966       │                           │ single file, i.e. calling  │
967       │                           │ the compiler with the -c   
968       │                           │ option to produce a single │
969       │                           │ object file from a single  │
970       │                           │ source file.               │
971       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
972       │                           │                            │
973       │called for preprocessing   │ The compiler was called    │
974       │                           │ for preprocessing, not     │
975       │                           │ compiling.                 │
976       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
977       │                           │                            │
978       │can’t use precompiled      │ Preconditions for using    │
979       │header                     │ precompiled headers were   │
980       │                           │ not fulfilled.             │
981       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
982       │                           │                            │
983       │can’t use modules          │ Preconditions for using    │
984       │                           │ C++ modules were not       │
985       │                           │ fulfilled.                 │
986       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
987       │                           │                            │
988       │ccache internal error      │ Unexpected failure, e.g.   │
989       │                           │ due to problems            │
990       │                           │ reading/writing the cache. │
991       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
992       │                           │                            │
993       │cleanups performed         │ Number of cleanups         │
994       │                           │ performed, either          │
995       │                           │ implicitly due to the      │
996       │                           │ cache size limit being     │
997       │                           │ reached or due to explicit │
998       │                           │ ccache -c/--cleanup calls. │
999       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1000       │                           │                            │
1001       │compile failed             │ The compilation failed. No │
1002       │                           │ result stored in the       │
1003       │                           │ cache.                     │
1004       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1005       │                           │                            │
1006       │compiler check failed      │ A compiler check program   │
1007       │                           │ specified by               │
1008       │                           │ compiler_check             
1009       │                           │ (CCACHE_COMPILERCHECK)     │
1010       │                           │ failed.                    │
1011       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1012       │                           │                            │
1013       │compiler produced empty    │ The compiler’s output file │
1014       │output                     │ (typically an object file) │
1015       │                           │ was empty after            │
1016       │                           │ compilation.               │
1017       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1018       │                           │                            │
1019       │compiler produced no       │ The compiler’s output file │
1020       │output                     │ (typically an object file) │
1021       │                           │ was missing after          │
1022       │                           │ compilation.               │
1023       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1024       │                           │                            │
1025       │compiler produced stdout   │ The compiler wrote data to │
1026       │                           │ standard output. This is   │
1027       │                           │ something that compilers   │
1028       │                           │ normally never do, so      │
1029       │                           │ ccache is not designed to  │
1030       │                           │ store such output in the   │
1031       │                           │ cache.                     │
1032       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1033       │                           │                            │
1034       │couldn’t find the compiler │ The compiler to execute    │
1035       │                           │ could not be found.        │
1036       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1037       │                           │                            │
1038       │error hashing extra file   │ Failure reading a file     │
1039       │                           │ specified by               │
1040       │                           │ extra_files_to_hash        
1041       │                           │ (CCACHE_EXTRAFILES).       │
1042       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1043       │                           │                            │
1044       │files in cache             │ Current number of files in │
1045       │                           │ the cache.                 │
1046       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1047       │                           │                            │
1048       │multiple source files      │ The compiler was called to │
1049       │                           │ compile multiple source    │
1050       │                           │ files in one go. This is   │
1051       │                           │ not supported by ccache.   │
1052       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1053       │                           │                            │
1054       │no input file              │ No input file was          │
1055       │                           │ specified to the compiler. │
1056       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1057       │                           │                            │
1058       │output to a non-regular    │ The output path specified  │
1059       │file                       │ with -o is not a file      │
1060       │                           │ (e.g. a directory or a     │
1061       │                           │ device node).              │
1062       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1063       │                           │                            │
1064       │output to stdout           │ The compiler was           │
1065       │                           │ instructed to write its    │
1066       │                           │ output to standard output  │
1067       │                           │ using -o -. This is not    │
1068       │                           │ supported by ccache.       │
1069       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1070       │                           │                            │
1071       │preprocessor error         │ Preprocessing the source   │
1072       │                           │ code using the compiler’s  │
1073       │                           │ -E option failed.          │
1074       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1075       │                           │                            │
1076       │stats updated              │ When statistics were       │
1077       │                           │ updated the last time.     │
1078       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1079       │                           │                            │
1080       │stats zeroed               │ When ccache -z was called  │
1081       │                           │ the last time.             │
1082       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1083       │                           │                            │
1084       │unsupported code directive │ Code like the assembler    │
1085       │                           │ .incbin directive was      │
1086       │                           │ found. This is not         │
1087       │                           │ supported by ccache.       │
1088       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1089       │                           │                            │
1090       │unsupported compiler       │ A compiler option not      │
1091       │option                     │ supported by ccache was    │
1092       │                           │ found.                     │
1093       ├───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┤
1094       │                           │                            │
1095       │unsupported source         │ A source language e.g.     │
1096       │language                   │ specified with -x was      │
1097       │                           │ unsupported by ccache.     │
1098       └───────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┘
1099

HOW CCACHE WORKS

1101       The basic idea is to detect when you are compiling exactly the same
1102       code a second time and reuse the previously produced output. The
1103       detection is done by hashing different kinds of information that should
1104       be unique for the compilation and then using the hash sum to identify
1105       the cached output. Ccache uses BLAKE3, a very fast cryptographic hash
1106       algorithm, for the hashing. On a cache hit, ccache is able to supply
1107       all of the correct compiler outputs (including all warnings, dependency
1108       file, etc) from the cache. Data stored in the cache is checksummed with
1109       XXH3, an extremely fast non-cryptographic algorithm, to detect
1110       corruption.
1111
1112       Ccache has two ways of gathering information used to look up results in
1113       the cache:
1114
1115       •   the preprocessor mode, where ccache runs the preprocessor on the
1116           source code and hashes the result
1117
1118       •   the direct mode, where ccache hashes the source code and include
1119           files directly
1120
1121       The direct mode is generally faster since running the preprocessor has
1122       some overhead.
1123
1124       If no previous result is detected (i.e., there is a cache miss) using
1125       the direct mode, ccache will fall back to the preprocessor mode unless
1126       the depend mode is enabled. In the depend mode, ccache never runs the
1127       preprocessor, not even on cache misses. Read more in The depend mode
1128       below.
1129
1130   Common hashed information
1131       The following information is always included in the hash:
1132
1133       •   the extension used by the compiler for a file with preprocessor
1134           output (normally .i for C code and .ii for C++ code)
1135
1136       •   the compiler’s size and modification time (or other
1137           compiler-specific information specified by compiler_check)
1138
1139       •   the name of the compiler
1140
1141       •   the current directory (if hash_dir is enabled)
1142
1143       •   contents of files specified by extra_files_to_hash (if any)
1144
1145   The preprocessor mode
1146       In the preprocessor mode, the hash is formed of the common information
1147       and:
1148
1149       •   the preprocessor output from running the compiler with -E
1150
1151       •   the command line options except those that affect include files
1152           (-I, -include, -D, etc; the theory is that these command line
1153           options will change the preprocessor output if they have any effect
1154           at all)
1155
1156       •   any standard error output generated by the preprocessor
1157
1158       Based on the hash, the cached compilation result can be looked up
1159       directly in the cache.
1160
1161   The direct mode
1162       In the direct mode, the hash is formed of the common information and:
1163
1164       •   the input source file
1165
1166       •   the compiler options
1167
1168       Based on the hash, a data structure called “manifest” is looked up in
1169       the cache. The manifest contains:
1170
1171       •   references to cached compilation results (object file, dependency
1172           file, etc) that were produced by previous compilations that matched
1173           the hash
1174
1175       •   paths to the include files that were read at the time the
1176           compilation results were stored in the cache
1177
1178       •   hash sums of the include files at the time the compilation results
1179           were stored in the cache
1180
1181       The current contents of the include files are then hashed and compared
1182       to the information in the manifest. If there is a match, ccache knows
1183       the result of the compilation. If there is no match, ccache falls back
1184       to running the preprocessor. The output from the preprocessor is parsed
1185       to find the include files that were read. The paths and hash sums of
1186       those include files are then stored in the manifest along with
1187       information about the produced compilation result.
1188
1189       There is a catch with the direct mode: header files that were used by
1190       the compiler are recorded, but header files that were not used, but
1191       would have been used if they existed, are not. So, when ccache checks
1192       if a result can be taken from the cache, it currently can’t check if
1193       the existence of a new header file should invalidate the result. In
1194       practice, the direct mode is safe to use in the absolute majority of
1195       cases.
1196
1197       The direct mode will be disabled if any of the following holds:
1198
1199direct_mode is false
1200
1201       •   a modification time of one of the include files is too new (needed
1202           to avoid a race condition)
1203
1204       •   a compiler option not supported by the direct mode is used:
1205
1206           •   a -Wp,X compiler option other than -Wp,-MD,path, -Wp,-MMD,path
1207               and -Wp,-D_define_
1208
1209-Xpreprocessor
1210
1211       •   the string __TIME__ is present in the source code
1212
1213   The depend mode
1214       If the depend mode is enabled, ccache will not use the preprocessor at
1215       all. The hash used to identify results in the cache will be based on
1216       the direct mode hash described above plus information about include
1217       files read from the dependency file generated by the compiler with -MD
1218       or -MMD.
1219
1220       Advantages:
1221
1222       •   The ccache overhead of a cache miss will be much smaller.
1223
1224       •   Not running the preprocessor at all can be good if compilation is
1225           performed remotely, for instance when using distcc or similar;
1226           ccache then won’t make potentially costly preprocessor calls on the
1227           local machine.
1228
1229       Disadvantages:
1230
1231       •   The cache hit rate will likely be lower since any change to
1232           compiler options or source code will make the hash different.
1233           Compare this with the default setup where ccache will fall back to
1234           the preprocessor mode, which is tolerant to some types of changes
1235           of compiler options and source code changes.
1236
1237       •   If -MD is used, the manifest entries will include system header
1238           files as well, thus slowing down cache hits slightly, just as using
1239           -MD slows down make.
1240
1241       •   If -MMD is used, the manifest entries will not include system
1242           header files, which means ccache will ignore changes in them.
1243
1244       The depend mode will be disabled if any of the following holds:
1245
1246depend_mode is false.
1247
1248run_second_cpp is false.
1249
1250       •   The compiler is not generating dependencies using -MD or -MMD.
1251

HANDLING OF NEWLY CREATED HEADER FILES

1253       If modification time (mtime) or status change time (ctime) of one of
1254       the include files is the same second as the time compilation is being
1255       done, ccache disables the direct mode (or, in the case of a precompiled
1256       header, disables caching completely). This done as a safety measure to
1257       avoid a race condition (see below).
1258
1259       To be able to use a newly created header files in direct mode (or use a
1260       newly precompiled header), either:
1261
1262       •   create the include file earlier in the build process, or
1263
1264       •   set sloppiness to include_file_ctime,include_file_mtime if you are
1265           willing to take the risk, for instance if you know that your build
1266           system is robust enough not to trigger the race condition.
1267
1268       For reference, the race condition mentioned above consists of these
1269       events:
1270
1271        1. The preprocessor is run.
1272
1273        2. An include file is modified by someone.
1274
1275        3. The new include file is hashed by ccache.
1276
1277        4. The real compiler is run on the preprocessor’s output, which
1278           contains data from the old header file.
1279
1280        5. The wrong object file is stored in the cache.
1281

CACHE DEBUGGING

1283       To find out what information ccache actually is hashing, you can enable
1284       the debug mode via the configuration option debug or by setting
1285       CCACHE_DEBUG in the environment. This can be useful if you are
1286       investigating why you don’t get cache hits. Note that performance will
1287       be reduced slightly.
1288
1289       When the debug mode is enabled, ccache will create up to five
1290       additional files next to the object file:
1291
1292       ┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┐
1293Filename                       Description               
1294       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
1295       │                               │                           │
1296<objectfile>.ccache-input-c    │ Binary input hashed by    │
1297       │                               │ both the direct mode and  │
1298       │                               │ the preprocessor mode.    │
1299       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
1300       │                               │                           │
1301<objectfile>.ccache-input-d    │ Binary input only hashed  │
1302       │                               │ by the direct mode.       │
1303       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
1304       │                               │                           │
1305<objectfile>.ccache-input-p    │ Binary input only hashed  │
1306       │                               │ by the preprocessor mode. │
1307       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
1308       │                               │                           │
1309<objectfile>.ccache-input-text │ Human-readable combined   │
1310       │                               │ diffable text version of  │
1311       │                               │ the three files above.    │
1312       ├───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
1313       │                               │                           │
1314<objectfile>.ccache-log        │ Log for this object file. │
1315       └───────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┘
1316
1317       If config_dir (environment variable CCACHE_DEBUGDIR) is set, the files
1318       above will be written to that directory with full absolute paths
1319       instead of next to the object file.
1320
1321       In the direct mode, ccache uses the 160 bit BLAKE3 hash of the
1322       ccache-input-c + ccache-input-d data (where + means concatenation),
1323       while the ccache-input-c + ccache-input-p data is used in the
1324       preprocessor mode.
1325
1326       The ccache-input-text file is a combined text version of the three
1327       binary input files. It has three sections (“COMMON”, “DIRECT MODE” and
1328       “PREPROCESSOR MODE”), which is turn contain annotations that say what
1329       kind of data comes next.
1330
1331       To debug why you don’t get an expected cache hit for an object file,
1332       you can do something like this:
1333
1334        1. Build with debug mode enabled.
1335
1336        2. Save the <objectfile>.ccache-* files.
1337
1338        3. Build again with debug mode enabled.
1339
1340        4. Compare <objectfile>.ccache-input-text for the two builds. This
1341           together with the <objectfile>.ccache-log files should give you
1342           some clues about what is happening.
1343

COMPILING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTORIES

1345       Some information included in the hash that identifies a unique
1346       compilation can contain absolute paths:
1347
1348       •   The preprocessed source code may contain absolute paths to include
1349           files if the compiler option -g is used or if absolute paths are
1350           given to -I and similar compiler options.
1351
1352       •   Paths specified by compiler options (such as -I, -MF, etc) on the
1353           command line may be absolute.
1354
1355       •   The source code file path may be absolute, and that path may
1356           substituted for __FILE__ macros in the source code or included in
1357           warnings emitted to standard error by the preprocessor.
1358
1359       This means that if you compile the same code in different locations,
1360       you can’t share compilation results between the different build
1361       directories since you get cache misses because of the absolute build
1362       directory paths that are part of the hash.
1363
1364       Here’s what can be done to enable cache hits between different build
1365       directories:
1366
1367       •   If you build with -g (or similar) to add debug information to the
1368           object file, you must either:
1369
1370           •   use the compiler option -fdebug-prefix-map=old=new for
1371               relocating debug info to a common prefix (e.g.
1372               -fdebug-prefix-map=$PWD=.); or
1373
1374           •   set hash_dir = false.
1375
1376       •   If you use absolute paths anywhere on the command line (e.g. the
1377           source code file path or an argument to compiler options like -I
1378           and -MF), you must set base_dir to an absolute path to a “base
1379           directory”. Ccache will then rewrite absolute paths under that
1380           directory to relative before computing the hash.
1381

PRECOMPILED HEADERS

1383       Ccache has support for GCC’s precompiled headers. However, you have to
1384       do some things to make it work properly:
1385
1386       •   You must set sloppiness to pch_defines,time_macros. The reason is
1387           that ccache can’t tell whether __TIME__, __DATE__ or __TIMESTAMP__
1388           is used when using a precompiled header. Further, it can’t detect
1389           changes in #defines in the source code because of how preprocessing
1390           works in combination with precompiled headers.
1391
1392       •   You may also want to include include_file_mtime,include_file_ctime
1393           in sloppiness. See Handling of newly created header files.
1394
1395       •   You must either:
1396
1397           •   use the compiler option -include to include the precompiled
1398               header (i.e., don’t use #include in the source code to include
1399               the header; the filename itself must be sufficient to find the
1400               header, i.e.  -I paths are not searched); or
1401
1402           •   (for the Clang compiler) use the compiler option -include-pch
1403               to include the PCH file generated from the precompiled header;
1404               or
1405
1406           •   (for the GCC compiler) add the compiler option -fpch-preprocess
1407               when compiling.
1408
1409           If you don’t do this, either the non-precompiled version of the
1410           header file will be used (if available) or ccache will fall back to
1411           running the real compiler and increase the statistics counter
1412           “preprocessor error” (if the non-precompiled header file is not
1413           available).
1414

C++ MODULES

1416       Ccache has support for Clang’s -fmodules option. In practice ccache
1417       only additionally hashes module.modulemap files; it does not know how
1418       Clang handles its cached binary form of modules so those are ignored.
1419       This should not matter in practice: as long as everything else
1420       (including module.modulemap files) is the same the cached result should
1421       work. Still, you must set sloppiness to modules to allow caching.
1422
1423       You must use both direct mode and depend mode. When using the
1424       preprocessor mode Clang does not provide enough information to allow
1425       hashing of module.modulemap files.
1426

SHARING A CACHE

1428       A group of developers can increase the cache hit rate by sharing a
1429       cache directory. To share a cache without unpleasant side effects, the
1430       following conditions should to be met:
1431
1432       •   Use the same cache directory.
1433
1434       •   Make sure that the configuration option hard_link is false (which
1435           is the default).
1436
1437       •   Make sure that all users are in the same group.
1438
1439       •   Set the configuration option umask to 002. This ensures that cached
1440           files are accessible to everyone in the group.
1441
1442       •   Make sure that all users have write permission in the entire cache
1443           directory (and that you trust all users of the shared cache).
1444
1445       •   Make sure that the setgid bit is set on all directories in the
1446           cache. This tells the filesystem to inherit group ownership for new
1447           directories. The following command might be useful for this:
1448
1449               find $CCACHE_DIR -type d | xargs chmod g+s
1450
1451       The reason to avoid the hard link mode is that the hard links cause
1452       unwanted side effects, as all links to a cached file share the file’s
1453       modification timestamp. This results in false dependencies to be
1454       triggered by timestamp-based build systems whenever another user links
1455       to an existing file. Typically, users will see that their libraries and
1456       binaries are relinked without reason.
1457
1458       You may also want to make sure that a base directory is set
1459       appropriately, as discussed in a previous section.
1460

SHARING A CACHE ON NFS

1462       It is possible to put the cache directory on an NFS filesystem (or
1463       similar filesystems), but keep in mind that:
1464
1465       •   Having the cache on NFS may slow down compilation. Make sure to do
1466           some benchmarking to see if it’s worth it.
1467
1468       •   Ccache hasn’t been tested very thoroughly on NFS.
1469
1470       A tip is to set temporary_dir to a directory on the local host to avoid
1471       NFS traffic for temporary files.
1472
1473       It is recommended to use the same operating system version when using a
1474       shared cache. If operating system versions are different then system
1475       include files will likely be different and there will be few or no
1476       cache hits between the systems. One way of improving cache hit rate in
1477       that case is to set sloppiness to system_headers to ignore system
1478       headers.
1479

USING CCACHE WITH OTHER COMPILER WRAPPERS

1481       The recommended way of combining ccache with another compiler wrapper
1482       (such as “distcc”) is by letting ccache execute the compiler wrapper.
1483       This is accomplished by defining prefix_command, for example by setting
1484       the environment variable CCACHE_PREFIX to the name of the wrapper (e.g.
1485       distcc). Ccache will then prefix the command line with the specified
1486       command when running the compiler. To specify several prefix commands,
1487       set prefix_command to a colon-separated list of commands.
1488
1489       Unless you set compiler_check to a suitable command (see the
1490       description of that configuration option), it is not recommended to use
1491       the form ccache anotherwrapper compiler args as the compilation
1492       command. It’s also not recommended to use the masquerading technique
1493       for the other compiler wrapper. The reason is that by default, ccache
1494       will in both cases hash the mtime and size of the other wrapper instead
1495       of the real compiler, which means that:
1496
1497       •   Compiler upgrades will not be detected properly.
1498
1499       •   The cached results will not be shared between compilations with and
1500           without the other wrapper.
1501
1502       Another minor thing is that if prefix_command is used, ccache will not
1503       invoke the other wrapper when running the preprocessor, which increases
1504       performance. You can use prefix_command_cpp if you also want to invoke
1505       the other wrapper when doing preprocessing (normally by adding -E).
1506

CAVEATS

1508       •   The direct mode fails to pick up new header files in some rare
1509           scenarios. See The direct mode above.
1510

TROUBLESHOOTING

1512   General
1513       A general tip for getting information about what ccache is doing is to
1514       enable debug logging by setting the configuration option debug (or the
1515       environment variable CCACHE_DEBUG); see Cache debugging for more
1516       information. Another way of keeping track of what is happening is to
1517       check the output of ccache -s.
1518
1519   Performance
1520       Ccache has been written to perform well out of the box, but sometimes
1521       you may have to do some adjustments of how you use the compiler and
1522       ccache in order to improve performance.
1523
1524       Since ccache works best when I/O is fast, put the cache directory on a
1525       fast storage device if possible. Having lots of free memory so that
1526       files in the cache directory stay in the disk cache is also preferable.
1527
1528       A good way of monitoring how well ccache works is to run ccache -s
1529       before and after your build and then compare the statistics counters.
1530       Here are some common problems and what may be done to increase the hit
1531       rate:
1532
1533       •   If “cache hit (preprocessed)” has been incremented instead of
1534           “cache hit (direct)”, ccache has fallen back to preprocessor mode,
1535           which is generally slower. Some possible reasons are:
1536
1537           •   The source code has been modified in such a way that the
1538               preprocessor output is not affected.
1539
1540           •   Compiler arguments that are hashed in the direct mode but not
1541               in the preprocessor mode have changed (-I, -include, -D, etc)
1542               and they didn’t affect the preprocessor output.
1543
1544           •   The compiler option -Xpreprocessor or -Wp,X (except
1545               -Wp,-MD,path, -Wp,-MMD,path, and -Wp,-D_define_) is used.
1546
1547           •   This was the first compilation with a new value of the base
1548               directory.
1549
1550           •   A modification or status change time of one of the include
1551               files is too new (created the same second as the compilation is
1552               being done). See Handling of newly created header files.
1553
1554           •   The __TIME__ preprocessor macro is (potentially) being used.
1555               Ccache turns off direct mode if __TIME__ is present in the
1556               source code. This is done as a safety measure since the string
1557               indicates that a __TIME__ macro may affect the output. (To be
1558               sure, ccache would have to run the preprocessor, but the sole
1559               point of the direct mode is to avoid that.) If you know that
1560               __TIME__ isn’t used in practise, or don’t care if ccache
1561               produces objects where __TIME__ is expanded to something in the
1562               past, you can set sloppiness to time_macros.
1563
1564           •   The __DATE__ preprocessor macro is (potentially) being used and
1565               the date has changed. This is similar to how __TIME__ is
1566               handled. If __DATE__ is present in the source code, ccache
1567               hashes the current date in order to be able to produce the
1568               correct object file if the __DATE__ macro affects the output.
1569               If you know that __DATE__ isn’t used in practise, or don’t care
1570               if ccache produces objects where __DATE__ is expanded to
1571               something in the past, you can set sloppiness to time_macros.
1572
1573           •   The __TIMESTAMP__ preprocessor macro is (potentially) being
1574               used and the source file’s modification time has changed. This
1575               is similar to how __TIME__ is handled. If __TIMESTAMP__ is
1576               present in the source code, ccache hashes the string
1577               representation of the source file’s modification time in order
1578               to be able to produce the correct object file if the
1579               __TIMESTAMP__ macro affects the output. If you know that
1580               __TIMESTAMP__ isn’t used in practise, or don’t care if ccache
1581               produces objects where __TIMESTAMP__ is expanded to something
1582               in the past, you can set sloppiness to time_macros.
1583
1584           •   The input file path has changed. Ccache includes the input file
1585               path in the direct mode hash to be able to take relative
1586               include files into account and to produce a correct object file
1587               if the source code includes a __FILE__ macro.
1588
1589       •   If “cache miss” has been incremented even though the same code has
1590           been compiled and cached before, ccache has either detected that
1591           something has changed anyway or a cleanup has been performed
1592           (either explicitly or implicitly when a cache limit has been
1593           reached). Some perhaps unobvious things that may result in a cache
1594           miss are usage of __TIME__, __DATE__ or __TIMESTAMP__ macros, or
1595           use of automatically generated code that contains a timestamp,
1596           build counter or other volatile information.
1597
1598       •   If “multiple source files” has been incremented, it’s an indication
1599           that the compiler has been invoked on several source code files at
1600           once. Ccache doesn’t support that. Compile the source code files
1601           separately if possible.
1602
1603       •   If “unsupported compiler option” has been incremented, enable debug
1604           logging and check which compiler option was rejected.
1605
1606       •   If “preprocessor error” has been incremented, one possible reason
1607           is that precompiled headers are being used. See Precompiled headers
1608           for how to remedy this.
1609
1610       •   If “can’t use precompiled header” has been incremented, see
1611           Precompiled headers.
1612
1613       •   If “can’t use modules” has been incremented, see C++ modules.
1614
1615   Corrupt object files
1616       It should be noted that ccache is susceptible to general storage
1617       problems. If a bad object file sneaks into the cache for some reason,
1618       it will of course stay bad. Some possible reasons for erroneous object
1619       files are bad hardware (disk drive, disk controller, memory, etc),
1620       buggy drivers or file systems, a bad prefix_command or compiler
1621       wrapper. If this happens, the easiest way of fixing it is this:
1622
1623        1. Build so that the bad object file ends up in the build tree.
1624
1625        2. Remove the bad object file from the build tree.
1626
1627        3. Rebuild with CCACHE_RECACHE set.
1628
1629       An alternative is to clear the whole cache with ccache -C if you don’t
1630       mind losing other cached results.
1631
1632       There are no reported issues about ccache producing broken object files
1633       reproducibly. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, so if you find a
1634       repeatable case, please report it.
1635

MORE INFORMATION

1637       Credits, mailing list information, bug reporting instructions, source
1638       code, etc, can be found on ccache’s web site: https://ccache.dev.
1639

AUTHOR

1641       Ccache was originally written by Andrew Tridgell and is currently
1642       developed and maintained by Joel Rosdahl. See AUTHORS.txt or
1643       AUTHORS.html and https://ccache.dev/credits.html for a list of
1644       contributors.
1645
1646
1647
1648ccache 4.2.1                      07/21/2021                         CCACHE(1)
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