BornAgain ≻ git-develop ≻ Documentation ≻ Install or build ≻ Build BornAgain ≻ Windows

Build under Windows

The maintained Windows build is the one used by our GitLab CI. It builds the Python module, tests it, and creates a wheel.

Prerequisites

Visual Studio

Install Visual Studio Community Edition with the x64 C++ toolchain from visualstudio.microsoft.com. The current build instructions are tested with Visual Studio 2022.

CMake and Ninja

Install CMake (Windows x64 installer) from cmake.org/download and Ninja from ninja-build.org.

Python

Install Python, preferably through pyenv-win. See Python on Windows.

SWIG

Required to regenerate the Python API wrappers under auto/Wrap/, which is needed for any change that touches the C++ API. Download from swig.org/download.html, unpack the ZIP, and add the folder (e.g. C:\swigwin-4.0.2) to PATH. See swig.org/Doc4.1/windows.html for detailed install instructions.

Compiler launcher (optional)

buildcache.exe or another compiler launcher reduces rebuild times.

Libraries

The BornAgain dependencies are installed into two prefixes: C:/opt/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows for standard libraries and C:/opt/x64 for the MLZ-maintained ones.

Standard libraries (fftw3, gsl, libtiff, boost, zlib, bzip2) are installed via vcpkg into C:/opt/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows, as the CI does. Alternatively, the prebuilt zips from computing.mlz-garching.de/download/WinLibs can be unpacked into C:/opt/x64/include and C:/opt/x64/lib.

Relevant WinLibs packages are:

  • libfftw3.win64.zip
  • libtiff.win64.zip
  • gsl_*_win64_shared.zip
  • boost_*.7z

MLZ-specific libraries must be installed into C:/opt/x64:

Environment paths

Make sure the executable directories for Python, CMake, Ninja, and SWIG are available in PATH. The dependency prefixes are passed to CMake through CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH; their runtime DLL directories must also be visible when running tests.

For example:

$PY_PLATFORM_DIR = "C:/Users/admin/.pyenv/pyenv-win/versions/3.12.0/"
$OPT_DIR = "C:/opt/x64"
$VCPKG_DIR = "C:/opt/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows"
$SWIG_DIR = "C:/swigwin-4.0.2"

$env:PATH = "$PY_PLATFORM_DIR;$SWIG_DIR;$VCPKG_DIR/bin;$OPT_DIR/lib;$env:PATH"

If CMake cannot find headers or libraries, check that C:/opt/x64/include, C:/opt/x64/lib, and the vcpkg prefix are covered by the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH used below.

Configure

Open a PowerShell with the Visual Studio x64 build environment loaded. One way is to use Visual Studio’s x64 Native Tools shell. The CI does the equivalent with vswhere and Enter-VsDevShell.

Set the local paths:

$PY_PLATFORM_DIR = "C:/Users/admin/.pyenv/pyenv-win/versions/3.12.0/"
$OPT_DIR = "C:/opt/x64"
$VCPKG_DIR = "C:/opt/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows"
$BUILD_DIR = "build"

Create and enter the build directory:

mkdir -Force "$BUILD_DIR"
cd "$BUILD_DIR"

Configure with Ninja:

cmake .. -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release `
  -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$OPT_DIR;$VCPKG_DIR" `
  -DPython3_ROOT_DIR="$PY_PLATFORM_DIR" `
  -DBA_PY_PACK=ON `
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER_LAUNCHER="buildcache.exe" `
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER="buildcache.exe"

Build and test

cmake --build . --config Release --parallel 20
cmake --build . --config Release --target ba_wheel

Before running tests, make the freshly built Python package and DLLs visible:

$env:PYTHONHOME = "$PY_PLATFORM_DIR"
$env:PYTHONPATH = "$BUILD_DIR/py/src/"
$env:PATH = "$PY_PLATFORM_DIR;$VCPKG_DIR/bin;$OPT_DIR/lib;$env:PATH"

Then run:

ctest -C Release --parallel 20 --output-on-failure

The wheel is placed under build/py/wheel/.