How do I export from one machine and integrate on another?

[jdx-john]

I have read about export (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/vcpkg-introducing-export-command/) but I do not wish to have developers install a .nuget. I want them to use vcpkg mirroring our build-server, but not have to build everything themselves. This way their setup better mirrors the build machine.

Reading https://vcpkg.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/integration/#export-command it mentions:

Each of these have the same layout, which mimics the layout of a full vcpkg:

• installed\ contains the installed package files

Does that mean I can use the following process:

1. Build-server: Run vcpkg install , this will be used in our builds
2. Build-server: Run vcpkg export to generate ZIP/raw folder
3. My PC: install clean vcpkg
4. My PC: copy <vcpkg-export-dir> => .\vcpkg\installed
5. My PC: vcpkg integrate install

I have run into issues before trying to hack file-structure so I'd like to be clear if this will work properly... if a developer then wants to install a new port on their PC, or rebuild one that was exported, will this work? Our full vcpkg install now takes several hours so every time I miss something and redo it is painful :)

For that matter, can I just copy \vcpkg\installed dir between machines? Is this different to exporting raw?

[jdx-john]

Looking a bit more, it seems export works similarly to install, you have to specify each port and triplet. I really just want to create an export of everything I have installed in one go - is this not supported?

[JackBoosY]

We don't support export muti targets now.
And you should use feature binarycaching, see documentation.

[jdx-john]

@JackBoosY it seems this might be what we want but after reading that page and the more up to date https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/docs/users/binarycaching.md I don't see how to use the cached files.
My goal is for developers to use vcpkg locally; I read that vcpkg has binary caching on by default, so I checked in %LOCALAPPDATA%\vcpkg\archives:

Looking in archives I don't know what I expected to see, but it is seemingly a load of folders each containing a few archives (I think one per port/triplet combination or something):

The one thing the docs don't seem to say is what I do with all this. It's currently on my build machine, and I want to use it on my development machine. This seems to be the CI -> Developer user story but there is no mention how to consume these caches on my dev-box.

I found this blog post which again explains the concept nicely and how to generate caches, but not how to consume them. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/vcpkg-accelerate-your-team-development-environment-with-binary-caching-and-manifests/

I get the impression it is very trivial but let's say my cache is in \\<BUILD-SERVER\vcpkg_cache\ what do I do on my dev box to use it?

[Osyotr]

it seems this might be what we want but after reading that page and the more up to date https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/docs/users/binarycaching.md I don't see how to use the cached files.

Well, you use them the same way you generate them.
I.e. pass --binarysource=\\<BUILD-SERVER\vcpkg_cache\,r to vcpkg

The optional parameter for certain sources controls whether they will be consulted for downloading binaries (read (default), whether on-demand builds will be uploaded to that remote (write), or both (readwrite).

[jdx-john]

@Osyotr so I would still need to run vcpkg install [...] --binarysource=\\<BUILD-SERVER\vcpkg_cache\,r for each package on my dev-box, and then vcpkg integrate install as normal? I had figured I could just use the binary cache as a single blob if I misunderstood that, it would explain my confusion :)

vcpkg on my dev-box will, what, copy all those remote files into my local vcpkg\installed directory then they're used as normal?

[Osyotr]

vcpkg on my dev-box will, what, copy all those remote files into my local vcpkg\installed directory then they're used as normal?

Yep. When you run vcpkg install my_lib --binarysource=...,r it will just copy files from remote folder if they exist, otherwise it will build the library.