LFRic Apps Command Line Builds#

The LFRic makefile build system is reliant on having code from both lfric_core and lfric_apps available when launching, preventing the makefile from exporting lfric_core as part of the build process. This introduces a circular dependency in the makefile build system, not present when everything was on a single repo. As the makefile system is planned to be replaced by fab, it was decided to not spend too much effort rewriting the makefiles and instead use a wrapper script to export lfric_core and call the make command.

The wrapper script is located at /build/local_build.py. It is intended that all command line options available in the makefile system can be used here - if any have been missed then as it’s a python file it should be easily extendable. The script can be launched from anywhere by calling it, eg:

./local_build.py <PROJECT>

where PROJECT is the name of the LFRic Apps project being built, eg. gungho_model. This can be an application, science or interface section, although some of these may only contain a subset of possible make targets. The PROJECT is always required. The script has been setup to behave as the old make system did. It will create a working and a bin dir inside the project directory by default. Its first step is to export the lfric_core repo and then rsync it to the working dir so that incremental builds continue to work.

At the Met Office you will need to load the lfric environments before starting the script.

This table lists the command line arguments available:

Option	Default \| Description
`-c --core_source`	If not provided, the script will parse the `dependencies.yaml` file and use the core source set there.	The lfric_core source being used. Can be a remote github repository or a local clone.
`-w --working_dir`	The project directory.	The working directory for the build process.
`-j --ncores`	4	Integer, the number of cores for the build task
`-t --target`	build	The makefile target, eg. build, unit-tests, clean
`-o --optlevel`	None, Uses the default set in the makefile, usually `fast-debug`.	The optimisation level of the build process.
`-p --psyclone`	None, Uses the default set in the makefile.	Value passed to the `PSYCLONE_TRANSFORMATION` variable in the makefile.
`-v --verbose`	None, or “off”	Supplying this argument, which takes no argument, will request verbose output from the makefile.