Packaging external projects

Development
1

Hi,

Setup: Ubuntu 20.04, SlicerCAT

I have external projects in SuperBuild subfolder that I can successively compile. After compilation I want to copy their content to SlicerCAT archive (package them or install - I guess it is almost the same)

For example I want to simply copy folder ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/h5geo-install to ${Slicer_INSTALL_BIN_DIR} when packaging SlicerCAT. As you noticed I install h5geo while building SlicerCAT (this simplifies some things for me now, probably later I will change it so h5geo will be only built but not installed while SlicerCAT build step).

My attempts were:
1 attempt:

install(
  DIRECTORY ${h5geo_ROOT}    # h5geo_ROOT points to ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/h5geo-install
  DESTINATION ${Slicer_INSTALL_BIN_DIR}
  )

Packaging is done via command:

cd d/Slicer-build
cpack -B ../../

this doesn’t add h5geo to .tar.gz archive.

2 attempt:
From here I tried:

set(CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS "${h5geo_ROOT};h5geo;ALL;/")  # don't completely understand the syntaxis: 1- parameter is the path to folder; 2- name of project??; 3- copy all components? If I copy directory what should be this 3rd param?

# Add Slicer sources
add_subdirectory(${slicersources_SOURCE_DIR} ${slicersources_BINARY_DIR})

This code snippet doesn’t give the result neither.

I see that most of Slicer’s packaging “magic” can be uncovered in SlicerCPack.cmake, SlicerBlockInstall... and in other SlicerCAT projects like SlicerAstro, AevaSlicer or SlicerSALT but still I have no understanding how it works.

Probably someone could give a little more hints on that.

2

Each library is responsible for installing itself. If your set install directory when you configure h5geo then it will be included in the installation package.

1 Like
3

Thank you.

I think I have found a solution how it works with files:

# Install libraries
include(${Slicer_SOURCE_DIR}/CMake/SlicerFunctionInstallLibrary.cmake)
slicerInstallLibrary(    # I think this is somehow similar to CMake `install` function
  FILE ${h5geo_ROOT}/lib/libh5geo.so
  DESTINATION ${Slicer_INSTALL_BIN_DIR}
  COMPONENT RuntimeLibraries
  )

set(CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS "${CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS};${h5geo_ROOT};h5geo;ALL;/")

include(${Slicer_SOURCE_DIR}/CMake/SlicerExtensionGenerateConfig.cmake)
include(${Slicer_SOURCE_DIR}/CMake/SlicerExtensionCPack.cmake)

Probably some lines are excessive but now I can see that libh5geo.so is copied to the bin folder of SlicerCAT archive.

Now I’m looking for a way to copy/install folder because I need to copy Julia to SlicerCAT install dir.

P.S. slicerInstallLibrary doesnt accept DIRECTORY (instead of FILE) as a parameter

4

This looks about right.

This will only work on linux. If you don’t add the .so then it may work on all platforms.

If your Julia build (or SDK) is set up correctly then all you need is to do is something like find_package(Julia) and then install the appropriate Julia target (the target knows where all the libraries, including different build modes, what files to install and where, etc.). If it is not set up correctly then you can either fix it or create the targets manually. If this does not work out (or you don’t want to learn these CMake techniques) then an an easy hack is to just get the file list using CMake file glob command and use that for file copy commands (for the built tree) and file install commands (for the install tree). There are differences in how this works on linux, macos, and windows, so it is quite a learning curve, but CMake is such an important and widely used build system that it is worth the effort.

1 Like
5

I’m completely agree with you. Step by step I have some success with cmake. For now I simply copy folder Julia to Slicer Install tree. Probably later I will improve that.

I’ve figured out (or almost) how to install folder Julia to Slicer install tree:

install(
  DIRECTORY ${julia_ROOT}/  # '/' in the end is necessary
  DESTINATION ${Slicer_INSTALL_ROOT}/julia
  COMPONENT RuntimeLibraries  # 'ALL' instead of `RuntimeLibraries` doesn't work
  )

set(CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS "${CPACK_INSTALL_CMAKE_PROJECTS};${julia_ROOT};julia;ALL;/")

My main mistake was I didn’t use COMPONENT with RuntimeLibraries value (I used to keep it empty).

Now my Julia folder is copied to Slicer install tree (package) but probably this is not the most correct way to do that as RuntimeLibraries should not be applied to a folder with subfolders and different types of files I think.

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