README
1Avida http://avida.devosoft.org/
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3Digital Evolution Laboratory at Michigan State University
4(http://devolab.msu.edu)
5
6
7The top-level repository/distribution of Avida consists of multiple submodules.
8
9
10I. REQUIREMENTS
11II. GETTING STARTED
12III. CMAKE CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
13IV. CONFIGURING THE CMAKE BUILD
14V. RUNNING CONSISTENCY TESTS
15VI. DOCUMENTATION
16
17
18
19I. REQUIREMENTS
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21
22General System Requirements
23
24 avida:
25 - CMake 2.6.x or greater (http://www.cmake.org/)
26 - C++ Compiler and Make system supported by CMake
27
28
29Additional Requirements for Specific Targets
30
31 avida-viewer (on Linux/Unix Platforms):
32 - ncurses
33
34 avida-viewer/Avida.exe (on Windows using included Visual Studio Project):
35 - Visual Studio 2008 or greater
36
37
38 run_tests (testrunner):
39 - python 2.6 or greater
40
41
42 Mac OS X Development (using included Xcode Workspace and Projects):
43 - Xcode 4
44
45
46II. GETTING STARTED
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48
49Building Avida on Linux/Unix Platforms (including Mac OS X):
50
51 To compile and install Avida, using default settings run:
52 $ ./build_avida
53
54 By default, you will get an optimized version of the code, as well as the
55 ncurses avida-viewer. The installation goes into a directory called 'work'
56 that is created in a subdirectory named 'cbuild' directory. See below how to
57 change that.
58
59
60Building Avida on Windows:
61
62 Open CMake, then select the Avida source code directory (containing
63 CMakeLists.txt) and a desired output directory. Click the configure button.
64 In the options panel you MUST turn AVD_GUI_NCURSES 'Off'. Click the
65 configure button again. You should now be able to press the generate button.
66 Open the Visual Studio project generated by CMake in the selected target
67 directory. In Visual Studio select the desired build mode (the default is
68 generally 'Debug', 'Release' is recommended). Build the 'All Build' target.
69
70
71III. CMAKE CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
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73
74Here are the main options available when configuring and building
75Avida with cmake :
76
77AVD_CMDLINE
78 - This is a BOOL, either ON or OFF, to enable building interface-less Avida
79 ON by default.
80
81AVD_GUI_NCURSES
82 - This is a BOOL, either ON or OFF, to enable building Avida console interface
83 ON by default.
84
85AVD_UNIT_TESTS
86 - This is a BOOL, either ON or OFF, to enable building unit test suites
87 OFF by default.
88
89CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE
90 - This is a STRING, one of "None", "Debug", "Release", "RelWithDebInfo",
91 "MinSizeRel", to vary optimization levels and debugging information
92 "Release" by default.
93
94
95AVD_GUI_PROTOTYPE_TEXT
96 - This is a BOOL, either ON or OFF, to enable building the prototype ncurses
97 THIS IS EXPERIMENTAL AND MAY NOT BUILD!
98 OFF by default.
99
100
101IV. CONFIGURING THE CMAKE BUILD
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103
104The following directions pertain to Linux/Unix usage of CMake. Windows users
105should see CMake documentation for using the GUI on Windows. There are three
106ways by which you can set the various options.
107
108
109For a simple 'gui' like interface, from the build directory run:
110$ ccmake ../
111
112Pressing 'c' will configure
113Pressing 'g' will generate the make files and exit
114
115
116If you'd like to be prompted with questions for each option, execute the
117following from the build directory:
118$ cmake -i ../
119
120
121From the command-line option, the cmake option -D allows setting Avida
122configuration options with the following syntax:
123-D<variable name>:<type>=<value>
124
125To completely specify each of the above Avida options, cd into your build
126directory and type something like:
127$ cmake -DAVD_GUI_NCURSES:BOOL=ON \
128 -DAVD_CMDLINE:BOOL=ON \
129 -DAVD_UNIT_TESTS:BOOL=OFF \
130 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release \
131 path-to-source-directory
132
133
134V. RUNNING CONSISTENCY TESTS
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136
137With Avida built and 'installed' using CMake (the default for the 'build_avida'
138script), simply execute the 'run_tests' script:
139
140$ ./run_tests
141
142
143For a list of useful options accepted by the TestRunner script, supply the -h
144option on the command line:
145
146$ ./run_tests -h
147
148
149The 'builddir' option will be particularly for Xcode users. This option will
150allow the tests to be run on Xcode products without having to move the files to
151where the CMake outputs are placed by default. For example, the default
152Deployment build can be tested as follows:
153
154$ ./run_tests --builddir=build/Deployment/
155
156
157VI. DOCUMENTATION
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159
160Helpful usage and code documentation can be found in the HTML files in the
161'avida-core/documentation' directory. See index.html.
162
163
164Revised 2011-05-05 DMB
165