by Michael E. Tryby
Created on: March 13, 2018
Building OWA's fork of EPANET from source is a basic skill that all developers
interested in contributing to the project should know how to perform. This
document describes the build process step-by-step. You will learn 1) how to
configure your machine to build the project locally; 2) how to obtain the
project files using git; 3) how to use cmake to generate build files and build
the project; and 4) how to use ctest and nrtest to perform unit and regression
testing on the build artifacts produced. Be advised, you will need local admin
privileges on your machine to follow this tutorial. Lets begin!
Before the project can be built the required tools must be installed. The OWA
EPANET project adheres to a platform compiler policy - for each platform there
is a designated compiler. The platform compiler for Windows is Visual
Studio cl, for Linux gcc, and for Mac OS clang. These instructions describe how
to build EPANET on Windows. CMake is a cross platform build, testing, and packaging
tool that is used to automate the EPANET build workflow. Boost is a free portable
peer-reviewed C++ library. Unit tests are linked with Boost unit test libraries.
Lastly, git is a free and open source distributed version control system. Git must
be installed to obtain the project source code from the OWA EPANET repository
found on GitHub.
A. Install Visual Studio 2010 Express and SP1
Our current benchmark platform and compiler is Windows 32-bit Visual Studio 10
https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/older-downloads/
A service pack for Visual Studio 10 2010 is available here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34677
B. Install Boost
Boost binaries for Windows offer a convenient installation solution. Be sure to
select for download the boost installer exe that corresponds to the version of Visual Studio you have installed.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost-binaries/1.58.0/
Although newer version of Boost are available, a link to Boost 1.58 is provided. This is the library version that the unit tests have been written against. Older versions of Boost may not work. The default install location for the Boost
Libraries is C:\local\boost_1_58_0
C. Install Chocolatey, CMake, and git
Chocolatey is a Windows package manager that makes installing some of these
dependencies a little easier. When working with Chocolatey it is useful to have
local admin privileges. Chocolatey is available here:
https://chocolatey.org/install
Once Chocolately is installed, from a command prompt running with admin privileges
issue the following commands \>choco install -y cmake --installargs 'ADD_CMAKE_TO_PATH=User' \>choco install -y git --installargs /GitOnlyOnPath \>refreshenv
D. Common Problems
Using chocolatey requires a command prompt with admin privileges.
Check to make sure installed applications are on the command path.
Make note of the Boost Library install location.
\>mkdir OWA \>cd OWA \>git clone --branch=dev https://github.com/OpenWaterAnalytics/EPANET.git \>cd EPANET Now we will create a build products directory and generate the platform build
file using cmake.
\>mkdir buildprod \>cd buildprod \>set BOOST_ROOT=C:\local\boost_1_58_0 \>cmake -G "Visual Studio 10 2010" -DBOOST_ROOT="%BOOST_ROOT%" -DBoost_USE_STATIC_LIBS="ON" .. Now that the dependencies have been installed and the build system has been
generated, building EPANET is a simple CMake command.
C. Build EPANET
>cmake --build . --config Debug
D. Common Problems
CMake may not be able to find the project CMakeLists.txt file or the Boost
library install location.
\>cd tests \>ctest -C Debug Regression testing is somewhat more complicated because it relies on Python
to execute EPANET for each test and compare the binary files and report files.
To run regression tests first python and any required packages must be installed.
If Python is already installed on your local machine the installation of
miniconda can be skipped.
cd ..\.. \>choco install -y miniconda --installargs '/AddToPath=1' \>choco install -y curl \>choco install -y 7zip \>refreshenv \>pip install -r tools/requirements-appveyor.txt With Python and the necessary dependencies installed, regression testing can be run
using the before-test and run-nrtest helper scripts found in the tools folder. The script
before-test stages the test and benchmark files for nrtest. The script run-nrtest calls
nrtest execute and nrtest compare to perform the regression test.
To run the executable under test, nrtest needs the absolute path to it and a
unique identifier for it such as the version number. The project cmake build places build
artifacts in the buildprod\bin\ folder. On Windows the build configuration "Debug" or
"Release" must also be indicated. On Windows it is also necessary to specify the path to
the Python Scripts folder so the nrtest execute and compare commands can be found. You
need to substitute bracketed fields below like "" with the values for
your setup.
C. Regression Testing \>tools\before-test.cmd <relative path to regression test location> <absolute path to exe under test> <build identifier> \>tools\run-nrtest.cmd <absolute path to python scripts> <relative path to regression test location> <build identifier>
D. Common Problems
The batch file before-test.cmd needs to run with admin privileges. The nrtest script complains when it can't find manifest files.
That concludes this tutorial on building OWA EPANET from source on Windows.
You have learned how to configure your machine satisfying project dependencies
and how to acquire, build, and test EPANET on your local machine. To be sure,
there is a lot more to learn, but this is a good start! Learn more about project
build and testing dependencies by following the links provided below.