Dependencies

Setting up the build environment

• ecfFlow consists of two tar files i.e. :  
  

  • boost_1_53_0.tar.gz

  • ecFlow-4.0.9-Source.tar.gz

    Create a directory for the build:

    mkdir /tmp/ecflow_build

• Copy the the two tar file into this directory, then change directory to /tmp/ecflow_build

• Un-zip then un-tar the two file files:

  tar -zxf boost_1_53_0.tar.gz
  tar -zxf ecFlow-4.0.9-Source.tar.gz

• You should have two directories created:

  boost_1_53_0
  ecFlow-4.0.9-Source
  

• Create two environment variables. These are used by some of scripts:

   

  export WK=/tmp/ecflow_build/ecFlow-4.0.9-Source
  export BOOST_ROOT=/tmp/ecflow_build/boost_1_53_0

Build boost

• Boost uses bjam for building the boost libs.

  bjam source is available in boost, hence we first need to build bjam itself:

   

  cd $BOOST_ROOT
  ./bootstrap.sh

• Ecflow uses some of compiled libraries in boost. The following script will build the required lib’s, in both debug and release forms and will configure boost build according to your platform.
• If you do not require the ecflow python api, you can avoid build boost python libs by setting.
          export ECF_NO_PYTHON=1
  before calling $WK/build_scripts/boost_build.sh

   

  cd $BOOST_ROOT
  $WK/build_scripts/boost_1_53_fix.sh    # fix for boost, only for some platforms
  $WK/build_scripts/boost_build.sh       # compile boost libs used by ecFlow

Build

There are two build systems available for ecflow:

• boost-build/bjam 
• cmake

It is recommended to use cmake.

cmake

As configure, CMake  will run some tests on the customer's system to find out if required third-party software libraries are available and notes their locations (paths). Based on this information it will produces the Makefiles needed to compile and install ecflow

CMake is a cross-platform free software program for managing the build process of software using a compiler-independent method.

Generating the Makefiles with CMake

After changing into the build ecflow directory, the user  has to run CMake with his/her own options. The command gives feedback on what requirements are fulfilled and what software is still required. Table below gives an overview of the different options of configure.  The default (without any options) will compile a share library only and install it in /usr/local/.

The  C++  compilers are chosen by CMake. (This can be overwritten by setting the environment variables CXX on the command line before you call cmake, to the preferred compiler).

Further the variable CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS can be used to set compiler flags for optimisation or debugging. 

cd $WK
mkdir build; cd build;

# Go with defaults, this should with DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake .. 

# build release with debug info  
# cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

# Override install prefix, build the most optimised executables 
# cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/apps/ecflow -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release  

# do not build the gui.
# cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/apps/ecflow -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_GUI=OFF

# If you do not need the python api, use:
# cmake .. -DENABLE_PYTHON=OFF

# Use -j option to speed up compilation. Determine number of cpu's
CPUS=$(lscpu -p | grep -v '#' | wc -l)
make -j${CPUS}
make check
make install

To use the ecFlow Python Api , you need to add/change PYTHONPATH . 

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:<prefix>/4.0.9/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ecflow
# If you used the default's then <prefix>=/usr/local
# otherwise you should use whatever you entered for -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, hence in the examples above we would have:
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/apps/ecflow/4.0.9/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ecflow 

boost-build/bjam

• Now make sure bjam is accessible from $PATH or use $BOOST_ROOT/bjam  in place bjam below.
• For installation the following environment variables are required.

  ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR         # Directory Location for client ,server and gui program's
  ECFLOW_PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR  # Directory Location for ecflow python package
          

  The python installation can be customised, by changing Pyext/jamfile.jam and $BOOST_ROOT/tools/build/v2/site-config.jam

• We now need to build ecFlow. Currently ecflowview/GUI is only built if environment variable of name ARCH is set to linux:

  cd $WK
  bjam variant=release

   

  On some systems like fedora/redhat you may run into compiler errors which complain about the template depth being exceeded. In this case compile using:

   

  cd $WK
  bjam c++-template-depth=512 variant=release
  
  # using boost 1.53 with gcc 4.8, will have excessive warnings. To prune these warnings use
  bjam c++-template-depth=512 cxxflags=-Wno-unused-local-typedefs variant=release

   

  If you have a multi-core machine, you can speed up the build using,  the -j<n> option. Where ‘n’ is an integer, of the number of cores.

   

  CPUS=$(lscpu -p | grep -v '#' | wc -l)
  bjam variant=release -j${CPUS)

• Once ecFlow is built it can be installed.    NOTE, if you used c++-template-depth=512 || cxxflags=-Wno-unused-local-typedefs, use it again for the next step.

   

  bjam variant=release install-all

   

  This will create directories:

  <ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR>/bin
  <ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR>/lib
  <ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR>/doc
  <ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR>/share
  <ECFLOW_PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR>

  Depending on your umask setting you may need to call chmod 755 on the executables

• To use the ecFlow Python Api , you need to add/change PYTHONPATH . 

   

  export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$ECFLOW_PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR
  

• When compiling ecflowview in a system where motif is not installed in the usual location, or where both motif and lesstif are installed, it is possible to export the environment variables MOTIF_INCLUDE and MOTIF_LIBRARY to help bjam to find the right location for include files and libraries.

  Openmotif may be retrieve from IST server and installed locally: wget http://www.ist-inc.com/motif/download/motif_files/openmotif-2.1.32-2_IST.x86_64.rpm rpm2cpio openmotif-2.1.32-2_IST.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv

  user shall then compile setting MOTIF_INCLUDE and MOTIF_LIBRARY variable.

• By default the ecflowview 'server' and‘ecflowview.menu’ files are placed in  <ECFLOW_INSTALL_DIR>/share/ecflow directory. However you can use ECFLOWVIEW_HOME shell variable to override this.
• ECFLOWRC variable may be set to use alternative directory for user ecflowview option files (default is $HOME/.ecflowrc)