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Updated 22 Aug 24

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-3.1.2 # Enter the preCICE source directory
cmake --list-presets

Then, to configure preCICE, run:

cd precice-3.1.2 # 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-3.1.2 # 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

The next step

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