HOWTO interface a new dependency library

COOLFluiD already depends on a few packages, whose main ones are reviewed here. If you need to interface a new package, there are a few necessary steps that you have to follow, requiring the following modifications:

1. prepare.pl: you need to define a set of new variables to be configured in the coolfluid.conf;
2. cmake-based build system: the new variables have to be mapped to cmake environmental variables;
3. if a module (kernel or plugin) depends on the new package, the corresponding CMakeLists.txt must be modified;
4. coolfluid.conf: you have to set the new variables to the corresponding values.

There are plenty of examples one can look at, but for illustrative purposes we will look at the Mutation++ example.

1) prepare.pl modifications:

We add the new package to the list of dependency libraries:

my @libraries = (..., "mutationpp", ...).

We create some new variables (e.g. flags, library and include paths) and set default values inside my %default_options = (...):

• 'with_mutationpp' => 0, : this flag controls whether the library is activated;
• 'mutationpp_dir' => "",: this string gives the root path of the library;
• 'mutationpp_librarydir' => "/usr/lib64",: this string gives the library path;
• 'mutationpp_includedir' => "/usr/include",: this tring gives the include path.

We map library and include paths to cmake environmental variables by declaring them as:

my @dep_variables = ( ..., "mutationpp_librarydir", "mutationpp_includedir").

We directly map the activation flag to an environmental variable to be used later:

setup_option('with_mutationpp', 'CF_ENABLE_MUTATIONPP');