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On Linux with Spack

A straightforward way to install MFEM is to use spack.

Installing spack

To install spack on Linux, the first step consists in cloning and loading it into a $SPACK directory (see spack for more details.)

Assuming spack well installed into the $SPACK directory, the following command enables to install MFEM with right additional packages:

source $SPACK/share/spack/setup-env.sh

spack install mfem+mpi+suite-sparse+sundials+superlu-dist+miniapps

Installing a given version of MFEM

The user is free to install different version of MFEM. By default, the last released is considered. otherwise, "@version" must be added at the end of the spack command.

Once MFEM is installed, SLOTH can be built using the envSloth.sh shell script. This script loads MFEM, defines several environment variables, and compiles SLOTH.

Build SLOTH using the envSloth.sh shell script

The envSloth.sh shell script cannot be run directly from the root of the SLOTH repository. Users must create a separate build directory to compile SLOTH.

Installing Sympy

Please ensure that Sympy is installed. Sympy is a mandatory prerequisite to build SLOTH as it is used to handle physical properties.

Once, MFEM and Sympy are installed, please run the following command to build SLOTH:

mkdir build 
cd build

bash ../envSloth.sh [OPTIONS]
where [OPTIONS] are: 
    --release        Build with Release compiler options

    --optim          Build with Optim compiler options

    --debug          Build with Debug compiler options

    --coverage       Build with Coverage compiler options

    --minsizerel     Build with MinSizeRel compiler options

    --relwithdebinfo Build with RelWithDebInfo compiler options

    --external       Build SLOTH with an external package

    --shared         Build a shared library for Sloth

    --install        Specify the installation path for Sloth 
                     (default: a "SlothInstallation" directory at the same level as the repository)

    --np             Specify the number of CPUs to use for compilation (default: 4)

By default, this command builds a static library of SLOTH with release compiler options.

Building a shared library of SLOTH

The --shared option enables building a shared library of SLOTH. However, the user must ensure that the library type used for MFEM is compatible. Certain combinations of static and shared libraries may require specific compiler options, such as -fPIC.

spack builds static library of MFEM unless the users enable shared ones (see +shared in the spack command): 

spack install mfem+shared+mpi+suite-sparse+sundials+superlu-dist+miniapps

The make command within the envSloth.sh script does not compile the tests. To compile tests after SLOTH has been built, run the following command:

make tests -j N

where N is a number of CPUs to use for building the tests in parallel.

Once the tests are compiled, users can verify the build by running all tests with ctest:

ctest -j N

Finally, users can install the SLOTH library, headers, and scripts into the SlothInstallation directory by running:

make install

Installing SLOTH in user-defined repository

By default, SLOTH is installed in a SlothInstallation directory at the same level as the repository.

Users can be specify another directory with the --install option of the envSloth.sh script.