I've used simple makefiles for years, but only recently been assigned the task of learning the ins and outs of a large, complicated set of Autotools-generated makefiles which is used for a code base my employer has bought. In these, I'm running into variable declarations like the following:
QOBJECT_MOCSRCS = $(QOBJECT_HEADER:%.h=.gen/moc_%.cpp) \
$(QOBJECT_SRCS:%.cpp=.gen/moc_%.cpp)
QOBJECT_DEPS = $(QOBJECT_MOCSRCS:%.cpp=.deps/%.Po)
My best guess from context is that these set up lists of names of files to be provided by the build process, eg., QOBJECT_MOCSRCS should end up as a list of (a) .h files, (b) .cpp files, based on the % stem names of a set of intermediate .cpp files which will be generated during the build, in a temporary directory ./gen. This is used to store the moc_%.cpp files which are output as a result of a build of Qt files with Qt's moc tool...what is driving me crazy, is that I have been unable to find anything in any make documentation I've got (mostly the GNU make manual) that tells me what this style of declaration is called, so I can track it down and get a grip on the syntax. The contents of the $() look sort of like rules, and the nearest equivalents in the GNU make manual seem to be rules specifying target-specific variable values, but I have no idea whether this is anywhere near a correct reading. Can anyone point me to an appropriate reference for study?
This feature is called substitution references, http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Substitution-Refs.html#Substitution-Refs
Related
I have a module module1 in a file called mymodule.f90. What should I do in order to make module1 usable like fortran intrinsic module?, i.e. it need only be called in a use statement (use module1) in any programs, subroutines, or functions that use it but I don't need to link /path/to/mymodule/ when compiling those procedures.
I use gfortran, but possibly in the future I will also have to use the Intel fortran compiler.
So maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you want to use a module without having to tell the compiler where to find the .mod file (that contains the interface definitions for whatever module1 exports), or the linker where the object code can be found?
If so, for GFortran the solution is to download the GCC source code, add your own module as an intrinsic module, and then build your own custom version of GFortran. As a word of warning, unless you're familiar with the GFortran/GCC internals, while this isn't rocket science, it isn't trivial either.
For Intel Fortran, where you presumably don't have access to the source code of the compiler, I suppose you're out of luck.
My suggestion is to forget about this, and instead tell the compiler/linker where your .mod files and object files can be found. There are tools like make, cmake etc. that can help you automate this.
When you compile mymodule.f90 you will obtain an object file (mymodule.o) and a module file (mymodule1.mod). The compiler needs to have access to the module file when it compiles other files that use mymodule1, and the linker needs to have access to the object file when it generates the binary.
You don't need to specify the location of intrinsic modules because they are built in into the compiler. That will not be the case with your modules: you may be able to set up your environment in a way that the locations of your files allow the compiler to find the files without explicitly specifying their paths in compilation or linking commands, but the fact that you don't see it does not mean it's not happening.
For the Intel compiler, the answer is given by https://software.intel.com/en-us/node/694273 :
Directories are searched for .mod files in this order:
1 Directory of the source file that contains the USE statement.
2 Directories specified by the module path compiler option.
3 Current working directory.
4 Directories specified by the -Idir (Linux* and OS X*) or /include (Windows*) option.
5 Directories specified with the CPATH or INCLUDE environment variable.
6 Standard system directories.
For gfortran I have not found such a clear ordered list, but relevant information can be found in
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gfortran/Directory-Options.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Environment-Variables.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Directory-Options.html#Directory-Options
It should be clear to you that a compiler won't be able to understand module files created by other compilers, or even by different enough versions of the same compiler. Therefore, you would need a copy of your "always available" module for each compiler you use, and if you are using multiple versions of a compiler you may need up to one per version - each of them in a different directory to avoid errors.
As you can see, this is not particularly practical, and it is indeed far from common practice. It is usually easier and more clear to the user to specify the path to the relevant module file in the compilation command. This is quite easy to set up if you compile your code using tools such as make.
Finally, remember that, if you make such arrangements for module files, you will also need to make arrangements for the corresponding object files at the linking stage.
in two directories I have two different, independent Fortran 90 programs, and I want them to share certain routines that use some variables defined in modules. In other words, I have a directory dirA with program prgA.f90 and a couple of routines in an extra file sub.f90, and these routines use some stuff from a module in the file modA; all of them reside in dirA. In another directory, dirB, I have the independent code prgB.f90 that is supposed to use routines from sub.f90 and hence needs modules that define the stuff needed by it. For technical reasons, I cannot use the modules from modA in dirA directly, but write a variant of it, modB, with the same module name and containing the variables of interest with the same names as in modA as well as other variables only used by prgB. Will the routines from sub.f90 work with modA in the executable of prgA and with modB in the executable of prgB?
I have partly tried to adapt my codes to this, and the compiler seems to accept it somehow, but I'm not sure if it will really work and not produce garbage results in spite of compiling seemingly ok.
Basically the question is this: Can I share functions USEing certain modules between different programs if I ensure that the modules have the same name and have a subset of variables in common, or do the modules USEd by the functions have to be exactly the same for both programs?
Thomas
If I understand correctly then what you are doing is just fine.
When you build progA the compiler encounters, on tackling sub.f90, a statement such as use globals. At that point the compiler will look for a file called globals.mod which it should, by that point, have created by compiling the module source. Of course, that module source need not be in a file called globals.f90 but that's neither here nor there. The module source might, for example, be in a file called globals_for_a.f90.
When you build progB the compiler encounters, on tackling sub.f90, a statement such as use globals. At that point the compiler will look for a file called globals.mod which it should, by that point, have created by compiling the module source. Of course, that module source need not be in a file called globals.f90 but that's neither here nor there. The module source might, for example, be in a file called globals_for_b.f90.
So long as the compilation for each program finds the right source for globals.mod everything should compile as you wish. You've chosen to divide your source files across a number of directories but that's not strictly necessary; a make file with suitably defined targets could build either program or both however you organise the source files and directories.
Note that almost all of this is outside the concern of the Fortran standards, it's more a question of how compilers and compilation work.
I'm having trouble understanding if/how to share code among several Fortran projects without building libraries or duplicating source code.
I am using Eclipse/Photran with the Intel compiler (ifort) on a linux system, but I believe I'm having a bigger conceptual problem with modules than with the specific tools.
Here's a simple example: In ~/workspace/cow I have a source directory (src) containing cow.f90 (the PROGRAM) and two modules m_graze and m_moo in m_graze.f90 and m_moo.f90, respectively. This project builds and links properly to create the executable 'cow'. The executable and modules (m_graze.mod and m_moo.mod) are stored in ~/workspace/cow/Debug and object files are stored under ~/workspace/cow/Debug/src
Later, I create ~/workplace/sheep and have src/sheep.f90 as the program and src/m_baa.f90 as the module m_baa. I want to 'use m_graze, only: ruminate' in sheep.f90 to get access to the ruminate() subroutine. I could just copy m_graze.f90 but that could lead to code getting out of sync and doesn't take into account any dependencies m_graze might have. For these reasons, I'd rather leave m_graze in the cow project and compile and link sheep.f90 against it.
If I try to compile the sheep project, I'll get an error like:
error #7002: Error in opening the compiled module file. Check INCLUDE paths. [M_GRAZE]
Under Properties:Project References for sheep, I can select the cow project. Under Properties:Fortran Build:Settings:Intel Compiler:Preprocessor I can add ~/workspace/cow/Debug (location of the module files) to the list of include directories so the compiler now finds the cow modules and compiles sheep.f90. However the linker dies with something like:
Building target: sheep
Invoking: Intel(R) Fortran Linker
ifort -L/home/me/workspace/cow/Debug -o "sheep" ./src/sheep.o
./src/sheep.o: In function `sheep':
/home/me/workspace/sheep/src/sheep.f90:11: undefined reference to `m_graze_mp_ruminate_'
This would normally be solved by adding libraries and library paths to the linker settings except there are no appropriate libraries to link to (this is Fortran, not C.)
The cow project was perfectly capable of compiling and linking together cow.f90, m_graze.f90 and m_moo.f90 into an executable. Yet while the sheep project can compile sheep.f90 and m_baa.f90 and can find the module m_graze.mod, it can't seem to find the symbols for m_graze even though all the requisite information is present on the system for it to do so.
It would seem to be an easy matter of configuration to get the linker portion of ifort to find the missing pieces and put them together but I have no idea what magic words need to be entered where in the Photran UI to make this happen.
I confess an utter lack of interest and competence in C and the C build process and I'd rather avoid the diversion of creating libraries (.a or .so) unless that's the only way to make this work.
Ultimately, I'm looking for a pure Fortran solution to this problem so I can keep a single copy of the source code and don't have to manually maintain a pile of custom Makefiles.
So can this be done?
Apologies if this has already been documented somewhere; Google is only showing me simple build examples, how to create modules, and how to link with existing libraries. There don't seem to be (m)any examples of code reuse with modules that don't involve duplicating source code.
Edit
As respondents have pointed out, the .mod files are necessary but not sufficient; either object code (in the form of m_graze.o) or static or shared libraries must be specified during the linking phase. The .mod files describe the interface to the object code/library but both are necessary to build the final executable.
For an oversimplified toy problem such as this, that's sufficient to answer the question as posed.
In a larger project with more complex dependencies (in my case, 80+KLOC of F90 linking to the MKL version of LAPACK95), the IDE or toolchain may lack sufficient automatic or user-interface facilities to make sharing a single canonical set of source files a viable strategy. The choice seems to be between risking duplicate source files getting out of sync, giving up many of the benefits of an IDE (i.e. avoiding manual creation of make/CMake/SCons files), or, in all likelihood, both. While a revision control system and good code organization can help, it's clear that sharing a single canonical set of source files among projects is far from easy given the current state of Eclipse.
Some background which I suspect you already know: Typically (including ifort) compiling the source code for a Fortran module results in two outputs - a "mod" file that contains a description of the Fortran entities that the module defines that the compiler needs to find whenever it sees a USE statement for the module, and object code for the linker that implements the procedures and variable storage, etc., that the module defines.
Your first error (the one you solved) is because the compiler couldn't find the mod file.
The second error is because the linker hasn't been told about the object code that implements the stuff that was in the source file with the module. I'm not an Eclipse user by any means, but a brute force way of specifying that is just to add the object file (xxxxx/Debug/m_graze.o) as an additional linker option (Fortran Build > Settings, under Intel Fortran Linker > Command Line). (Other tool chains have explicit "additional object file" properties for their link stage - there may well be a better way of doing this for the Intel chain.)
For more involved examples you would typically create a library out of the shared code. That's not really C specific, the only Fortran aspect is that the libraries archive of object code needs to be provided alongside the mod files that the Fortran compiler generates.
Yes the object code must be provided. E.g., when you install libnetcdf-dev in Debian (apt-get install libnetcdf-dev), there is a /usr/include/netcdf.mod file that is included.
You can now use all netcdf routines in your Fortran code. E.g.,
program main
use netcdf
...
end
but you'll have link to the netcdf shared (or static) library, i.e.,
gfortran -I/usr/include/ main.f90 -lnetcdff
However, as user MSB mentioned the mod file can only be used by gfortran that comes with the distribution (apt-get install gfortran). If you want to use any other compiler (even a different version that you may have installed yourself) then you'll have to build netcdf yourself using that particular compiler.
So creating a library is not a bad solution.
There are struct definitions in the .h file that my library creates after I build it.. but I cannot find these in the corresponding .h.in. Can somebody tell me how all this works and where it gets the extra info from?
To be specific: I am building pth, the userspace threading library. It has pth_p.h.in, which doesn't contain the struct definition I am looking for, yet when I build the library, a pth_p.h appears and it has the definition I need.
In fact, I have searched every single file in the library before it is built and cannot find where it is generating the struct definition.
Pth uses GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool. By running ./configure you'll be running a shell script which eventually runs m4 to detect the presence of a whole bunch of different system attributes and make changes to a number of files.
It looks like it boils down to ./configure generating Makefile from Makefile.in and then running something via make that triggers the shtool subcommand scpp:
pth_p.h: $(S)pth_p.h.in
$(SHTOOL) scpp -o pth_p.h -t $(S)pth_p.h.in -Dcpp -Cintern -M '==#==' $(HSRCS)
Obscure link, but here's an shtool-scpp manpage, which describes it as:
This command is an additional ANSI C
source file pre-processor for sharing
cpp(1) code segments, internal
variables and internal functions. The
intention for this comes from writing
libraries in ANSI C. Here a common
shared internal header file is usually
used for sharing information between
the library source files.
The operation is to parse special
constructs in files, generate a few
things out of these constructs and
insert them at position mark in tfile
by writing the output to ofile.
Additionally the files are never
touched or modified. Instead the
constructs are removed later by the
cpp(1) phase of the build process. The
only prerequisite is that every file
has a ``"#include ""ofile"""'' at the
top.
.h.in is probably processed within a configure (generated from configure.ac) script, look out for
AC_CONFIG_FILES([thatfile.h])
It replaces variables of the form #VAR# in the .in file with their values.
Edit: Just noticed if I'm right you should retag your question
I'm producing a hex file to run on an ARM processor which I want to keep below 32K. It's currently a lot larger than that and I wondered if someone might have some advice on what's the best approach to slim it down?
Here's what I've done so far
So I've run 'size' on it to determine how big the hex file is.
Then 'size' again to see how big each of the object files are that link to create the hex files. It seems the majority of the size comes from external libraries.
Then I used 'readelf' to see which functions take up the most memory.
I searched through the code to see if I could eliminate calls to those functions.
Here's where I get stuck, there's some functions which I don't call directly (e.g. _vfprintf) and I can't find what calls it so I can remove the call (as I think I don't need it).
So what are the next steps?
Response to answers:
As I can see there are functions being called which take up a lot of memory. I cannot however find what is calling it.
I want to omit those functions (if possible) but I can't find what's calling them! Could be called from any number of library functions I guess.
The linker is working as desired, I think, it only includes the relevant library files. How do you know if only the relevant functions are being included? Can you set a flag or something for that?
I'm using GCC
General list:
Make sure that you have the compiler and linker debug options disabled
Compile and link with all size options turned on (-Os in gcc)
Run strip on the executable
Generate a map file and check your function sizes. You can either get your linker to generate your map file (-M when using ld), or you can use objdump on the final executable (note that this will only work on an unstripped executable!) This won't actually fix the problem, but it will let you know of the worst offenders.
Use nm to investigate the symbols that are called from each of your object files. This should help in finding who's calling functions that you don't want called.
In the original question was a sub-question about including only relevant functions. gcc will include all functions within every object file that is used. To put that another way, if you have an object file that contains 10 functions, all 10 functions are included in your executable even if one 1 is actually called.
The standard libraries (eg. libc) will split functions into many separate object files, which are then archived. The executable is then linked against the archive.
By splitting into many object files the linker is able to include only the functions that are actually called. (this assumes that you're statically linking)
There is no reason why you can't do the same trick. Of course, you could argue that if the functions aren't called the you can probably remove them yourself.
If you're statically linking against other libraries you can run the tools listed above over them too to make sure that they're following similar rules.
Another optimization that might save you work is -ffunction-sections, -Wl,--gc-sections, assuming you're using GCC. A good toolchain will not need to be told that, though.
Explanation: GNU ld links sections, and GCC emits one section per translation unit unless you tell it otherwise. But in C++, the nodes in the dependecy graph are objects and functions.
On deeply embedded projects I always try to avoid using any standard library functions. Even simple functions like "strtol()" blow up the binary size. If possible just simply avoid those calls.
In most deeply embedded projects you don't need a versatile "printf()" or dynamic memory allocation (many controllers have 32kb or less RAM).
Instead of just using "printf()" I use a very simple custom "printf()", this function can only print numbers in hexadecimal or decimal format not more. Most data structures are preallocated at compile time.
Andrew EdgeCombe has a great list, but if you really want to scrape every last byte, sstrip is a good tool that is missing from the list and and can shave off a few more kB.
For example, when run on strip itself, it can shave off ~2kB.
From an old README (see the comments at the top of this indirect source file):
sstrip is a small utility that removes the contents at the end of an
ELF file that are not part of the program's memory image.
Most ELF executables are built with both a program header table and a
section header table. However, only the former is required in order
for the OS to load, link and execute a program. sstrip attempts to
extract the ELF header, the program header table, and its contents,
leaving everything else in the bit bucket. It can only remove parts of
the file that occur at the end, after the parts to be saved. However,
this almost always includes the section header table, and occasionally
a few random sections that are not used when running a program.
Note that due to some of the information that it removes, a sstrip'd executable is rumoured to have issues with some tools. This is discussed more in the comments of the source.
Also... for an entertaining/crazy read on how to make the smallest possible executable, this article is worth a read.
Just to double-check and document for future reference, but do you use Thumb instructions? They're 16 bit versions of the normal instructions. Sometimes you might need 2 16 bit instructions, so it won't save 50% in code space.
A decent linker should take just the functions needed. However, you might need compiler & linke settings to package functions for individual linking.
Ok so in the end I just reduced the project to it's simplest form, then slowly added files one by one until the function that I wanted to remove appeared in the 'readelf' file. Then when I had the file I commented everything out and slowly add things back in until the function popped up again. So in the end I found out what called it and removed all those calls...Now it works as desired...sweet!
Must be a better way to do it though.
To answer this specific need:
•I want to omit those functions (if possible) but I can't find what's
calling them!! Could be called from any number of library functions I
guess.
If you want to analyze your code base to see who calls what, by whom a given function is being called and things like that, there is a great tool out there called "Understand C" provided by SciTools.
https://scitools.com/
I have used it very often in the past to perform static code analysis. It can really help to determine library dependency tree. It allows to easily browse up and down the calling tree among other things.
They provide a limited time evaluation, then you must purchase a license.
You could look at something like executable compression.