Installing C-Reduce

June 11, 2020 ยท View on GitHub

Using a Package Manager

Before compiling C-Reduce yourself, you might want to see if your OS comes with a precompiled package for C-Reduce. Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, FreeBSD and Mac OS X (Homebrew) all do. For example, on OS X:

$ brew install creduce

From Source

Prereqs

C-Reduce is written in Perl, C++, and C. To compile and run C-Reduce, you will need a development environment that supports these languages. C-Reduce's build system requires CMake or GNU Make (not BSD Make).

Beyond the basic compile/build tools, C-Reduce depends on a set of third-party software packages, including LLVM.

On Ubuntu or Mint, the prerequisites other than LLVM can be installed like this:

sudo apt-get install \
  libexporter-lite-perl libfile-which-perl libgetopt-tabular-perl \
  libregexp-common-perl flex build-essential zlib1g-dev

On OS X, Perlbrew provides an easy and flexible way to get Perl and Perl modules installed

On FreeBSD 12.1, the prerequisites can be installed like this:

sudo pkg install \
  llvm90 flex p5-Exporter-Lite p5-File-Which p5-Getopt-Tabular p5-Regexp-Common

Otherwise, install these packages either manually or using the package manager:

  • Flex

  • LLVM/Clang 9.0.0 (No need to compile it: the appropriate "pre-built binaries" package is all you need. If you use one of the binary packages, you may need to install additional packages that the binary package depends on. For example, the "Ubuntu 18.04" binary package depends on "libtinfo5" and "libxml2". You may need to install these, e.g.: sudo apt-get install libtinfo-dev libxml2-dev.)

  • Perl modules:

    • Exporter::Lite
    • File::Which
    • Getopt::Tabular
    • Regexp::Common
    • For example, (perhaps as root) cpan -i Exporter::Lite File::Which Getopt::Tabular Regexp::Common

  • zlib

Optional Prereqs

Term::ReadKey is optional; C-Reduce will use it if it is installed.

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install libterm-readkey-perl

On OS X (with Homebrew + Perlbrew installed):

cpan -i Term::ReadKey

On FreeBSD 12.1:

sudo pkg install p5-Term-ReadKey

Otherwise, install the packages either manually or using the package manager.

Building and installing C-Reduce

You can configure, build, and install C-Reduce with the provided configure script or with CMake.

Preface: If in Doubt, Compile With clang++

If you encounter weird C++ link-time errors while trying to compile C-Reduce (in particular, while compiling its internal clang_delta tool), please try compiling with clang++.

We have encountered link-time problems while trying to compile C-Reduce with GCC 5.* and the precompiled LLVM binaries available from http://llvm.org/releases/download.html. If you encounter similar problems, we strongly suggest that you use Clang instead of GCC to compile C-Reduce and its internal tools.

If you are curious, for some discussion of this issue, see: https://github.com/csmith-project/creduce/issues/101 https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/using_dual_abi.html

The configure Way

From either the source directory or a build directory:

[source-path/]configure [options]
make
make install

The configure script was generated by GNU Autoconf, and therefore accepts the usual options for naming the installation directories, choosing the compilers you want to use, and so on. configure --help summarizes the command-line options.

If LLVM/Clang is not in your search path, you can tell the configure script where to find LLVM/Clang:

# Use the LLVM/Clang tree rooted at /opt/llvm
configure --with-llvm=/opt/llvm

If you choose to build LLVM and Clang yourself, and if you choose to keep your LLVM and Clang build trees separate, you can tell the configure script where to find your separate Clang tree:

# Use separate LLVM and Clang build trees, /work/my-{llvm,clang}
configure --with-llvm=/work/my-llvm --with-clang=/work/my-clang

You do not need to specify --with-clang if you build Clang within your LLVM tree. Also note that you must actually build LLVM and Clang before building C-Reduce.

Note that assertions are enabled by default (which is probably what you want). To disable assertions:

configure --disable-trans-assert

The generated Makefiles require GNU Make. BSD Make will not work. If you see weird make-time errors, please check that you are using GNU Make.

The CMake Way

From either the source directory or a build directory:

cmake [source-dir] [options]
make
make install

If LLVM/Clang is not in your search path, you can tell CMake where to find LLVM/Clang:

# Use the LLVM/Clang tree rooted at /opt/llvm
cmake [source-dir] -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/opt/llvm

Alternatively, if you choose to build LLVM and Clang yourself, you can set the LLVM_DIR and/or Clang_DIR variables to paths where CMake can find the LLVMConfig.cmake and/or ClangConfig.cmake files. The value of LLVM_DIR is usually ./lib/cmake/llvm, relative to your LLVM build or install directory. Similarly, the value of Clang_DIR is usually ./lib/cmake/clang, relative to your Clang build or install directory. For example:

# Use separate LLVM and Clang build trees, /work/my-{llvm,clang}
cmake [source-dir] -DLLVM_DIR=/work/my-llvm/lib/cmake/llvm \
  -DClang_DIR=/work/my-clang/lib/cmake/clang

You do not need to set Clang_DIR if you build Clang within your LLVM tree. Also, note that you must actually build LLVM and Clang before building C-Reduce.

Note that assertions are enabled by default. To disable assertions:

cmake ... -DENABLE_TRANS_ASSERT=OFF

Regarding LLVM versions

Released versions of C-Reduce, and also our master branch at GitHub, need to be compiled against specific released versions of LLVM, as noted in this file.

Our GitHub repo usually also has a branch called llvm-svn-compatible that supports building C-Reduce against LLVMs that are newer than the last released version. The most recent version of LLVM that the llvm-svn-compatible branch is known to compile against is recorded in LAST_KNOWN_WORKING_LLVM. C-Reduce may happen to also build against revisions before or after this, but we make no guarantees.