Difference between revisions of "TestWyldckat"

Revision as of 14:12, 11 November 2009

1 Introduction

This is an exhaustive step by step guide on how to fully cross-compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows, for both 32 and 64 bits architectures (from and to), using the patches available here.

These patches were based on Symscape's "v3" patch for OpenFOAM 1.5.x available here. These differ substantially from that patch, as well as the more recent one for 1.6.x, available here. The build scripts for mingw and mingw-w64 were also based on the build-mingw script available on the 1.5.x link.

With this guide and available patches, you should be able to cross-compile the whole and complete OpenFOAM libraries and applications, using MPICH2 instead of Open MPI for parallel computing. You can cross-compile using mingw32 and/or mingw-w64. These enable you to build OpenFOAM 1.6 for Windows 32 and 64 bit versions, from Linux 32 and 64bit architectures.

Versions these patches apply to:

2 Get OpenFOAM packages

1. In your Linux machine, open a terminal window and create the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM.
2. Get OpenFOAM-1.6.General.gtgz and ThirdParty-1.6.General.gtgz from the OpenCFD's website and copy/move them to the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM.
3. Extract both files, by running in a terminal:

   cd $HOME/OpenFOAM
   tar xzf OpenFOAM-1.6.General.gtgz
   tar xzf ThirdParty-1.6.General.gtgz

3 Optional: Using a specific gcc version for building the wmake binaries

This is optional, because the current patch will use the system's gcc for building them (more specifically gcc as compiler name).

1. Edit $HOME/.bashrc and add the following line to the end of it:

   . $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc

   NOTE: sometimes the leading dot doesn't work, so use the following instead:

   source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc

   1. You might want to edit $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc and set the Linux architecture correctly, namely WM_ARCH_OPTION to 32 or 64.
      
      
2. Two possibilities are now available:
   1. Use the system's gcc - edit $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/settings.sh and change compilerInstall=OpenFOAM to compilerInstall=System.
   2. Use the gcc that comes with the ThirdParty-1.6.General.gtgz package - again, two choices:
      1. You can compile the gcc by running the following line:

         (cd $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6 && makeGcc gcc-4.3.3)

      2. Or by getting the available compiled version for your Linux version ( ThirdParty-1.6.linuxGcc.gtgz or ThirdParty-1.6.linux64Gcc.gtgz from OpenCFD's website).
   3. launch a new terminal and run the following line, thus building wmkdep and dirToString:

      (cd $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/wmake/src && make)

4 Applying patches

1. Copy/move the PatchesNBatches.tar.gz file into the $HOME/OpenFOAM folder. Then unpack it by running:

   tar -xzf PatchesNBatches.tar.gz

2. A new folder is created, named pnb. Now to apply the patches, run from the $HOME/OpenFOAM folder:

   patch -p0 < pnb/OpenFOAM-1.6_patch
   patch -p0 < pnb/ThirdParty-1.6_patch

3. Still have to do some chmodding, for new scripts to run properly. Run the following lines in the terminal:

   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/build-mingw32
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/build-mingw-w32
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/build-mingw-w64
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/build-mingw-w64-45
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/makeGcc44
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6/get-mpich2
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/src/mingwFunctions
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/src/Allclean
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw32
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w32
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w32-prof
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w32S
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w64
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w64-45
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw-w64-prof
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/applications/utilities/parallelProcessing/Allwmake
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/bin/tutowin
   chmod 744 $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/bin/foamDiff

5 Getting Windows version of MPICH2 into the ThirdParty-1.6 folder in Linux

1. There are two ways of getting MPICH2 into your Linux+OpenFOAM set up:
   1. Use the get-mpich2 script, that requires Wine to be installed. With Wine installed and with msiexec executable from the terminal, then the get-mpich2 script should work. To check whether you have msiexec accessible in the terminal, run:

      which msiexec

      If it returns the full path to the executable, then it is ready to use.
   2. Copy MPICH2 files from a Windows Installation. Three steps for this part:
      • Download and install in Windows the MPICH2, version 1.1.1p1 Win32 IA32 from here. Get and install the 64bit version, if you wish to build OpenFOAM for Windows x64.
      • Create the folder ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1 in your Linux set up.
      • Copy the folders bin, include and lib from the installed version of MPICH2 in Windows, into the folder ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1 in Linux.

The Allwmake script at the folder ThirdParty-1.6 will take care of the rest. For now, the tough part is that, this way, you can only build one version of OpenFOAM (32 or 64bit) at a time.

6 Tweaking environment options

1. Choose which version you want to use:

   mingw32: for getting a 32bit version of OpenFOAM, that builds on Linux i?86, using mingw;

   mingw-w32: for getting a 32bit version of OpenFOAM, that builds on Linux i686 and x86_64, using mingw-w64;

   mingw-w64: for getting a 64bit version of OpenFOAM, that builds on Linux i686 and x86_64, using mingw-w64;

   Variants of the "bashrc" file that is inside the folder "OpenFOAM-1.6/etc", have been created, to meet the most likely options. These are:

   sample - <bashrc-version> 

   configured for <compiler>, <mingw version>, <MPI option>, <WM_COMPILE_OPTION>, <WM_ARCH_OPTION>

   bashrc-mingw32 

   configured for gcc-4.3.3, mingw32, MPI with MPICH2, Opt, DP, 32

   bashrc-mingw-w32 

   configured for gcc-4.4.2, mingw-w32, MPI with MPICH2, Opt, DP, 32

   bashrc-mingw-w32-prof 

   configured for gcc-4.4.2, mingw-w32, No MPI, Prof, DP, 32

   bashrc-mingw-w32S 

   configured for gcc-4.4.2, mingw-w32, MPI with MPICH2, Opt, SP, 32

   bashrc-mingw-w64 

   configured for gcc-4.4.2, mingw-w64, MPI with MPICH2, Opt, DP, 64

   bashrc-mingw-w64-prof 

   configured for gcc-4.4.2, mingw-w64, No MPI, Prof, DP, 64

   bashrc-mingw-w64-45 

   configured for gcc-4.5.0, mingw-w64, MPI with MPICH2, Opt, DP, 64

2. After choosing the version you wish to build, edit the file $HOME/.bashrc and add to the end of it, a line analogous to the following line:

   . $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw32

   NOTE: sometimes the leading dot doesn't work, so use the following instead:

   source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw32

3. Before launching a new terminal, edit the picked file $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc-mingw version. You have two additional variables that are configurable and non standard to the original OpenFOAM version:
   • WM_PSTREAMLINK - this variable allows control over the linking method that is with the Pstream library. Two options are available:
     1. If set to DONTLINKTOPSTREAM, then depending on the variable WM_MPLIB being set to "NONE" or "MPICH", then OpenFOAM will be statically linked with that version, being able only without MPI capabilities or only to run with MPICH2 installed, respectively.
     2. If LINKTOPSTREAM, then DLLs of the library Pstream are created, both dummy and MPICH2 versions; this allows you to choose which version to use in Windows, without rebuilding OpenFOAM again, allowing one build to be used in multiple installations.
   • WM_GETMPICH2 - this variable controls whether MPICH2 is setup automatically or manually. The two options are:
     1. If set to GETMPICH2, then wget is used for downloading the MPICH2 installation packages, and Wine will be used to unpack the ".msi" files.
     2. If DONTGETMPICH2, then the script will assume that the steps at 4.1.2 were taken.
4. Optional - If you want to use a version of MPICH2 other than 1.1.1p1, then edit the file $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/settings.sh and find the line that has mpi_version=mpich2-1.1.1p1 and change to the version you want, as show here.

7 Build the cross compiler

1. Open a new terminal window or tab, so the edited file $HOME/.bashrc is executed, thus setting up the chosen OpenFOAM development environment (see Tweaking environment options).
2. Now go to the ThirdParty-1.6 folder, in your new terminal:

   cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR

3. Now you have to build the cross-compiler. Accordingly to the version you picked, you have type one of the following versions:
   • to build the mingw32 version, run:

     ./build-mingw32 gcc-4.3.3

   • to build the mingw-w32 version, run:

     ./build-mingw-w32

   • to build the mingw-w64 version, run:

     ./build-mingw-w64

   • to build the mingw-w64-45 version, run:

     ./build-mingw-w64-45

   Alternatively, you can run:

   ./makeGcc gcc-4.3.3

   This will launch the respective build-mingw* script, according to the environment settings, but gcc-4.3.3 will only be used for mingw32; and the script build-mingw-w64-45 isn't called from makeGcc.
   NOTE: updates are bound to be done to the packages that these scripts use. Therefore, you should edit the script you have chosen, and check accordingly:

   • mingw32 - search for:

     BINUTILS_ARCHIVE="binutils-2.19.1-src.tar.gz"
     MINGW_ARCHIVE="mingwrt-3.15.2-mingw32-dev.tar.gz"
     W32API_ARCHIVE="w32api-3.13-mingw32-dev.tar.gz"
     REGEX_ARCHIVE="mingw-libgnurx-2.5.1-bin.tar.gz"
     REGEX2_ARCHIVE="mingw-libgnurx-2.5.1-dev.tar.gz"

     And check if they still exist or newer exists, on their website.
   • mingw-w?? - search for:

     MINGW64PACKAGE="mingw-w64-src_4.4.1-1"

     And check here for new versions. Usually the package is around 80MB in size. The line:

     MINGW64PACKAGE2="mingw-w64-crt-release-1.0"

     Relates to the stable run-time source version, available at cadforte. For the package mingw-w64-src_4.4.1-1, this was necessary, because this wasn't the stable version yet. You can change both and comment MINGW64PACKAGE2 and related items if you deem the package indicated in MINGW64PACKAGE stable enough.

8 Cross-Compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows

1. Open a new terminal window or tab, so it will reset environment variables and add the newly built cross-compiling gcc into the executable path variable (see Tweaking environment options). Go to the project folder as so:

   cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR

2. Go to the folder "OpenFOAM-1.6" and run "Allwmake":

   ./Allwmake

   This will build the entire OpenFOAM package. This does not include: Paraview, ccm26ToFoam, OpenMPI and code documentation.
3. Optional - For code documentation, you should add doc to ./Allwmake, as such:

   ./Allwmake doc

   Or run afterward:

   ./doc/Allwmake

   NOTE: if you want to create a CHM file in Windows, that will have the whole documentation in a single Compressed HTML index.chm file, then copy the file at the folder pnb, as such:

   cp ../pnb/Doxyfile ./doc/Doxygen/

   In the chapter Creating a Compiled HTML file for the code documentation is explained how to finish this step.
4. Optional - To build the mesh conversion utility ccm26ToFoam, just run:

   $FOAM_APP/utilities/mesh/conversion/Optional/Allwmake

   The rest is done automatically, including downloading the libraries used for handling ccm files, and patching where necessary.
5. Optional - Build the parallel test application:

   cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR
   wmake applications/test/parallel

   The built executable will be placed in the folder OpenFOAM/$USER-1.6/application/bin/$WM_OPTIONS.

9 Copying the files to your Windows installation

1. The folders from "$HOME/OpenFOAM" you have to copy are:
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/etc
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/bin
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/tutorials
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/lib/$WM_OPTIONS
   • OpenFOAM-1.6/doc (optional)
   • ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/platforms/$WM_OPTIONS (or the version you chose)
   • ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/source (optional, only if "get-mpich2" is used)
   • $USER-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS (created in step 5 of the chapter Cross-Compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows)
   You can get all of these in a nice little package, by running:

   tar -chjf OpenFOAM.$WM_OPTIONS.tar.bz2 OpenFOAM-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS \
   OpenFOAM-1.6/etc OpenFOAM-1.6/bin OpenFOAM-1.6/tutorials OpenFOAM-1.6/lib/$WM_OPTIONS \
   OpenFOAM-1.6/doc ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/platforms/$WM_OPTIONS \
   $USER-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/source

   Or for an even smaller package:

   tar --lzma -chf OpenFOAM.$WM_OPTIONS.tar.lzma OpenFOAM-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS \
   OpenFOAM-1.6/etc OpenFOAM-1.6/bin OpenFOAM-1.6/tutorials OpenFOAM-1.6/lib/$WM_OPTIONS \
   OpenFOAM-1.6/doc ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/platforms/$WM_OPTIONS \
   $USER-1.6/applications/bin/$WM_OPTIONS ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/source

2. Optional - In case you have built more than one OpenFOAM version (mingw32 mingw-w32 mingw-w64), pack the whole bin and lib folders as so:

   tar --lzma -chf OpenFOAM.mingw.tar.lzma OpenFOAM-1.6/applications/bin OpenFOAM-1.6/etc \
   OpenFOAM-1.6/bin OpenFOAM-1.6/tutorials OpenFOAM-1.6/lib OpenFOAM-1.6/doc \
   ThirdParty-1.6/mpich2-1.1.1p1/platforms $USER-1.6/applications/bin

3. In order to recreate a folder base folder similar to the Linux setup, do the following steps:
   • Copy the resulting compressed file to your Windows installation.
   • Create a folder named OpenFOAM, wherever you wish to have OpenFOAM running in Windows.
   • Copy/Move the file compressed file into that folder.
   • Unpack it using a compatible application. In case you don't know or have any, a suggestion is 7zip, available here.
4. Unpack the PatchesNBatches.tar.gz file to your OpenFOAM base folder in Windows. The following files should be copied from the folder pnb to the base folder OpenFOAM:

   DOS_Mode.bat

   setvars.bat

   These two will help you setup the Windows Command Line environment for running OpenFOAM in Windows. Edit setvars.bat and change the lines:

   set USER=ofuser

   set USERNAME=ofuser

   To your Linux user name... Or change the $USER-1.6 you have that came from Linux, to ofuser-1.6. You can also choose which Pstream version to run. Find the following lines inside setvars.bat:

   rem PICK ONE: dummy or MPICH

   rem set WM_MPLIB=dummy

   set WM_MPLIB=MPICH

   And remove/add the comment word rem as you wish. Now, to launch the command line, simply double-click on the file DOS_Mode.bat. In case you have built more than one version, a menu will show asking which version to use.
5. In order to get MPICH2 batch file to run in this command line, you'll have to copy the file pnb\gompi.bat to the folder OpenFOAM-1.6\bin\. MPICH2 will only work properly if you install it in Windows. If you used get-mpich2 script in Linux (see Getting Windows version of MPICH2 into the ThirdParty-1.6 folder in Linux), you should have the installation file(s) in the folder ThirdParty-1.6\mpich2-1.1.1p1\source, that came with the compressed file that has the cross-compiled OpenFOAM. Now, you have (at least) two possible solutions:
   1. Replicate the structure as in Linux - After installing MPICH2 in Windows, you can copy the binary folder to the respective version of cross-compiled OpenFOAM. For example C:\Program Files\MPICH2\bin or C:\Program Files (x86)\MPICH2\bin for the 32bit version in Windows x64. The targeted folders to hold the contents of the MPICH2 bin folder, are:
      • ThirdParty-1.6\mpich2-1.1.1p1\platforms\linuxmingw32DPOpt\bin
      • ThirdParty-1.6\mpich2-1.1.1p1\platforms\linuxmingw-w32SPOpt\bin
      • ThirdParty-1.6\mpich2-1.1.1p1\platforms\linuxmingw-w32DPOpt\bin
      • ThirdParty-1.6\mpich2-1.1.1p1\platforms\linuxmingw-w64DPOpt\bin - this should have the 64bit version of MPICH2
   2. Edit the file setvars.bat and add the bin folder of your MPICH2 installation to the PATH variable near the end of the batch file. For example, add ;C:\Program Files\MPICH2\bin to the end of line that starts with set PATH=%PATH%;. CAUTION: This solution will require additional tweaking to the setvars.bat in case you want to run the 64bit and 32bit versions of OpenFOAM, in order to add ;C:\Program Files\MPICH2\bin or ;C:\Program Files (x86)\MPICH2\bin accordingly to the desired version.
6. In order to get Paraview batch file to run in this command line, you'll have to copy the file pnb\paraFoam.bat to the folder OpenFOAM-1.6\bin\. Paraview should be installed in, or copied to, one of the following folders, according to the versions installed:

   ThirdParty-1.6\paraview-3.6.1\platforms\linuxmingw32

   ThirdParty-1.6\paraview-3.6.1\platforms\linuxmingw-w32

   ThirdParty-1.6\paraview-3.6.1\platforms\linuxmingw-w64

   The Paraview binaries themselves should be inside the folder bin. For example, for mingw32 the Paraview binaries should be inside the folder ThirdParty-1.6\paraview-3.6.1\platforms\linuxmingw32\bin. For more information on how to build Paraview for Windows with OpenFOAM file handling, see the chapter Building Paraview in Windows.
7. Tip: with some tweaking of the OpenFOAM scripts in the folder OpenFOAM-1.6\bin\, it is possible to run OpenFOAM with MSys. This way you have more functionalities and a near Linux experience with OpenFOAM. And for MPICH2, you might want to make a copy of mpiexec.exe to mpirun.exe.

10 Building Paraview in Windows

1. This is a pain to do, and yet, quite simple once you get the handle of it. Nonetheless, here won't be described the full building procedure. You can follow the tutorial available here in this wiki and use that plug-in for reading .foam files directly from Paraview, without building the original plug-ins that come with OpenFOAM and be able to handle large and/or parallelized cases. On that tutorial page, you also have a link to an already built version of Paraview 3.4.0 with the plug-in. This way it is less one thing to worry about building.
2. Tips for building a 64bit version of Paraview - Follow the instructions available here and here. This way you can get Visual Studio Express to build x64 applications and also build Qt 64bit for Windows, as well as Paraview with the multi-platform plug-in!

11 Using MPICH2 with OpenFOAM in Windows

This is valid for each computer with Windows where you installed the cross-compiled OpenFOAM. Be advised that you install it in an identical folder path on each machine, or in a network shared drive. User accounts should be of the same name and password. Currently we haven't tested running with different user accounts.

1. Go to into your administrative account and:
   1. Open a command line (Start->Run... -> cmd.exe or Winkey+R).
   2. Go to the bin folder where MPICH2 is installed (e.g. cd C:\Program Files\MPICH2\bin).
   3. Type:

      smpd -install

      to install the MPICH2 smpd service.
2. Go back to your user account. Now run the OpenFOAM terminal (double click on the file DOS_Mode.bat) and:
   1. Type:

      mpiexec.exe -register

      And when it asks your user name just press Enter key; and when it asks your user password, introduce your password... it'll ask you twice to make sure. This will allow future calls to mpiexec to be done without requiring password. MPICH will encrypt your password into the Windows Registry, so it should be safe.

      CAUTION: the MSys terminal version will make your password visible on screen!
   2. Test the parallel system. For that, you'll have to:
      1. Go to the folder ofuser-1.6 (or $USER-1.6) and unpack the test case PTestCase.tar.gz‎;
      2. Type:

         gompi parallelTest

         It will test communications between two instances of parallelTest.exe. If successful, it should display something like this:

      C:\Program Files\blueCFD\ofuser-1.6\PTestCase>mpiexec -n 2 -genvlist HOME,PATH,USERNAME,
      WM_PROJECT_DIR,WM_PROJECT_INST_DIR,WM_OPTIONS,FOAM_LIBBIN,FOAM_APPBIN,FOAM_USER_APPBIN,
      MPI_BUFFER_SIZE parallelTest -parallel
      /*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*\
      | =========                 |                                                 |
      | \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox           |
      |  \\    /   O peration     | Version:  1.6                                   |
      |   \\  /    A nd           | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
      |    \\/     M anipulation  |                                                 |
      \*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
      /*   Windows 32 and 64 bit porting by blueCAPE: http://www.bluecape.com.pt   *\
      |  Based on Windows porting (1.5.x v3) by Symscape: http://www.symscape.com/  |
      \*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
      Build  : 1.6-f802ff2d6c5a
      Exec   : C:\Program Files\blueCFD\ofuser-1.6\applications\bin\linuxmingw-w
      32DPOpt\parallelTest.exe -parallel
      Date   : Oct 23 2009
      Time   : 16:21:16
      Host   : THE_MACHINE
      PID    : 712
      Case   : C:/Program Files/blueCFD/ofuser-1.6/pTestCase
      nProcs : 2
      Slaves :
      1
      (
      THE_MACHINE.5024
      )
      
      Pstream initialized with:
          floatTransfer     : 0
          nProcsSimpleSum   : 0
          commsType         : nonBlocking
      
      // * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //
      Create time
      
      [1]
      Starting transfers
      [1]
      [1] slave sending to master 0
      [1] slave receiving from master 0
      [0]
      Starting transfers
      [0]
      [0] master receiving from slave 1
      [0] (0 1 2)
      [0] master sending to slave 1
      End
      
      [1] (0 1 2)
      Finalising parallel run
      

12 Creating a Compiled HTML file for the code documentation

As described in the chapter Cross-Compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows, you can created a Compiled HTML file of the code documentation, from the Doxygen files re-compiled in that chapter. Keep in mind that this is an optional feature. The code documentation can prove useful in situations where the manuals prove to be insufficient to explain the more intrinsic details about the case dictionaries.

1. When you packed the files for transport from Linux to Windows (see Copying the files to your Windows installation), you should have included the OpenFOAM-1.6/doc folder, and it should be available in your Windows installation. So, check if you have the files index.hhp, index.hhc and index.hhk in the folder OpenFOAM-1.6\doc\Doxygen\html. If:
   • Only these 3 files seem to be missing, you'll have to go back to the chapter Cross-Compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows and follow the steps that talk about code documentation.
   • No files exist in that folder, go back to the chapter Cross-Compile OpenFOAM in Linux for Windows and follow the steps related to the code documentation.
2. Get and install the HTML Help Workshop, which is available here, so you can use it to compile the HTML files into a single CHM file.
3. Now launch the OpenFOAM Command Window (run DOS_Mode.bat). Do:

   cd OpenFOAM-1.6\doc\Doxygen
   subst K: .

   This will make the folder OpenFOAM-1.6\doc\Doxygen be also a virtual drive, letter K. Use another letter if that is already occupied. Don't close the command window. NOTE:This step is required, because HTLM Help Workshop is a very old application (copyright 1996-1999) and is very picky and simple application. So long path names aren't very tolerable.

4. Launch the application HTML Help Workshop from Windows. On the window HTML Help Workshop, go to the menu command File->Open and open the file K:\html\index.hhp.
5. Optional - you can change the target path and name for the index.chm file in the left side bar, that appears when you open the project. Double click on the line Compiled file=index.chm. As said before, keep paths simple. Best advice would be ..\index.chm, since it is a short relative path, and will be away from the +46700 files that exist inside the html folder.
6. Run the Compile command (File->Compile). It will take some time to compile. Hopefully it won't crash.
7. If it hasn't crashed, then you will have a brand new 74MiB [1] index.chm file, with added index and search functions. NOTE: the Search for edit box in the top right of the page won't work. Use the left side bar that comes with the index.chm help window.
8. Cleaning up:
   • In the Command Window that you opened a while ago, remove the virtual drive letter, by running:

     subst K: /D

     You can now close that command window.
   • Copy the index.chm file to a safe place, and remove the html folder in OpenFOAM-1.6\doc\Doxygen. WARNING: to remove the +46700 files that exist therein, will take a very long time.

13 Notes on what doesn't work and why

13.1 chtMultiRegionFoam can't work properly

The solver chtMultiRegionFoam doesn't work properly on Windows, due to a file name conflict of "k" and "K". The field name "K" is hard-coded in the executable, and it isn't changeable via the case files changeDictionaryDict. Solution: use preprocessors in the chtMultiRegionFoam code (search for "K" in all files, and change only those referencing to field creation or reading) and use the macros WIN32 and WIN64 to set apart the renaming of K to KK or Ksolid... or something like that. Should be implemented in a future patch version for OpenFOAM 1.6.x.

13.2 motorBike case and foamToVTK in Windows

If you want to use foamToVTK on the tutorial case motorBike, you will have to run the script fixToWindows available at the motorBike case, so it can fix the surface names with "%" in the STL file and in some of the case dictionaries. The script can be executed on MSys or on Linux.

13.3 motorBike case in the package OpenFOAM-1.6.General.gtgz doesn't work well

The motorBike case available with the original 1.6 package doesn't work properly. These patches will not fix it. Please get the OpenFOAM 1.6.x git version, if you want a working motorBike case.

13.4 Can't build cross-compiler version mingw32 in Linux x86_64

With the build script for mingw32, that comes in these patches, can't build under Linux x86_64. Solution: please use the mingw-w32 version, or try to fix the mingw32 version yourself!

13.5 libscotch is limited in Windows

The library libscotch can't handle compression in Windows, due to nonexistent native Windows "pipe" and "fork" functions. MSys and Cygwin have these implemented, but effort has not been invested in re-implementing them here.

13.6 Fast memory allocation issues in Windows

Hoard and fbsdmalloc are not enabled for the mingw versions. Solution:There is a native build winhoard library online, but effort was not put into this for now. An implementation of fbsdmalloc wasn't found for mingw nor native Windows.

13.7 Symbolic links in the tutorials

To copy the tutorials properly to Windows, use the command:

tar -chjf ../tutorials.tar.bz2 tutorials

at the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6. The h switch will make copies of the symbolically linked folders and files, thus removing the symbolic links. You can then uncompress the tutorials.tar.bz2 file in your Windows installation.

13.8 Building OpenFOAM with gcc-4.4.? and gcc-4.5.0

To get OpenFOAM to build with gcc-4.4.? and gcc-4.5.0, I used the information available here.

13.9 Open MPI in Windows

Building Open MPI with the mingw cross-compilers was not tested. References to it currently running in Windows using mingw have not been found. Solution: For MPI functionality, MPICH2 is used in these patches.

13.10 Cross-compiled version mingw-w64 takes long to boot applications

After some investigation, it seems that due to mingw-w64 still being in fierce development (still considered beta), the mingw-w64 version of OpenFOAM takes about 12 seconds (much more if executed in virtual machines) to start each application in Windows x64. The 32bit versions take 3 seconds or less, depending the machine type (virtual or real). During that period, the Task Manager shows that the memory is being slowly filled during that period. Profiling blockMesh was also tested, to check what's the problem (see Profiling OpenFOAM applications with mingw cross-compiled version), but the statically built profiling version of blockMesh, booted in less than a second. So, there are at least two possible of the conclusions:

• The OpenFOAM libraries do some matrix allocations and/or re-allocations, when they are loaded by the applications;
• The mingw-w64 version still has issues with loading multiple DLLs.

14 Notes on added functionalities with these patches

14.1 Building ccm26ToFoam

ccm26ToFoam builds properly with these patches, because the fixes in the git version are also in these patches; the missing Make files for the ccm26io library are also in a patch file created in the ThirdParty-1.6 folder. The Make files came from this post. To build ccm26ToFoam, run the script in Linux:

$FOAM_APP/utilities/mesh/conversion/Optional/Allwmake

14.2 Keeping trace of symbolic links in tutorials

Running the script tutowin at the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6, you will be shown the tutorial folders that are symbolically linked. Use this list as a reference to where you should create README files, indicating where folders will be copied from. For the tutorials available in the OpenFOAM 1.6, this is already done by these patches. So you can use tutowin for future updates.

14.3 Changes in settings.sh

The script settings.sh has been modified quite a bit. The platform build names for gcc have been changed to include the architecture, and gcc-4.4.2 has been added to the list of compilers. The dummy libPstream has been added as an MPI library named NONE, so libPstream will be added to the library search path.

14.4 Building locally with multiple cores

The bashrc-* scripts have integrated in them the automatic selection of how many cores to use to build. This was copied from the makeGcc build script available in the $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6.

14.5 Building mingw cross-compilers

Build scripts have been added to the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM/ThirdParty-1.6, to aid in building mingw32, mingw-w32 and mingw-w64 cross-compilers.

14.6 Getting MPICH2 automatically in Linux

A script named get-mpich2 for retrieving and extracting MPICH2 has been added. It will require that you install Wine, in order to use msiexec to extract the MPICH2 install packages. Otherwise, you will have to install firstly in Windows and copy the files to your Linux+OpenFOAM setup (see Getting Windows version of MPICH2 into the ThirdParty-1.6 folder in Linux).

14.7 Compiling HTML files into CHM

Doxyfile is available as a separate file, inside the packaged PatchesNBatches.tar.gz file. See chapter #Creating a Compiled HTML file for the code documentation for more information.

14.8 Creating new patches

$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/bin/foamDiff is a script created specifically for creating these patches, without requiring to cleanup the binaries and lnIncludes. It requires that you have a second mint condition folder with the original files. In other words, your $HOME/OpenFOAM folder should have the folders:

OpenFOAM-1.6
OpenFOAM-1.6-orig
ThirdParty-1.6
ThirdParty-1.6-orig

Then use foamDiff from the folder $HOME/OpenFOAM as so:

foamDiff OpenFOAM-1.6 OpenFOAM-1.6-orig OpenFOAM-1.6_patch_new
foamDiff ThirdParty-1.6 ThirdParty-1.6-orig ThirdParty-1.6_patch_new

Legend: foamDiff <FolderNew> <FolderOrig> <patch_name>

14.9 MPFR 2.4.1 was missing 3 files

The mpfr-2.4.1 folder that comes with the original ThirdParty-1.6.General.gtgz package is missing 3 files: log2.c, log1p.c and log10.c. These are added by the patches.

14.10 Profiling OpenFOAM applications with mingw cross-compiled version

Profiling with mingw isn't as clean as with Linux, since mingw doesn't support DLL profiling. So some tweaks have been made to make it possible to build fully static executables... but for now, only blockMesh and potentialFoam are working with the Prof option. See the options file in the Make folder of each application source code folder, to see what needs to be done on the other applications.

15 Other Important Links

This is a list of links of cross-compiled and natively compiled versions of OpenFOAM, using mingw:

• Symscape's OpenFOAM 1.4.1 mingw32 version [2]
• Symscape's OpenFOAM 1.5.x mingw32 version [3]
• blueCAPE's OpenFOAM 1.5.x mingw32 version with MPICH1 [4] and MPICH2 [5]
• Symscape's OpenFOAM 1.6.x mingw32 version [6]
• blueCAPE's OpenFOAM 1.6 mingw32, mingw-w32 and mingw-w64... is this tutorial you are reading...

Continuing the list - distributable binaries:

• Free: Apostol's OpenFOAM for MS windows binary release by - OpenFOAM 1.5 built nativelly in Windows [7] using mingw32 and CodeBlocks
• Paid: Symscape's OpenFlow: OpenFOAM for Windows [8]
• Paid: blueCAPE's blueCFD: OpenFOAM for Windows XP and Vista, both 32 and 64bit [9]

TODO: add refs to blueCAPE's product blueCFD, Symscape's entries for 1.4.x, 1.5.x and 1.6.x, as well as the 1.5.x version available in the forum.

Wyldckat 14:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)