NOTE: These instructions are for compiling the development branch.
NOTE: Boost now needs to be at least version 1.71.
You can also compile with meson instead of cmake. Meson allows using linux to generate windows binaries (“cross-compiling”).
Download and install 64-bit cygwin (setup-x86_64.exe). Make sure you include the following packages:
(Cygwin package versions are from May 2022. Newer versions may work, but see special version notes below. As of July 2024, RevBayes requires cmake 3.5.1 and Boost 1.71.)
| package | version |
|---|---|
| cmake | 3.14.5-1 |
| cmake-debuginfo | 3.14.5-1 |
| cmake-doc | 3.14.5-1 |
| cmake-gui | 3.14.5-1 |
| git | 2.21.0-1 |
| make | 4.3-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-boost | 1.66.0-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-gcc-core | 9.2.0-2 |
| mingw64-x86_64-gcc-g++ | 9.2.0-2 |
For RevStudio you will also need:
| package | version |
|---|---|
| mingw64-x86_64-atk1.0 | 2.26.1-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-bzip2 | 1.0.6-4 |
| mingw64-x86_64-cairo | 1.14.12-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-fribidi | 0.19.7-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-gdk-pixbuf2.0 | 2.36.11-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-glib2.0 | 2.54.3-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-gtk2.0 | 2.24.31-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-gtkmm2.4 | 2.24.5-1 |
| mingw64-x86_64-pango1.0 | 1.40.14-1 |
Notes about the versions:
Boost and CMake:
It’s important that the version of Boost that you use be supported by the version of CMake that you use. You can check this by going to the package source for the CMake version you’re using e.g. 3.14.5. Search for _Boost_KNOWN_VERSIONS and ensure your boost version appears in the list.
Occasionally, RevBayes may require a version of cmake or Boost that is not available via Cygwin. Once you have used Cygwin to install gcc, you can install these separately.
cmake has a simple and well-documented installation pathway.
Configuring Boost is less straightforward.
c:\boost\boost_1_82_0. It may be wise not to use the most current version; at time of writing, the latest 1.85 release caused compatibility issues.cd to the boost directory, here: c:/boost/boost_1_82_0./bootstrap.bat gcc to run the script with the gcc toolset.b2 toolset=gcc-13 address-model=64 architecture=x86 --build-dir=build variant=release --build-type=complete --prefix=c:/boost/boost_1_82_0/gcc --with-regex --with-program_options --with-thread --with-system --with-filesystem --with-date_time --with-serialization install.
address-model=64 architecture=x86 toolset=gcc-13 options are assumed to match the configuration of your system – here, a 64-bit x86 machine – throughout this tutorial. Use gcc -v to check which version of gcc you are using and update gcc-13 to match.C:\boost\boost_1_82_0\gcc\lib\cmake\Boost-1.82.0 will contain a file BoostConfig.cmakeIf you see errors, you may need to use a more recent version of b2 than is bundled with Boost:
b2.exe, so the system uses the updated version installed globally above.b2 --version to confirm that a version of b2 >= 5.2 is available.<path/to/revbayes>/src/CMakeLists.txt to point to Boost:
a. After the line project(RevBayes), add:
set(BOOST_ROOT "C:/boost/boost_1_82_0/gcc")
(to match the value specified to b2 in the prefix argument)
b. After the line starting find_package(Boost, around line 170,
add include_directories(${Boost_INCLUDE_DIRS})Retrieve the RevBayes sources.
git clone https://github.com/revbayes/revbayes.git revbayes
If you have already obtained the source code by another method,
navigate to the folder that contains it. To get to the folder c:/RevBayes,
use cd /cygdrive/c/RevBayes.
Compile RevBayes.
cd revbayes
cd projects/cmake
bash build.sh -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../mingw64_toolchain.cmake
or the RevStudio version
bash build.sh -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../mingw64_toolchain.cmake -cmd true
If you see the error build.sh: line ##: $'\r': command not found,
you need to convert to Unix line endings (\n rather than Windows \r\n).
Open the problematic file – here, (build.sh) –
in Notepad++,
use the Edit menu→EOL conversion→Unix (LF),
then save the file.
If you installed Boost manually, rather than using the Cygwin package,
you will need to update src/CMakeLists.txt to tell cmake where to
find Boost, as detailed above.
If you encounter problems finding specific Boost libraries (e.g. regex),
a common issue is that the boost libraries have been built using a
different toolkit (e.g. a different version of gcc) to the toolkit being
used to build RevBayes.
It may help to switch from the Cygwin shell to a regular command prompt,
or to use VSCode
to build the project.
Add the line set(Boost_DEBUG ON) to the top of your CMakeLists.txt file
to see the toolset used to build Boost (which may differ, confusingly, from
the filenames of the compiled libraries in C:\boost\boost_1_82_0\gcc\lib).
This should match the version number reported by gcc -v.
If cmake cannot find generated_included_dirs, these were not generated
successfully by <revbayes>/projects/cmake/regenerate.sh; head to
this folder and run bash regenerate.sh.
Library whack-a-mole
When you try to run the executable you will likely get an error about missing libraries.
Make a new directory and put the executable in it.
Then find the library from the error message in /usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32/sys-root/mingw/bin/ and copy it to the directory you put the exectuable in. Repeat this until you stop getting error messages.
At the time this was written (RevBayes v1.1.0), this consisted of: