What is the purpose of node-gyp?

Node-gyp is a tool used for building Node.js C++ plugins, which can compile C++ code into native modules that can run in the Node.js environment.

Node.js itself is written in JavaScript, but sometimes it is necessary to use C++ to implement some performance-intensive tasks or interact with the system at a lower level. This requires using the node-gyp tool to compile C++ code into a dynamic link library (.node file) that Node.js can load and call.

– Node-gyp provides a simple build system that can automate the following tasks:

Analyze .gyp or .gypi files to determine the project’s build configuration.

Compile the C++ source code file and generate the target file.

Link the target files to generate the final executable file (.node file).

Copy the generated executable file to the correct location so that it can be loaded and used by Node.js.

Developers can easily use C++ modules in Node.js to achieve better performance and more powerful functionality by using node-gyp.