Compilation

Pre-built binaries for most desktop systems are available in the packages section - don’t compile Dissolve if you don’t have to!

Dissolve uses CMake in order to provide a consistent build system across Window, OSX, and Linux.

General Requirements

Build Toolchain

Dissolve is completely written in C++ and uses some aspects of the C++20 standard and parallel STL, so a compiler that supports C++20 and PSTL is a must (for gcc this means version 9 or above, for example). The CMake build system is used throughout.

You may also consider using the excellent Ninja to speed up your build. If you choose to do so, add -G Ninja to the cmake commands detailed below, and run ninja instead of make.

External Dependencies

Dissolve uses the Conan package manager to satisfy external dependencies as far as possible. The main exceptions to this are the ANTLR4 Java binary which must be obtained manually and the Qt6 libraries.

Windows / MSVC

For Windows users who have Visual Studio there is a PowerShell setup script develop.ps1 which takes care of most of the tedious setup and prerequisite installation, creating a full Visual Studio environment for the build. This is the recommended way of getting up and running.

Linux / NixOS

Dissolve provides a nix flake for building on Linux systems.

Linux / Ubuntu 24

To install the necessary system tools and libs on Ubuntu 24, use the following commands:

pipx install conan==1.*
sudo apt install cmake ninja-build default-jre libftgl-dev qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev qt6-quick3d-dev qt6-3d-dev libqt6svg6 libtbb12 qt6-shadertools-dev libxkbcommon-dev
wget https://www.antlr.org/download/antlr-4.13.1-complete.jar -Oantlr-4.13.1-complete.jar

General Compilation Notes

Initialise Submodules

From the top-level directory initialise internal submodules that Dissolve depends on with:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Prepare the Build

It is best to perform an out-of-tree build, so as a first step create a build directory in the root of the source distribution and descend in to it:

mkdir build && cd build

Install Basic Dependencies (conan)

First, install the conan Python module if you don’t already have it:

pip3 install conan

If you don’t have admin privileges, a user-space install will work):

pip3 install --user conan

Then simply run conan in the build directory as follows:

conan install ..

This will download and locally install necessary external packages locally to the Dissolve build.

Install ANTLR4

ANTLR4 comprises two distinct parts - a generator tool, written in Java, used at build time to generate code implementing various parser/lexer structures, and a runtime library. The Java component is commonly-available on all operating systems, either as a vendor-provided package or as a straight download from the ANTLR website. The runtime library is available for most platforms via conan, and is installed automatically in the previous step.

If you have the ANTLR4 tool and/or runtime library installed on your system, but they can’t be located by cmake, try the ANTLR_EXECUTABLE option:

-ANTLR_EXECUTABLE:path=/here/is/my/ANTLR4

If you have downloaded the ANTLR4 Java tool and need to specify it explicitly, use the ANTLR_EXECUTABLE option. For example:

-DANTLR_EXECUTABLE:path=/my/downloads/antlr-4.8-complete.jar

You also might have to specify the location of your Java installation if it can’t be located by cmake:

-DJava_JAVA_EXECUTABLE:path=/here/is/my/java

Full CMake Command

An examplecmake command using Ninja to build both the command-line and GUI codes, building ANTLR4 as an external project, and locating the ANTLR4 Java tool in the build directory, would look like this:

cmake ../ -G Ninja -DGUI:bool=true -DBUILD_ANTLR_RUNTIME:bool=true -DANTLR_EXECUTABLE:path=./antlr-4.13.1-complete.jar -DJava_JAVA_EXECUTABLE:path=/here/is/my/java

Run the Build

Once configured correctly and with no errors, the target binary can be built simply by running make:

make

…or, if you installed ninja and ran cmake with -G Ninja:

ninja

Configuration Option Reference

The full list of additional cmake configuration options for Dissolve are as follows:

ANTLR_EXECUTABLE

If the ANTLR4 Java tool cannot be found easily by cmake (e.g. it is in a custom location) or you need to download and use a copy local to the build, the ANTLR_EXECUTABLE can be used to specify an absolute path to the jar file.

Example: -DANTLR_EXECUTABLE:path=/path/to/antlr-4.8-complete.jar

Default: not set

Java_JAVA_EXECUTABLE

If your Java installation cannot be found by cmake the Java_JAVA_EXECUTABLE can be used to specify the absolute path to the java executable.

Example: -DANTLR_EXECUTABLE:path=/path/to/java

Default: not set

BUILD_BENCHMARKS

In addition to the main build, also build the benchmarks located in the benchmark directory. If this option is specified, the Google benchmark library will be downloaded and compiled by cmake.

Usage: -DBUILD_BECHMARKS:bool=true

Default: false

BUILD_TESTS

In addition to the main build, also build tests located in the tests/ directory. The tests check individual portions of the code for problems, and run Dissolve on a number of known data sets to confirm that there are no errors in those calculations.

Example: -DBUILD_TESTS:bool=true

Default: false

GUI

Requests that the GUI version of Dissolve be built. This option is mutually exclusive with -DPARALLEL:bool=true. Qt5 libraries and development tools must be present in the path, as well as FTGL.

Usage: -DGUI:bool=true

Default: false

PARALLEL

Requests that the parallel version of Dissolve be built. This option is mutually exclusive with -DGUI:bool=true. A suitable OpenMPI-compatible MPI compiler must be present in the path.

Usage: -DPARALLEL:bool=true

Default: false

MULTI_THREADING

Requests that the multithreaded version of Dissolve be built. Intel thread building blocks (tbb) must be present in the path. By default this option is enabled.

Usage: -DMULTI_THREADING=ON

Default: true