Warning

This documentation is for an old version of Cantera. You can find docs for newer versions here.

Software used by Cantera

This section lists the versions of third-party software that are required to build and use Cantera.

Compilers

You must have one of the following C++ compilers installed on your system. A Fortran compiler is required only if you plan to build the Fortran module.

  • GNU compilers (C/C++/Fortran)
    • Known to work with version 4.8; Expected to work with version >= 4.6
  • Clang/LLVM (C/C++)
    • Known to work with versions 3.5 and 3.8. Expected to work with version >= 3.1.
    • Works with the version included with Xcode 8.2.1.
  • Intel compilers (C/C++/Fortran)
    • Known to work with version 14.0.
  • Microsoft compilers (C/C++)
    • Known to work with versions 12.0 (Visual Studio 2013) and 14.0 (Visual Studio 2015).
  • MinGW (C/C++/Fortran)

Other Required Software

  • SCons:

    • http://scons.org/tag/releases.html
    • Linux & OS X: Known to work with SCons 2.4.1; Expected to work with versions >= 1.0.0
    • Version 2.3.6 or newer is required to use Visual Studio 2015.

  • Python:

    • http://python.org/download/
    • Known to work with 2.7 and 3.5. Expected to work with versions >= 3.3.
    • The Cython module supports Python 2.7 and 3.x. However, SCons requires Python 2, so compilation of the Python 3 module requires two Python installations.

  • Boost

    • http://www.boost.org/users/download/
    • Known to work with version 1.54; Expected to work with versions >= 1.48
    • Only the “header-only” portions of Boost are required. Cantera does not currently depend on any of the compiled Boost libraries.

  • SUNDIALS

    • If SUNDIALS is not installed, it will be automatically downloaded and the necessary portions will be compiled and installed with Cantera.

    • https://computation.llnl.gov/casc/sundials/download/download.html

    • Known to work with versions 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7.

    • To use SUNDIALS with Cantera on a Linux/Unix system, it must be compiled with the -fPIC flag. You can specify this flag when configuring SUNDIALS (2.4 or 2.5):

      configure --with-cflags=-fPIC

      or SUNDIALS 2.6 or 2.7:

      cmake -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=-fPIC <other command-line options>

    Note

    If you are compiling SUNDIALS 2.5.0 on Windows using CMake, you need to edit the CMakeLists.txt file first and change the lines:

    SET(PACKAGE_STRING "SUNDIALS 2.4.0")
SET(PACKAGE_VERSION "2.4.0")

    to read:

    SET(PACKAGE_STRING "SUNDIALS 2.5.0")
SET(PACKAGE_VERSION "2.5.0")

    instead, so that Cantera can correctly identify the version of SUNDIALS.

  • Eigen

    • If Eigen is not installed, it will be automatically downloaded and installed with Cantera.
    • http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/
    • Known to work with version 3.2.8.

  • fmt

    • If fmt (previously known as cppformat) is not installed, it will be automatically downloaded and the necessary portions will be compiled and installed with Cantera.
    • http://fmtlib.net/latest/index.html
    • Version 3.0.1 or newer is required.

  • Google Test

    • If Google Test is not installed, it will be automatically downloaded and the necessary portions will be compiled as part of the Cantera build process.
    • https://github.com/google/googletest
    • Known to work with version 1.7.0.

Optional Programs

  • Numpy
    • Required to build the Cantera Python module, and to run significant portions of the test suite.
    • Known to work with versions 1.7-1.11; Expected to work with version >= 1.4
  • Cython
    • Required version >=0.23 installed for Python 2.7 to build the Python module for both Python 2.7 and Python 3.x.
  • 3to2
    • Used to convert Python examples to Python 2 syntax.
    • Known to work with version 1.0
  • Matlab
    • Required to build the Cantera Matlab toolbox.
    • Known to work with 2009a and 2014b. Expected to work with versions >= 2009a.
  • Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset
    • Required to build MSI installers on Windows.
    • Known to work with versions 3.5 and 3.8.
  • Pip (Python)
    • Provides the pip command which can be used to install most of the other Python modules.
  • Packages required for building Sphinx documentation
    • Sphinx (install with pip install --upgrade sphinx)
    • Pygments (install with pip install --upgrade pygments)
    • pyparsing (install with pip install --upgrade pyparsing)
    • doxylink (install with pip install --upgrade sphinxcontrib-doxylink)
    • matlabdomain (install with pip install sphinxcontrib-matlabdomain)
  • Doxygen
    • Required for building the C++ API Documentation
    • Version 1.8 or newer is recommended.