OpenFOAM v11 User Guide

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3.2 Compiling applications and libraries

Compilation is an integral part of code development that requires careful management since every piece of code requires its own set instructions to access dependent components of the OpenFOAM library. In Linux systems there are various tools to help automate the management process, starting with the standard make utility. OpenFOAM uses its own wmake compilation script that is based on make . It is speciﬁcally designed for the large number of individual components that are compiled separately in OpenFOAM (approximately 150 applications and 150 libraries).

To understand the compilation process, we ﬁrst need to explain certain aspects of C++ and its ﬁle structure, shown schematically in Figure 3.1 . A class is deﬁned through a set of instructions such as object construction, data storage and class member functions. The ﬁle that deﬁnes these functions — the class deﬁnition — takes a .C extension, e.g. a class nc would be written in the ﬁle nc.C. This ﬁle can be compiled independently of other code into a binary executable library ﬁle known as a shared object library with the .so ﬁle extension, i.e.nc.so. When compiling a piece of code, say newApp.C, that uses the nc class, nc.C need not be recompiled, rather newApp.C calls the nc.so library at runtime. This is known as dynamic linking.

$Main code nc class newApp.C Header ﬁle nc.H #include "nc.H" -I option int main( ) Declarationx { ... ... nc.C return (0); #include "nc.H " } Definitionx Compiled Compiled newApp Linked nc.so Executable - l option Library \relax \special {t4ht=$

Figure 3.1: Header ﬁles, source ﬁles, compilation and linking

3.2.1 Header .H ﬁles

As a means of checking errors, the piece of code being compiled must know that the classes it uses and the operations they perform actually exist. Therefore each class requires a class declaration, contained in a header ﬁle with a .H ﬁle extension, e.g. nc.H, that includes the names of the class and its functions. This ﬁle is included at the beginning of any piece of code using the class, using the #include directive described below, including the class declaration code itself. Any piece of .C code can resource any number of classes and must begin by including all the .H ﬁles required to declare these classes. Those classes in turn can resource other classes and so also begin by including the relevant .H ﬁles. By searching recursively down the class hierarchy we can produce a complete list of header ﬁles for all the classes on which the top level .C code ultimately depends; these .H ﬁles are known as the dependencies. With a dependency list, a compiler can check whether the source ﬁles have been updated since their last compilation and selectively compile only those that need to be.

Header ﬁles are included in the code using the #include directive, e.g.

#include "otherHeader.H";

This causes the compiler to suspend reading from the current ﬁle, to read the included ﬁle. This mechanism allows any self-contained piece of code to be put into a header ﬁle and included at the relevant location in the main code in order to improve code readability. For example, in most OpenFOAM applications the code for creating ﬁelds and reading ﬁeld input data is included in a ﬁle createFields.H which is called at the beginning of the code. In this way, header ﬁles are not solely used as class declarations.

It is wmake that performs the task of maintaining ﬁle dependency lists amongst other functions listed below.

Automatic generation and maintenance of ﬁle dependency lists , i.e. lists of ﬁles which are included in the source ﬁles and hence on which they depend.
Multi-platform compilation and linkage, handled through appropriate directory structure.
Multi-language compilation and linkage, e.g. C, C++, Java.
Multi-option compilation and linkage, e.g. debug, optimised, parallel and proﬁling.
Support for source code generation programs, e.g. lex, yacc, IDL, MOC.
Simple syntax for source ﬁle lists.
Automatic creation of source ﬁle lists for new codes.
Simple handling of multiple shared or static libraries.

3.2.2 Compiling with wmake

OpenFOAM applications are organised using a standard convention that the source code of each application is placed in a directory whose name is that of the application. The top level source ﬁle then takes the application name with the .C extension. For example, the source code for an application called newApp would reside is a directory newApp and the top level ﬁle would be newApp.C as shown in Figure 3.2 .

$newApp newApp.C otherHeader.H Make ﬁles options \relax \special {t4ht=$

Figure 3.2: Directory structure for an application

wmake then requires the directory must contain a Make subdirectory containing 2 ﬁles, options and ﬁles , that are described in the following sections.

3.2.3 Including headers

The compiler searches for the included header ﬁles in the following order, speciﬁed with the -I option in wmake:

the $WM_PROJECT_DIR/src/OpenFOAM/lnInclude directory;
a local lnInclude directory, i.e.newApp/lnInclude;
the local directory, i.e.newApp;
platform dependent paths set in ﬁles in the $WM_PROJECT_DIR/wmake/rules directory, e.g./usr/include/X11;
other directories speciﬁed explicitly in the Make/options ﬁle with the -I option.

The Make/options ﬁle contains the full directory paths to locate header ﬁles using the syntax:

    EXE_INC = \
        -I<directoryPath1> \
        -I<directoryPath2> \
        …                \
        -I<directoryPathN>

Notice ﬁrst that the directory names are preceded by the -I ﬂag and that the syntax uses the \ to continue the EXE_INC across several lines, with no \ after the ﬁnal entry.

3.2.4 Linking to libraries

The compiler links to shared object library ﬁles in the following directory paths, speciﬁed with the -L option in wmake:

the $FOAM_LIBBIN directory;
platform dependent paths set in ﬁles in the $WM_DIR/rules directory, e.g.$(MPI_ARCH_PATH)/lib;
other directories speciﬁed in the Make/options ﬁle.

The actual library ﬁles to be linked must be speciﬁed using the -l option and removing the lib preﬁx and .so extension from the library ﬁle name, e.g. libnew.so is included with the ﬂag -lnew. By default, wmake loads the following libraries:

the libOpenFOAM.so library from the $FOAM_LIBBIN directory;
platform dependent libraries speciﬁed in set in ﬁles in the $WM_DIR/rules directory, e.g. libm.so and libdl.so;
other libraries speciﬁed in the Make/options ﬁle.

The Make/options ﬁle contains the full directory paths and library names using the syntax:

    EXE_LIBS = \
        -L<libraryPath> \
        -l<library1>     \
        -l<library2>     \
        …               \
        -l<libraryN>

To summarise: the directory paths are preceded by the -L ﬂag, the library names are preceded by the -l ﬂag.

3.2.5 Source ﬁles to be compiled

The compiler requires a list of .C source ﬁles that must be compiled. The list must contain the main .C ﬁle but also any other source ﬁles that are created for the speciﬁc application but are not included in a class library. For example, users may create a new class or some new functionality to an existing class for a particular application. The full list of .C source ﬁles must be included in the Make/ﬁles ﬁle. For many applications the list only includes the name of the main .C ﬁle, e.g. newApp.C in the case of our earlier example.

The Make/ﬁles ﬁle also includes a full path and name of the compiled executable, speciﬁed by the EXE = syntax. Standard convention stipulates the name is that of the application, i.e.newApp in our example. The OpenFOAM release oﬀers two useful choices for path: standard release applications are stored in $FOAM_APPBIN; applications developed by the user are stored in $FOAM_USER_APPBIN.

If the user is developing their own applications, we recommend they create an applications subdirectory in their $WM_PROJECT_USER_DIR directory containing the source code for personal OpenFOAM applications. As with standard applications, the source code for each OpenFOAM application should be stored within its own directory. The only diﬀerence between a user application and one from the standard release is that the Make/ﬁles ﬁle should specify that the user’s executables are written into their $FOAM_USER_APPBIN directory. The Make/ﬁles ﬁle for our example would appear as follows:

newApp.C

EXE = $(FOAM_USER_APPBIN)/newApp

3.2.6 Running wmake

The wmake script is generally executed by typing:

wmake <optionalDirectory>

The <optionalDirectory> is the directory path of the application that is being compiled. Typically, wmake is executed from within the directory of the application being compiled, in which case <optionalDirectory> can be omitted.

3.2.7 wmake environment variables

For information, the general environment variable settings used by wmake are listed below.

$WM_PROJECT_INST_DIR : full path to the installation directory, e.g.$HOME/OpenFOAM.
$WM_PROJECT : name of the project being compiled, i.e. OpenFOAM.
$WM_PROJECT_VERSION : version of the project being compiled, i.e. 11.
$WM_PROJECT_DIR : full path to the main directory of the OpenFOAM release, e.g. $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-11.
$WM_PROJECT_USER_DIR : full path to the equivalent directory for customised developments in the user account, e.g. $HOME/OpenFOAM/${USER}-11.
$WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR : full path to the directory of ThirdParty software, e.g. $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-11.

The environment variable settings for the compilation with wmake are listed below.

$WM_ARCH : machine architecture, e.g. linux, linux64, linuxArm64, linuxARM7, linuxPPC64, linuxPPC64le.
$WM_ARCH_OPTION : 32 or 64 bit architecture.
$WM_DIR : full path of the wmake directory.
$WM_LABEL_SIZE : 32 or 64 bit size for labels (integers).
$WM_LABEL_OPTION : Int32 or Int64 compilation of labels.
$WM_LINK_LANGUAGE : compiler used to link libraries and executables c++.
$WM_MPLIB : parallel communications library, SYSTEMOPENMPI = system version of openMPI, alternatives include OPENMPI, SYSTEMMPI, MPICH, MPICH-GM, HPMPI, MPI, QSMPI, INTELMPI and SGIMPI.
$WM_OPTIONS , e.g. linux64GccDPInt32Opt, formed by combining $WM_ARCH, $WM_COMPILER, $WM_PRECISION_OPTION, $WM_LABEL_OPTION, and $WM_COMPILE_OPTION.
$WM_PRECISION_OPTION : ﬂoating point precision of the compiled binares, SP = single precision, DP = double precision.

The environment variable settings relating to the choice of compiler and options withwmake are listed below.

$WM_CC : choice of C compiler, gcc.
$WM_CFLAGS : extra ﬂags to the C compiler, e.g. -m64 -fPIC.
$WM_CXX : choice of C++ compiler, g++.
$WM_CXXFLAGS : extra ﬂags to the C++ compiler, e.g. -m64 -fPIC -std=c++0x.
$WM_COMPILER : compiler being used, e.g. Gcc = gcc, Clang = LLVM Clang
$WM_COMPILE_OPTION : compilation option, Debug = debugging, Opt = optimised.
$WM_COMPILER_LIB_ARCH : compiler library architecture, e.g. 64.
$WM_COMPILER_TYPE : choice of compiler, system, or ThirdParty, i.e. compiled in ThirdParty directory.
$WM_LDFLAGS : extra ﬂags for the linker, e.g. -m64.
$WM_LINK_LANGUAGE : linker language, e.g. c++.
$WM_OSTYPE : Operating system, =POSIX c++.

3.2.8 Removing dependency lists: wclean

When it is run, wmake builds a dependency list ﬁle with a .dep ﬁle extension, e.g. newApp.C.dep in our example, in a $WM_OPTIONS sub-directory of the Make directory, e.g. Make/linuxGccDPInt64Opt. If the user wishes to remove these ﬁles, e.g. after making code changes, the user can run the wclean script by typing:

wclean <optionalDirectory>

Again, the <optionalDirectory> is a path to the directory of the application that is being compiled. Typically, wclean is executed from within the directory of the application, in which case the path can be omitted.

3.2.9 Compiling libraries

When compiling a library, there are 2 critical diﬀerences in the conﬁguration of the ﬁle in the Make directory:

in the ﬁles ﬁle, EXE = is replaced by LIB = and the target directory for the compiled entity changes from $FOAM_APPBIN to $FOAM_LIBBIN (and an equivalent $FOAM_USER_LIBBIN directory);
in the options ﬁle, EXE_LIBS = is replaced by LIB_LIBS = to indicate libraries linked to library being compiled.

When wmake is executed it additionally creates a directory named lnInclude that contains soft links to all the ﬁles in the library. The lnInclude directory is deleted by the wclean script when cleaning library source code.

3.2.10 Compilation example: the foamRun application

The source code for application foamRun is in the $FOAM_SOLVERS/foamRun directory and the top level source ﬁle is named foamRun.C. The foamRun.C source code is:

1/*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*\
2  =========                 |
3  \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox
4   \\    /   O peration     | Website:  https://openfoam.org
5    \\  /    A nd           | Copyright (C) 2022-2023 OpenFOAM Foundation
6     \\/     M anipulation  |
7-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8License
9    This file is part of OpenFOAM.
10
11    OpenFOAM is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it
12    under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
13    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
14    (at your option) any later version.
15
16    OpenFOAM is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
17    ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
18    FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License
19    for more details.
20
21    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
22    along with OpenFOAM.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
23
24Application
25    foamRun
26
27Description
28    Loads and executes an OpenFOAM solver module either specified by the
29    optional \c solver entry in the \c controlDict or as a command-line
30    argument.
31
32    Uses the flexible PIMPLE (PISO-SIMPLE) solution for time-resolved and
33    pseudo-transient and steady simulations.
34
35Usage
36    \b foamRun [OPTION]
37
38      - \par -solver <name>
39        Solver name
40
41      - \par -libs '(\"lib1.so\" ... \"libN.so\")'
42        Specify the additional libraries loaded
43
44    Example usage:
45      - To run a \c rhoPimpleFoam case by specifying the solver on the
46        command line:
47        \verbatim
48            foamRun -solver fluid
49        \endverbatim
50
51      - To update and run a \c rhoPimpleFoam case add the following entries to
52        the controlDict:
53        \verbatim
54            application     foamRun;
55
56            solver          fluid;
57        \endverbatim
58        then execute \c foamRun
59
60\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
61
62#include "argList.H"
63#include "solver.H"
64#include "pimpleSingleRegionControl.H"
65#include "setDeltaT.H"
66
67using namespace Foam;
68
69// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //
70
71int main(int argc, char *argv[])
72{
73    argList::addOption
74    (
75        "solver",
76        "name",
77        "Solver name"
78    );
79
80    #include "setRootCase.H"
81    #include "createTime.H"
82
83    // Read the solverName from the optional solver entry in controlDict
84    word solverName
85    (
86        runTime.controlDict().lookupOrDefault("solver", word::null)
87    );
88
89    // Optionally reset the solver name from the -solver command-line argument
90    args.optionReadIfPresent("solver", solverName);
91
92    // Check the solverName has been set
93    if (solverName == word::null)
94    {
95        args.printUsage();
96
97        FatalErrorIn(args.executable())
98            << "solver not specified in the controlDict or on the command-line"
99            << exit(FatalError);
100    }
101    else
102    {
103        // Load the solver library
104        solver::load(solverName);
105    }
106
107    // Create the default single region mesh
108    #include "createMesh.H"
109
110    // Instantiate the selected solver
111    autoPtr<solver> solverPtr(solver::New(solverName, mesh));
112    solver& solver = solverPtr();
113
114    // Create the outer PIMPLE loop and control structure
115    pimpleSingleRegionControl pimple(solver.pimple);
116
117    // Set the initial time-step
118    setDeltaT(runTime, solver);
119
120    // * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //
121
122    Info<< nl << "Starting time loop\n" << endl;
123
124    while (pimple.run(runTime))
125    {
126        solver.preSolve();
127
128        // Adjust the time-step according to the solver maxDeltaT
129        adjustDeltaT(runTime, solver);
130
131        runTime++;
132
133        Info<< "Time = " << runTime.userTimeName() << nl << endl;
134
135        // PIMPLE corrector loop
136        while (pimple.loop())
137        {
138            solver.moveMesh();
139            solver.fvModels().correct();
140            solver.prePredictor();
141            solver.momentumPredictor();
142            solver.thermophysicalPredictor();
143            solver.pressureCorrector();
144            solver.postCorrector();
145        }
146
147        solver.postSolve();
148
149        runTime.write();
150
151        Info<< "ExecutionTime = " << runTime.elapsedCpuTime() << " s"
152            << "  ClockTime = " << runTime.elapsedClockTime() << " s"
153            << nl << endl;
154    }
155
156    Info<< "End\n" << endl;
157
158    return 0;
159}
160
161
162// ************************************************************************* //

The code begins with a description of the application contained within comments over 1 line (//) and multiple lines (/*…*/). Following that, the code contains several # include statements, e.g. # include "argList.H", which causes the compiler to suspend reading from the current ﬁle, foamRun.C to read the argList.H ﬁle.

foamRun uses the ﬁnite volume numerics library and therefore requires the necessary header ﬁles, speciﬁed by the EXE_INC = -I… option, and links to the libraries with the EXE_LIBS = -l… option. The Make/options therefore contains the following:

1EXE_INC = \
2 -I$(LIB_SRC)/finiteVolume/lnInclude
3
4EXE_LIBS = \
5 -lfiniteVolume

foamRun contains the foamRun.C source and the executable is written to the $FOAM_APPBIN directory. The application uses functions to initialise and adjust the time step, deﬁned in the setDeltaT.C ﬁle. The Make/ﬁles therefore contains:

1setDeltaT.C
2foamRun.C
3
4EXE = $(FOAM_APPBIN)/foamRun

Following the recommendations of section 3.2.5 , the user can compile a separate version of foamRun into their local $FOAM_USER_DIR directory as follows. First, the user should copy the foamRun source code to a local directory, e.g. $FOAM_RUN.

cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_SOLVERS/foamRun .

They should then go into the foamRun directory.

cd foamRun

and edit the Make/ﬁles ﬁle as follows:

1foamRun.C
2
3EXE = $(FOAM_USER_APPBIN)/foamRun

Finally, they should run the wmake script.

wmake

The code should compile and produce a message similar to the following

    Making dependency list for source file foamRun.C
    g++ -std=c++14 -m64…
    …
    -o ... platforms/linux64GccDPInt32Opt/bin/foamRun

If the user tries recompiling without making any changes to the code ﬁle, nothing will happen. The user can compile the application from scratch by removing the dependency list with

wclean

and running wmake.

3.2.11 Debug messaging and optimisation switches

OpenFOAM provides a system of messaging that is written during runtime, most of which are to help debugging problems encountered during running of a OpenFOAM case. The switches are listed in the $WM_PROJECT_DIR/etc/controlDict ﬁle; should the user wish to change the settings they should make a copy to their $HOME directory, i.e. $HOME/.OpenFOAM/11/controlDict ﬁle (see section 4.3 for more information). The list of possible switches is extensive, relating to a class or range of functionality, and can be switched on by their inclusion in the controlDict ﬁle, and by being set to 1. For example, OpenFOAM can perform the checking of dimensional units in all calculations by setting the dimensionSet switch to 1.

A small number of switches control messaging at three levels, 0, 1 and 2, most notably the overall level switch and lduMatrix which provides messaging for solver convergence during a run.

There are some switches that control certain operational and optimisation issues. Of particular importance is fileModificationSkew. OpenFOAM scans the write time of data ﬁles to check for modiﬁcation. When running over a NFS with some disparity in the clock settings on diﬀerent machines, ﬁeld data ﬁles appear to be modiﬁed ahead of time. This can cause a problem if OpenFOAM views the ﬁles as newly modiﬁed and attempting to re-read this data. The fileModificationSkew keyword is the time in seconds that OpenFOAM will subtract from the ﬁle write time when assessing whether the ﬁle has been newly modiﬁed. The main optimisation switches are listed below:

fileModificationSkew : a time in seconds that should be set higher than the maximum delay in NFS updates and clock diﬀerence for running OpenFOAM over a NFS.
fileModificationChecking : method of checking whether ﬁles have been modiﬁed during a simulation, either reading the timeStamp or using inotify ; versions that read only master-node data also exist, termed timeStampMaster and inotifyMaster .
commsType : parallel communications type, nonBlocking , scheduled or blocking .
floatTransfer : if 1, will compact numbers to float precision before transfer; default is 0.
nProcsSimpleSum: optimises the global sum for parallel processing, by setting the number of processors above which a hierarchical sum is performed rather than a linear sum.

3.2.12 Dynamic linking at run-time

The situation may arise that a user creates a new library, say new1, and wishes the features within that library to be available across a range of applications. For example, the user may create a new boundary condition, compiled into new1, that would need to be recognised by a range of solver applications, pre- and post-processing utilities, mesh tools, etc. Under normal circumstances, the user would need to recompile every application with the new1 linked to it.

Instead there is a simple mechanism to link one or more shared object libraries dynamically at run-time in OpenFOAM. The use can simply add the optional keyword entry libs to the controlDict ﬁle for a case and enter the full names of the libraries within a list (as quoted string entries). For example, if a user wished to link the libraries new1 and new2 at run-time, they would simply need to add the following to the case controlDict ﬁle:

    libs
    (
        "libnew1.so"
        "libnew2.so"
    );

OpenFOAM v11 User Guide - 3.2 Compiling applications and libraries