Makefiles and compiling BOUT++

BOUT++ has its own makefile system. These can be used to

  1. Write an example or executable

  2. Add a feature to BOUT++

In all makefiles, BOUT_TOP is required!

These makefiles are sufficient for most uses, but for more complicated, an executable script bout-config can be used to get the compilation flags (see bout-config script).

Executables example

If writing an example (or physics module that executes) then the makefile is very simple:

BOUT_TOP        = ../..

SOURCEC         = <filename>.cxx

include $(BOUT_TOP)/make.config

where BOUT_TOP - refers to the relative (or absolute) location of the BOUT directory (the one that includes /lib and /src) and SOURCEC is the name of your file, e.g. gas_compress.cxx.

Optionally, it is possible to specify TARGET which defines what the executable should be called (e.g. if you have multiple source files). That’s it!

Multiple subdirectories

Large physics modules can have many files, and it can be helpful to organise these into subdirectories. An example of how to do this is in examples/make_subdir.

In the top level, list the directories

DIRS = fuu bar

In the makefile in each subdirectory, specify

TARGET = sub

then specify the path to the top-level directory

MODULE_DIR = ..

and the name of the subdirectory that the makefile is in

SUB_NAME = fuu

Modules example

If you are writing a new module (or concrete implementation) to go into the BOUT++ library, then it is again pretty simple

BOUT_TOP = ../..

SOURCEC         = communicator.cxx difops.cxx geometry.cxx grid.cxx \
                  interpolation.cxx topology.cxx
SOURCEH         = $(SOURCEC:%.cxx=%.h)
TARGET          = lib

include $(BOUT_TOP)/make.config

TARGET - must be lib to signify you are adding to libbout++.a.

The other variables should be pretty self explanatory.

Adding a new subdirectory to ’src’

No worries, just make sure to edit src/makefile to add it to the DIRS variable.

bout-config script

The bout-config script is in the bin subdirectory of the BOUT++ distribution, and is generated by configure. This script can be used to get the compilers, flags and settings to compile BOUT++. To get a list of available options:

$ bout-config --help

so to get the library linking flags, for example

$ bout-config --libs

This script can be used in makefiles to compile BOUT++ alongside other libraries. The easiest way is to use bout-config to find the make.config file which contains the settings. For example the heat conduction example can be compiled with the following makefile:

SOURCEC         = conduction.cxx
include $(shell bout-config --config-file)

This includes the make.config file installed with bout-config, rather than using the BOUT_TOP variable.

A different way to use bout-config is to get the compiler and linker flags, and use them in your own makefile, for example:

CXX=`bout-config --cxx`
CFLAGS=`bout-config --cflags`
LD=`bout-config --ld`
LDFLAGS=`bout-config --libs

conduction: conduction.cxx
    $(CXX) $(CFLAGS) -c conduction.cxx -o conduction.o
    $(LD) -o conduction conduction.o $(LDFLAGS)

A more general example is in examples/make-script.