Configure and Build Cantera

Determine configuration options

• Run scons help --options to see a list of all of the configuration options for Cantera, or see all of the options on the Configuration Options page.

• Configuration options are specified as additional arguments to the scons command. For example:

  scons command option_name=value
  

  where scons is the program that manages the build steps, and command is most commonly one of

  • build

  • test

  • clean

  Other commands are explained in the Build Commands section.

• SCons saves configuration options specified on the command line in the file cantera.conf in the root directory of the source tree, so generally it is not necessary to respecify configuration options when rebuilding Cantera. To unset a previously set configuration option, either remove the corresponding line from cantera.conf or use the syntax:

  scons command option_name=
  

• Sometimes, changes in your environment can cause SCons’s configuration tests (for example, checking for libraries or compiler capabilities) to unexpectedly fail. To force SCons to re-run these tests rather than trusting the cached results, run scons with the option --config=force.

• The following lists of options are not complete, they show only some commonly used options. The entire list of options can be found on the Configuration options page.

Common Options

• debug

• optimize

• prefix

Specifying Paths for Cantera’s Dependencies

• blas_lapack_libs

  • On macOS, the Accelerate framework is automatically used to provide optimized versions of BLAS and LAPACK, so the blas_lapack_libs option should generally be left unspecified.

• blas_lapack_dir

• boost_inc_dir

• sundials_include

• sundials_libdir

• hdf_include

• hdf_libdir

• extra_inc_dirs

• extra_lib_dirs

Python Module Options

Compiling the Cantera Python module requires that NumPy and Cython are installed for the target installation of Python. The following SCons options control how the Python module is built:

• python_package

• python_cmd

  • By default, SCons will try to build the full Python interface for copy of Python that is running SCons. Use this option if you wish to build Cantera for a different Python installation.

• python_prefix

Windows Only Options

Note

The cantera.conf file uses the backslash character \ as an escape character. When modifying this file, backslashes in paths need to be escaped like this: boost_inc_dir = 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\boost\\include' This does not apply to paths specified on the command line. Alternatively, you can use forward slashes (/) in paths.

• In Windows there aren’t any proper default locations for many of the packages that Cantera depends on, so you will need to specify these paths explicitly.

• Remember to put double quotes around any paths with spaces in them, such as "C:\Program Files".

• By default, SCons attempts to use the same architecture as the copy of Python that is running SCons, and the most recent installed version of the Visual Studio compiler. If you aren’t building the Python module, you can override this with the configuration options target_arch and msvc_toolset_version.

• To compile with MinGW, specify the toolchain option:

  toolchain=mingw
  

• msvc_toolset_version

• msvc_version

• target_arch

• toolchain

Fortran Module Options

Building the Fortran module requires a compatible Fortran compiler. SCons will attempt to find a compatible compiler by default in the PATH environment variable. The following options control how the Fortran module is built:

• f90_interface

• FORTRAN

Documentation Options

The following options control if the documentation is built:

• doxygen_docs

• sphinx_docs

Less Common Options

• CC

• CXX

• env_vars

• layout

• logging

• gtest_flags

Build Commands

The following commands are possible as arguments to SCons:

scons command

• scons help

  Print a list of available SCons commands.

• scons help --options

  Print a description of user-specifiable options.

• scons build

  Compile Cantera and the language interfaces using default options.

• scons clean

  Delete files created while building Cantera.

• scons install

  Install Cantera.

• scons uninstall

  Uninstall Cantera.

• scons test

  Run all tests which did not previously pass or for which the results may have changed.

• scons test-reset

  Reset the passing status of all tests.

• scons test-clean

  Delete files created while running the tests.

• scons test-help

  List available tests.

• scons test-NAME

  Run the test named NAME.

• scons <command> dump

  Dump the state of the SCons environment to the screen instead of doing <command>, for example, scons build dump. For debugging purposes.

• scons samples

  Compile the C++ and Fortran samples.

• scons msi

  Build a Windows installer (.msi) for Cantera.

• scons sphinx

  Build the Sphinx documentation

• scons doxygen

  Build the Doxygen documentation

Compile Cantera & Test

• Run SCons with the list of desired configuration options:

  scons build ...
  

• If Cantera compiles successfully, you should see a message that looks like:

  ********************** Compilation completed successfully **********************
  
  - To run the test suite, type 'scons test'.
  - To list available tests, type 'scons test-help'.
  - To install, type 'scons install'.
  
  ********************************************************************************
  

• If you do not see this message, check the output for errors to see what went wrong. You may also need to examine the contents of config.log.

• Cantera has a series of tests that can be run with the command:

scons test

• When the tests finish, you should see a summary indicating the number of tests that passed and failed.

• If you have tests that fail, try looking at the following to determine the source of the error:

  • Messages printed to the console while running scons test

  • Output files generated by the tests

Building Documentation

To build the Cantera HTML documentation, run the commands:

scons doxygen
scons sphinx

or append the options sphinx_docs=y and doxygen_docs=y to the build command:

scons build doxygen_docs=y sphinx_docs=y

Installing Cantera

• To install Cantera into default directories, run the SCons installer as:

  scons install
  

  which may require super-user permissions if the installation directory is protected. An installation into an active Conda environment is recommended.

  Alternatively, you can specify location and layout of the installation via

  • prefix

  • layout

  • python_prefix

• If Cantera installs successfully, you should see a message that looks similar to

  **************** Cantera 3.x.y has been successfully installed *****************
  
  File locations:
  
    library files               C:/path/to/prefix/Library/lib
    C++ headers                 C:/path/to/prefix/Library/include
    samples                     C:/path/to/prefix/share/cantera/samples
    data files                  C:/path/to/prefix/share/cantera/data
    input file converters       C:/path/to/prefix/Scripts
    Python package              C:/path/to/prefix/Lib/site-packages
    Python examples             C:/path/to/prefix/share/cantera/samples/python
  
  ********************************************************************************
  

  where slight variations may depend on operating system and configuration.