Building from source - Configuration

preCICE uses CMake to configure and build the library. After this step, preCICE is ready to be built.

Using presets

preCICE offers a range of CMake configuration presets, which all use the build directory build. These presets adjust flags, build type, link-time optimizations, assertions, and more. You can combine presets with other CMake arguments such as -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=....

To see all available presets use:

cd precice-3.4.1 # Enter the preCICE source directory
cmake --list-presets

Then, to configure preCICE, run:

cd precice-3.4.1 # Enter the preCICE source directory
cmake --preset=production # Configure using the production preset

This will automatically create a build/ directory for you, if it does not already exist.

Build directory

CMake keeps track of the source and the build directory separately. This allows to cleanly create multiple build configurations for a single source directory.

Please create a build directory inside the preCICE source directory as follows:

cd precice-3.4.1 # Enter the preCICE source directory
mkdir build
cd build

Options

Now it is time to configure preCICE with the decisions taken in the preparation steps. First, make sure that you changed into the build/ directory.

If you need to configure a debug build with all default settings, run:

cmake ..

As you can see, you can pass variables to cmake using the syntax -DNAME=VALUE. The following table lists the most important options to pass to CMake.

Assemble your CMake command and run it to configure preCICE.

This example builds the release version of preCICE with the PETSc mapping and the user-defined python actions off, which will be installed in the prefix ~/software/precice.

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/software/precice -DPRECICE_FEATURE_PETSC_MAPPING=OFF -DPRECICE_FEATURE_PYTHON_ACTIONS=OFF ..

Option	Type	Default	Description
`BUILD_SHARED_LIBS`	Boolean	ON	Build as a shared library.
`CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE`	String	`Debug`	Choose Debug, Release, or RelWithDebInfo.
`CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX`	Path	`/usr/local`	The prefix used in the installation step.
`PRECICE_FEATURE_MPI_COMMUNICATION`	Boolean	ON	Build with MPI.
`MPI_CXX_COMPILER`	Path		MPI compiler wrapper to use for detection.
`PRECICE_FEATURE_PETSC_MAPPING`	Boolean	ON	Build with PETSc (for MPI-parallel RBF mapping), requires `PRECICE_FEATURE_MPI_COMMUNICATION=ON`.
`PRECICE_FEATURE_PYTHON_ACTIONS`	Boolean	ON	Build support for python actions.
`PYTHON_EXECUTABLE`	Path		Path to the python interpreter to use.
`BUILD_TESTING`	Boolean	ON	Build and register the tests.
`PRECICE_RELEASE_WITH_ASSERTIONS`	Boolean	OFF	Enables assertions in release builds.
`PRECICE_RELEASE_WITH_DEBUG_LOG`	Boolean	OFF	Enables debug logging in release builds.
`PRECICE_RELEASE_WITH_TRACE_LOG`	Boolean	OFF	Enables trace logging in release builds.
`PRECICE_InstallTest`	Boolean	OFF	Install `testprecice` and test configuration files.
`PRECICE_CONFIGURE_PACKAGE_GENERATION`	Boolean	ON	Enable package configuration.
`PRECICE_BINDINGS_C`	Boolean	ON	Enable the native C bindings.
`PRECICE_BINDINGS_FORTRAN`	Boolean	ON	Enable the native Fortran bindings.
`PRECICE_ALWAYS_VALIDATE_LIBS`	Boolean	OFF	Force CMake to always validate required libraries.
`PRECICE_TEST_TIMEOUT_LONG`	Integer	180	Timeout for big test suites
`PRECICE_TEST_TIMEOUT_SHORT`	Integer	20	Timeout for small test suites
`PRECICE_CTEST_MPI_FLAGS`	String		Additional flags to pass to `mpiexec` when running the tests.
`CMAKE_INTERPROCEDURAL_OPTIMIZATION`	Boolean	OFF	Enable interprocedural/link-time optimization

Version: Version 2.4.0 introduces the CMake options PRECICE_RELEASE_WITH_ASSERTIONS, ..._DEBUG_LOG, ..._TRACE_LOG, which allow release builds with extended debugging functionality.

The next step

preCICE is now configured and the build system has been generated. The next step covers how to build preCICE.