Installation instructions¶

Installing from package¶

Arch Linux based distributions¶

Arch linux users can use the exec-helper (AUR) package or checkout the exec-helper-package project for building the package from source.

Debian based distributions¶

Add the PPA on Launchpad to your sources or checkout the exec-helper-package project for building the package from source.

Other distributions¶

Checkout the Building from source section.

Building from source¶

Requirements¶

Build tools¶

A C++ 17 compatible compiler. Tested with: g++, clang++ and MSVC 2017 (14.1)
cmake (3.15 or newer)
make or ninja
make for the quick install
Sphinx for generating man-pages and general documentation
Doxygen (1.8.15 or newer) for building API documentation (optional)
gitchangelog for building the changelog (optional)

Build dependencies¶

POSIX compliant operating system
boost-program-options (1.64 or newer) development files
boost-log (1.64 or newer) development files
yaml-cpp (0.5.3 or newer) development files (optional, will be downloaded and compiled in statically if missing)
Microsoft gsl development files (optional, will be downloaded and compiled in statically if missing)
luaJIT development files (optional, will be downloaded an compiled in statically if missing)

Quick installation¶

$ make
$ sudo make install

Use

$ make help

for an overview of the available quick installation targets and for an overview of the (very limited) available configuration options.

Advanced installation¶

CMake is the build system. The Makefile mentioned in the quick installation is a simple wrapper around a more complex - and more configurable - CMake invocation.

It has the following project-specific configuration options:

USE_SYSTEM_YAML_CPP: Use the yaml-cpp library installed on the system. If switched off, the library will be automatically installed locally during the build. Default: auto

USE_SYSTEM_LUAJIT: Use the luaJIT library installed on the system. If switched off, the library will be automatically installed locally during the build. Default: auto

USE_SYSTEM_GSL: Use the Microsoft gsl library installed on the system. If switched off, the library will be automaically installed locally during the build. Default: auto

POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE: Build using position independent code. Default: ON

ENABLE_TESTING: Enable building the testing infrastructure. Default: ON

BUILD_MAN_DOCUMENTATION: Generate the man-pages for this project

BUILD_HTML_DOCUMENTATION: Generate the HTML documentation for this project

BUILD_XML_DOCUMENTATION: Generate the XML documentation for this project

Build tests¶

Testing is enabled by setting the CMake configuration option ENABLE_TESTING to ON.

The tests require, in addition to all dependencies above, the following dependencies:

Catch2 unittest framework development files (optional, for building the tests)
Rapidcheck property based unittest framework development files (optional, for building the tests)

Testing related configuration options:

ENABLE_WERROR: Enable warning as error during compilation (only supported for GCC and clang)

LIMITED_OPTIMIZATION: Build with limited optimization (typically -O1, only supported for GCC and clang). This is typically used for running tools like valgrind.

TERMINATE_ON_ASSERT_FAILURE: Explicitly terminate when an assert fires.

USE_SYSTEM_CATCH: Use the Catch2 library installed on the system. If switched off, the library will be automatically installed locally during the build. Default: auto

USE_SYSTEM_RAPIDCHECK: Use the Rapidcheck library installed on the system. If switched off, the library will be automatically installed locally during the build. Default: auto

Cross compilation¶

Exec-helper supports both native and cross compilation (including building with a custom sysroot) builds. Cross compilation requires invoking cmake directly and appending -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<toolchain-file> to the cmake initialization command. Check the toolchain.cmake.in file for a template on setting up the toolchain file for cross compilation and the Makefile for a template of the cmake initialization command.