Compiling in Windows

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This page explains how to compile code engines using Windows.

Using Visual Studio

Development of NairnMPM and NairnFEA in Windows is best done using Visual Studio. The first step is to install Visual Studio, and a free version is available called "Visual Studio Community 2015" (these notes are based on this version of Visual Studio, but the changes for any future versions should be minor). You can download this IDE from: 

https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

Be sure to customize to get VC++ for C++ development. The download is large (15-20 GB depending on options selected) and will take a while.

Installing Xerces

Before you can compile and run the project, however, you will need a compiled version of the xerces-c_#_#.dll library (where #_# is version number) and a copy of the xerces header files. These needed components are installed as follows:

  1. Got to the xerces web site.
  2. Go to "Download" section and get source distribution zip file, which contains VS projects (these notes used version 3.1.4; some more recent versions do not have VS projects, but you can get 3.1.4, or maybe a newer one with projects, from the download archives).
  3. Extract the contents of the zip file and place the resulting folder in the same folder as nairn-fea-mpm project folder.
  4. Open the Visual Studio solution in xerces project folder at projects\Win32\VC14\xerces-all\xerces-all.sln (be sure not to open the xerces-all file one level higher, because it does not work). This step is using "VS14" because it corresponds to the version supplied with "Visual Studio Community 2015." This number may change if new "Visual Studios" are made available.
  5. After loaded, select the XercesLib project.
  6. Select "Release" target for "x64" platform in the tool bar (these instructions assume you want 64-bit builds, which are recommended).
  7. Build the project. The compiled xerces-c_3_1.dll file will be written to Build\Win64\VC14\Release in the xerces folder (numbers may change if xerces version number changes).

Compile NairnMPM, NairnFEA, and other tools

To compile all code binaries in Visual Studio:

  1. Open the Visual Studio solution at Common\Projects\VS\NairnMPM\NairnMPM.sln in the nairn-fea-mpm project.
  2. To compile NairnMPM, NairnFEA, ExtractMPM, and CompareGlobal, click on each project and select to build that project from the Build menu.
  3. The compiled results will be in the Common\Projects\VS\NairnMPM\Build\Release-x64 folder. If the compile fails, see below.

The above builds will fail if you are using a different version of Visual Studio and/or different version of Windows. They may also fail if the project cannot find xerces header files or the xerces library file. Here are some project settings you may need to customize to work on your computer::

  1. Click on the project you are compiling (e.g., NairnMPM) and then select Project→Properties... menu command (or right click the project and pick "Properties" from the pop-up menu).
  2. Clock on General and:
    • Set Target Platform and Target Platform Version to work on your computer
    • Set Platform Toolset to one available on your computer
  3. Click on "VC++ Directories" and change the xerces entry in "Include Directories" to point to src folder in the downloaded xerces project on your computer. The checked-out project assumes the xerces folder is in the same folder as the checked out nairn-fea-mpm folder, but you can store it elsewhere if you prefer.
  4. Expand "Linker" section, click on "General," and change the xerces entry in "Additional Library Directories" to be path on your computer to the folder with the compiled xerces library.
  5. Repeat for other projects as needed.

You should now be able to build NairnMPM and NairnFEA code engines and the results will be in the Common\Projects\VS\NairnMPM\Build\Release-x64 folder. See Options for Running Calculations to start running calculations. You can also build the ExtractMPM and CompareGlobal tools and their executable will be in the same output folder.

Windows Development

When developing code in Windows using Visual Studio, several other applications (all free) are helpful:

  1. GitHub - for cloning the nairn-fea-mpm source code project.
  2. Java SE - you must install Java (get at least version 7, but newer is preferred) to be able to run NairnFEAMPMViz.
  3. Eclipse IDE for Java - for development of the NairnFEAMPMViz app and you will need to be sure your Java SE install included the JDK or development kit as well.
  4. TortoiseSVN - for those checking out OSParticulas project.
  5. NotePad++ - useful app for editing text files; a diff plug-in can be used to compare two versions of files.

Using Eclipse IDE

Because the Eclipse IDE can run on multiple platforms, you can use it on Windows for compiling as well. For details, see help on compiling using Eclipse IDE.

Using cygwin

A third approach to compiling in Windows is to install cygwin. This software gives you a Linux/Unix style environment and can work with software by means very similar to using Linux (or Mac in Unix mode). Note: use of cygwin is no longer recommended and has not be testted in a long time — you should switch to Visual Studio compiling instead. First, the code compiled in cygwin seems to run slower than code compiled in Visual Studio on the same machine. Second, when running calculations using the NairnFEAMPMViz app, a bug in Java disables the useful feature in that software to abort calculations before they are done. This bug is avoided when using code compiled in Visual Studio. The remainder of this section should not be used, but it has been left in place for previous users (or anyone that really wants to work in cygwin).

Installing and Setting Up cygwin

The nairn-mpm-fea project runs well in Windows by using the cygwin system. You can check out the project, compile the code, run calculations, and visualize the results. This section gives the step-by-step process for the required cygwin setup. This process has been verified in Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (although you may need the latest `cygwin 1.7` for Windows 7).

  1. Download the cygwin setup.exe application and run it (to install cygwin or, if you already have cygwin installed, you still might need to install plug-ins listed below, if you do not have them already). Note that cygwin is now available in either 32 or 64 bit versions. The 64 bit version is preferred (if you can use it), but both should work.
  2. Follow the default options until you reach the "Packages" step of the cygwin setup wizard. In that step, expand the "Devel" category and select:
    • g++ - the gnu c++ compiler
    • gdb - the gnu debugger (optional)
    • make - program for making files (the OSParticulas, NairnMPM, and NairnFEA binaries)
    • Subversion - the version control system needed to download code from google.code.
  3. Next, expand the "Net" category and select:
    • openssh - ssh command for secure remote connections (optional).
  4. Finally, expand the "Editors" section and select a command-line editer (e.g., vim). Such an editor is useful because editing cygwin files with Microsoft software (e.g., NotePad) can seriously corrupt files by changing line endings from Unix-style line feeds to Windows style carriage returns and line feeds.

The basic cygwin should now be set up. You can run it to open a cygwin command-line window and browse your files. By the default, all cygwin files will be in the folder C:\cygwin or C:\cygwin64 for the 64 bit version. Your home folder will usually be at /home/YOURUSERNAME.

Installing xerces

The first time you download the project, you will need to install xerces in your cygwin environment (if you already have xerces installed, you can skip to compiling now). You have two options. The simplest is to grab the xerces binary from cygwin:

  1. Run the cygwin setup application used to install and update cygwin.
  2. Expand the "Libs" section and look for libxerces-c-devel. Click to install it and make sure it is least version 3 (if not you have to compile as explained below). You have to get the "devel" version because that will install header files that are needed to compile the code engines.
  3. Finish the install. The library will be installed in /lib and the header files will be in /usr/include.

If the binary option version is out of date or if you prefer to build your own binaries, your second option is build the xerces library as follows:

  1. Download the xerces source code, which will be in a file such as xerces-c-3.x.x.tar.gz (with x being some numbers). Note that you should get the .tar.gz file instead of the .zip version because the .zip version has DOS files with carriage returns and line feeds (either in the source or inserted by Windows' zip methods) that may complicate compiliation. The .tar.gz file is also smaller.
  2. Move the downloaded file to a folder such as your home directory with the cygwin folder.
  3. Start a cygwin shell and and extract the files with: 
    cd /path/to/folder/with/download
gunzip xerces-c-3.x.x.tar.gz
tar xvf xerces-c-3.x.x.tar
    where the x's are replaced by numbers in your downloaded file and /path/to/folder/with/download is full cygwin path to the folder you used in the previous step (warning: the xerces install will fail if this full path contains any spaces).
  4. Go to the new folder created in previous step and configure the code with: 
    cd xerces-c-3.x.x
./configure LDFLAGS=-no-undefined

    This step will prepare the xerces source code for building. Note: if you get error messages saying that $'\r'$ command is not found it means your files are DOS files rather than Unix files. You need to go back to step 1 and get the .tar.gz file this time. Note: the LDFLAGS=-no-undefined option may not be allowed in g++ 4.6.0 or newer. You can try without it or install the binary instead.

  5. When this configuring step is done, enter the commands 
    cd src
make
    This step will compile xerces and save the librarys in the xerces-c-3.x.x/.libs folder.
  6. Finally, enter the command make install (still in the same folder). This step will install the compiled xerces libraries and needed header files in the default locations of /usr/local/lib and /usr/local/include folders, respectively.

Note the the above two options happen to install the xerces library and the header files in different locations. Because of this difference, you have to specify which option you used when compiling the code, as explained in the next section.

Compiling in cygwin

You are now ready to compile the nairn-mpm-fea code. In a cygwin shell, navigate to the checked out nairn-mpm-fea folder and proceed as follows. To compile OSParticulas and NairnMPM when using a binary install of xerces, use: 

cd nairn-mpm-fea/NairnMPM/build
make SYSTEM=cygwinbin

and to compile NairnFEA use: 

cd nairn-mpm-fea/NairnFEA/build
make SYSTEM=cygwinbin

If you compiled the xerces library manually, you should change the SYSTEM option to be SYSTEM=cygwin instead. All source code will be compiled and the executables will be installed in nairn-mpm-fea/NairnMPM/input or nairn-mpm-fea/NairnFEA/input, respectively. You can use an additional make install command to copy each compiled executable to your ~/bin folder if desired.

You can pass additional parameters to the make command to alter the compilation process if desired. See comments in the makefile for all the possible compilation options.

Trouble Shooting

  1. If the command-line compile does not work, the most likely explanation is a problem with the xerces installation. You either have to install it as specified above or edit the makefile to recognize your custom installation. The process is documented in the makefile and involves editing the xercesSo and headersPath variables for your different settings.
  2. Another conflict that has appeared in some Windows installations results in a linking error about undefined references to typeinfo. This error is a dynamic linking problem. It can be fixed by compiling xerces manually, deleting the dynamic library at /usr/local/lib/libxerces-c.dll.a, and then use the make SYSTEM=cygwin command to link again. This change will cause the code to link statically. The resulting executables will be much larger but should work fine.
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