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user examples

Stefan Vigerske edited this page Feb 24, 2019 · 1 revision

Again, this information only pertains to UNIX-like systems, where you use configure and make. If you want to use the MS Developer Studio, please check here for more information.

Assume that you have downloaded the COIN-OR package Pkg in the directory Coin-Pkg. You have run configure, make, and make install in the directory Coin-Pkg/build. Assume that you used Coin-Pkg/build as the install directory (i.e. the default), obtaining libraries in Coin-Pkg/build/lib and include files in Coin-Pkg/build/include/coin.

For most COIN-OR packages, the main directory contains an examples subdirectory. Assuming that this is the case for the package Pkg, the directory Coin-Pkg/build/Pkg/examples contains a Makefile that has been adapted to your system. If you want to hook up your own code to this COIN-OR library, it might be a good idea to start by looking at the example Makefile.

Note: You should use only the libraries and header files that have been installed in Coin-Pkg/build/lib and Coin-Pkg/build/include/coin, not those in any other directory. Picking up libraries and headers from the source directories has a good chance of creating problems.

In order to modify examples/Makefile to compile your own code, you usually only have to change the first part, which might look like this:

##########################################################################
#    You can modify this example makefile to fit for your own program.   #
#    Usually, you only need to change the five CHANGEME entries below.   #
##########################################################################

# CHANGEME: This should be the name of your executable
EXE = my_prog

# CHANGEME: Here is the name of all object files corresponding to the source
#           code that you wrote in order to define the problem statement
OBJS =  my_prog.o \
        additional_source1.o \
        additional_source2.o

# CHANGEME: Additional libraries
ADDLIBS = -L$(HOME)/MyLibrariesDir -ladditional_lib

# CHANGEME: Additional flags for compilation (e.g., include flags)
ADDINCFLAGS = -I$(HOME)/MyCoolPrograms/include

# CHANGEME: Directory to the sources for the (example) problem definition
# files
SRCDIR = .
VPATH = .

The modifications are pretty straightforward:

  • EXE should be set to the name of the executable you want to compile with this Makefile.

  • OBJS should be set to the list of all object files that correspond to the source files you want to compile.

  • ADDLIBS should list additonal compiler link flags to link with (non-COIN-OR) libraries required to link your final program.

  • ADDINCFLAGS should be set to compiler flags that tell it where to look for additional (non-COIN-OR) header files required to compile your code - if required.

  • SRCDIR and VPATH should be set to the directory where your source code is. (This allows you to compile your code with the Makefile in a different directory from the source code directory.)

The lower part of the Makefiles looks somewhat like this:

##########################################################################
#  Usually, you don't have to change anything below.  Note that if you   #
#  change certain compiler options, you might have to recompile the      #
#  COIN package.                                                         #
##########################################################################

COIN_HAS_PKGCONFIG = TRUE
COIN_CXX_IS_CL = #TRUE

# C++ Compiler command
CXX = g++

# C++ Compiler options
CXXFLAGS = -O3 -pipe -DNDEBUG -pedantic-errors -Wimplicit -Wparentheses -Wreturn-type -Wcast-qual -Wall -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wconversion -Wno-unknown-pragmas  

# additional C++ Compiler options for linking
CXXLINKFLAGS =  -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/home/me/Coin-Pkg/lib

# C Compiler command
CC = gcc

# C Compiler options
CFLAGS = -O3 -pipe -DNDEBUG -pedantic-errors -Wimplicit -Wparentheses -Wsequence-point -Wreturn-type -Wcast-qual -Wall -Wno-unknown-pragmas  

# Include directories (we use the CYGPATH_W variables to allow compilation with Windows compilers)
ifeq ($(COIN_HAS_PKGCONFIG), TRUE)
  INCL = `PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/me/Coin-Pkg/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/bin/pkg-config --cflags pkg`
else
  INCL = [...]
endif
INCL += $(ADDINCFLAGS)

# Linker flags
ifeq ($(COIN_HAS_PKGCONFIG), TRUE)
  LIBS = `PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/me/Coin-Pkg/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/bin/pkg-config --libs pkg`
else
  ifeq ($(COIN_CXX_IS_CL), TRUE)
    LIBS = -link -libpath:`$(CYGPATH_W) /home/me/Coin-Pkg/lib` libPkg.lib  [...]
  else
    LIBS = -L/home/me/Coin-Pkg/lib -lPkg  [...]
  endif
endif

# The following is necessary under cygwin, if native compilers are used
CYGPATH_W = echo

all: $(EXE)

.SUFFIXES: .cpp .c .o .obj

$(EXE): $(OBJS)
        bla=;\
        for file in $(OBJS); do bla="$$bla `$(CYGPATH_W) $$file`"; done; \
        $(CXX) $(CXXLINKFLAGS) $(CXXFLAGS) -o $`@` $$bla $(LIBS) $(ADDLIBS)

clean:
        rm -rf $(EXE) $(OBJS)

.cpp.o:
        $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(INCL) -c -o $`@` `test -f '$<' || echo '$(SRCDIR)/'`$<


.cpp.obj:
        $(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $(INCL) -c -o $`@` `if test -f '$<'; then $(CYGPATH_W) '$<'; else $(CYGPATH_W) '$(SRCDIR)/$<'; fi`

.c.o:
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCL) -c -o $`@` `test -f '$<' || echo '$(SRCDIR)/'`$<


.c.obj:
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCL) -c -o $`@` `if test -f '$<'; then $(CYGPATH_W) '$<'; else $(CYGPATH_W) '$(SRCDIR)/$<'; fi`

The variables COIN_HAS_PKGCONFIG and COIN_CXX_IS_CL are setup by configure and should not be changed by the user.

The compiler name variables CXX, CC and F77 will already be adapted to your system, as well as the corresponding variables CXXFLAGS, CFLAGS, FFLAGS for the compiler flags. Those are the same that have been used to compile the COIN-OR library, and it is probably not a bad idea to choose the same (or compatible) options.

The COININCDIR and COINLIBDIR is adapted to the directories where the COIN header files and libraries have been installed.

If you compiled the COIN-OR library as a shared object, the CXXLINKFLAGS is set to the compiler link flag that hardcodes the search path to the installed shared libraries into the executables (if that is supported on your system). Alternatively, you can set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH or similarly names environment variable to point to the directory with the COIN-OR shared object.

The INCL variable is set to the compiler flags that are required to find the header files of the COIN-OR library. If pkg-config is available, then it is used to read the compiler flags from the pkg.pc file. If pkg-config is not available, then the configure script sets up a list of compiler flags to locate the installed header files of a project and all it's dependencies. Since in this example pkg-config is available, the corresponding flags are not setup by configure. Otherwise they would replace the [...].

The LIBS variable is set to the compiler link flags that are required to link with the COIN-OR library. If pkg-config is available, then it is used to read the linker flags from the pkg.pc file. If pkg-config is not available, then the configure script sets up a list of linker flags that correspond to all dependent libraries. Since in this example pkg-config is available, the corresponding flags are not setup by configure. Otherwise they would replace the [...].

The generic compilation rules (e.g., .c.o) might look somewhat complicated. But with this, the Makefile can also be used by people who work with the MS compilers (e.g., cl) under Cygwin, since those compilers don't understand the UNIX-type directory paths. In such a case, the CYGPATH_W will have been set to "cygpath -w" by configure, otherwise it is just "echo".

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