16.1 Compilation and Testing

Q. I compile Nektar++ successfully but, when I run ctest, all the tests fail. What might be wrong?

On Linux or Mac, if you compile the ThirdParty version of Boost, rather than using version supplied with your operating system (or MacPorts on a Mac), the libraries will be installed in the ThirdParty/dist/lib subdirectory of your Nektar++ directory. When Nektar++ executables are run, the Boost libraries will not be found as this path is not searched by default. To allow the Boost libraries to be found set the following environmental variable, substituting $NEKTAR_HOME with the absolute path of your Nektar++ directory:

• On Linux (sh, bash, etc)
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${NEKTAR_HOME}/ThirdParty/dist/lib

  or (csh, etc)

  setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${NEKTAR_HOME}/ThirdParty/dist/lib
• On Mac
  export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=${NEKTAR_HOME}/ThirdParty/dist/lib

Q. How to I compile Nektar++ to run in parallel?

Parallel execution of all Nektar++ solvers is available using MPI. To compile using MPI, enable the NEKTAR_USE_MPI option in the CMake configuration. On recent versions of MPI, the solvers can still be run in serial when compiled with MPI. More information on Nektar++ compilation options is available in Section 1.3.5.

Q. When running any Nektar++ executable on Windows, I receive an error that zlib.dll cannot be found. How do I fix this?

Windows searches for DLL files in directories specified in the PATH environmental variable. You should add the location of the ThirdParty files to your path. To fix this (example for Windows XP):

• As an administrator, open ”System Properties” in control panel, select the ”Advanced” tab, and select ”Environment Variables”.
• Edit the system variable ‘path‘ and append

  C:\path\to\nektar++\ThirdParty\dist\bin

  to the end, replacing path\to\nektar++ appropriately.

Q. When compiling Nektar++ Thirdparty libraries I get an error “CMake Error: Problem extracting tar”

Nektar++ tries to download the appropriate ThirdParty libraries. However if the download protocols are restricted on your computer this may fail leading to the error “‘CMake Error: Problem extracting tar”. These libraries are available from

   http://www.nektar.info/thirdparty/

and can be downloaded directly into the $NEKTAR_HOME/ThirdParty directory