This file describes how to build Ice for C++ from source and how to test the resulting build.
ZeroC provides Ice binary distributions for many platforms and compilers, including Windows and Visual Studio, so building Ice from source is usually unnecessary.
- C++ Build Requirements
- Building Ice for AIX, Linux or macOS
- Building Ice for Windows
- Installing a C++ Source Build on AIX, Linux or macOS
- Creating a NuGet Package on Windows
- Cleaning the source build on AIX, Linux or macOS
- Running the Test Suite
Ice was extensively tested using the operating systems and compiler versions listed on supported platforms.
On Windows, the build requires a recent version of Visual Studio. When building with Visual Studio 2017 you have to install Desktop development with C++ workload and select the optional component Windows 8.1 SDK and UCRT SDK.
Ice has dependencies on a number of third-party libraries:
- bzip2 1.0
- expat 2.1 or later
- libedit (Linux and macOS)
- LMDB 0.9 (LMDB is not required with the C++11 mapping)
- mcpp 2.7.2 with patches
- OpenSSL 1.0.0 or later (on AIX and Linux)
You do not need to build these packages from source.
OpenSSL (openssl.base) is provided by AIX. bzip2 and bzip2-devel are included in the IBM AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications.
ZeroC provide RPM packages for expat, LDMB and mcpp. You can install these packages as shown below:
sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/aix7.2/ice-repo-3.7.aix7.2.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install expat-devel lmdb-devel mcpp-devel
The expat-devel package contains the static library libexpat-static.a built with xlc_r, together with header files and other development files.
Bzip, Expat, Libedit and OpenSSL are included with most Linux distributions.
ZeroC supplies binary packages for LMDB and mcpp for several Linux distributions that do not include them. You can install these packages as shown below:
sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/amzn2/ice-repo-3.7.amzn2.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install lmdb-devel mcpp-devel
sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/el8/ice-repo-3.7.el8.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install lmdb-devel mcpp-devel
sudo yum install https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/el7/ice-repo-3.7.el7.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install lmdb-devel mcpp-devel
wget https://zeroc.com/download/ice/3.7/suse/zeroc-ice3.7.repo
sudo zypper addrepo zeroc-ice3.7.repo
sudo sudo rpm --import https://zeroc.com/download/GPG-KEY-zeroc-release-B6391CB2CFBA643D
sudo zypper install mcpp-devel
In addition, on Ubuntu and Debian distributions where the Ice for Bluetooth plug-in is supported, you need to install the following packages in order to build the IceBT transport plug-in:
- pkg-config 0.29 or later
- D-Bus 1.10 or later
- BlueZ 5.37 or later
These packages are provided with the system and can be installed with:
sudo apt-get install pkg-config libdbus-1-dev libbluetooth-dev
We have experienced problems with BlueZ versions up to and including 5.39, as well as 5.44 and 5.45. At this time we recommend using the daemon (
bluetoothd
) from BlueZ 5.43.
bzip, expat and libedit are included with your system.
You can install LMDB and mcpp using Homebrew:
brew install lmdb mcpp
ZeroC provides NuGet packages for all these third-party dependencies.
The Ice build system for Windows downloads and installs the NuGet command-line
executable and the required NuGet packages when you build Ice for C++. The
third-party packages are installed in the ice/cpp/msbuild/packages
folder.
Review the top-level config/Make.rules in your build tree and update the configuration if needed. The comments in the file provide more information.
On AIX, add /opt/freeware/bin as the first element of your PATH:
export PATH=/opt/freeware/bin:$PATH
In a command window, change to the cpp
subdirectory:
cd cpp
Run make
to build the Ice C++ libraries, services and test suite. Set V=1
to
get a more detailed build output. You can build only the libraries and services
with the srcs
target, or only the tests with the tests
target. For example:
make V=1 -j8 srcs
The build system supports specifying additional preprocessor, compiler and
linker options with the CPPFLAGS
, CXXFLAGS
and LDFLAGS
variables. For
example, to build the Ice C++98 mapping with -std=c++11
, you can use:
make CXXFLAGS=-std=c++11
To build the test suite using a binary distribution use:
make ICE_BIN_DIST=all
If the binary distribution you are using is not installed in a system wide location
where the C++ compiler can automatically find the header and library files, you also
need to set ICE_HOME
make ICE_HOME=/opt/Ice-3.7.10 ICE_BIN_DIST=all
The C++ source tree supports multiple build configurations and platforms. To see the supported configurations and platforms:
make print V=supported-configs
make print V=supported-platforms
To build all the supported configurations and platforms:
make CONFIGS=all PLATFORMS=all -j8
The C++ source tree supports two different language mappings (C++98 and C++11). The default build uses the C++98 mapping. The C++11 mapping is a new mapping that uses new language features.
To build the C++11 mapping, use build configurations that are prefixed with
cpp11
, for example:
make CONFIGS=cpp11-shared -j8
The build system supports building Xcode SDKs for Ice. These SDKs allow you to
easily develop Ice applications with Xcode. To build Xcode SDKs, use the xcodesdk
configurations. The Ice Builder for Xcode must be installed before building
the SDKs:
make CONFIGS=xcodesdk -j8 srcs # Build the C++98 mapping Xcode SDK
make CONFIGS=cpp11-xcodesdk -j8 srcs # Build the C++11 mapping Xcode SDK
The Xcode SDKs are built into ice/sdk
.
Open a Visual Studio command prompt. For example, with Visual Studio 2015, you can open one of:
- VS2015 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt
- VS2015 x64 Native Tools Command Prompt
Using the first Command Prompt produces Win32
binaries by default, while
the second Command Prompt produces x64
binaries by default.
In the Command Prompt, change to the cpp
subdirectory:
cd cpp
Now you're ready to build Ice:
msbuild /m msbuild\ice.proj
This builds the Ice for C++ SDK and the Ice for C++ test suite, with Release binaries for the default platform.
Set the MSBuild Configuration
property to Debug
to build debug binaries
instead:
msbuild /m msbuild\ice.proj /p:Configuration=Debug
The Configuration
property may be set to Debug
or Release
.
Set the MSBuild Platform
property to Win32
or x64
to build binaries
for a specific platform, for example:
msbuild /m msbuild\ice.proj /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64
You can also skip the build of the test suite with the BuildDist
target:
msbuild /m msbuild\ice.proj /t:BuildDist /p:Platform=x64
To build the test suite using the NuGet binary distribution use:
msbuild /m msbuild\ice.proj /p:ICE_BIN_DIST=all
You can also sign the Ice binaries with Authenticode, by setting the following environment variables:
SIGN_CERTIFICATE
to your Authenticode certificateSIGN_PASSWORD
to the certificate passwordSIGN_SHA1
the SHA1 hash of the signing certificate
Open the Visual Studio solution that corresponds to the Visual Studio version you are using.
- For Visual Studio 2022 use msbuild/ice.v142.sln
- For Visual Studio 2019 use msbuild/ice.v142.sln
- For Visual Studio 2017 use msbuild/ice.v141.sln
- For Visual Studio 2015 use msbuild/ice.v140.sln
- For Visual Studio 2013 use msbuild/ice.v120.sln
- For Visual Studio 2010 use msbuild/ice.v100.sln
Restore the solution NuGet packages using the NuGet package manager, if the automatic download of packages during build is not enabled.
Using the configuration manager choose the platform and configuration you want to build.
The solution provide a project for each Ice component and each component can be built separately. When you build a component its dependencies are built automatically.
For Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2015, the solutions organize the projects in two solution folders, C++11 and C++98, which correspond to the C++11 and C++98 mappings. If you want to build all the C++11 mapping components, build the C++11 solution folder; likewise if you want to build all the C++98 mapping components, build the C++98 solution folder.
For Visual Studio 2013 and Visual Studio 2010. there is no separate solution folder because only the C++98 mapping is supported with these compilers.
The test suite is built using separate Visual Studio solutions:
- Ice Test Suite for Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio 2017, Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013 msbuild/ice.test.sln
- Ice Test Suite for Visual Studio 2010 msbuild/ice.test.v100.sln
- Ice OpenSSL Test Suite for Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio 2017, Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013 msbuild/ice.openssl.test.sln
The solution provides a separate project for each test component, the
Cpp11-Release
and Cpp11-Debug
build configurations are setup to use the
C++11 mapping in release and debug mode respectively, and are only supported
with Visual Studio 2019, Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2015. The
Release
and Debug
build configurations are setup to use the C++98 mapping in
release and debug mode respectively.
The building of the test uses by default the local source build, and you must have built the Ice source with the same platform and configuration than you are attempting to build the tests.
For example to build the Cpp11-Release/x64
tests you must have built first the
C++11 mapping using Release/x64
.
It is also possible to build the tests using a C++ binary distribution, to do
that you must set the ICE_BIN_DIST
environment variable to all
before
starting Visual Studio.
Then launch Visual Studio and open the desired test solution, you must now use NuGet package manager to restore the NuGet packages, and the build will use Ice NuGet packages instead of your local source build.
Simply run make install
. This will install Ice in the directory specified by
the <prefix>
variable in ../config/Make.rules
.
After installation, make sure that the <prefix>/bin
directory is in your
PATH
.
If you choose to not embed a runpath
into executables at build time (see your
build settings in ../config/Make.rules
) or did not create a symbolic link from
the runpath
directory to the installation directory, you also need to add the
library directory to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH
(AIX, Linux) or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
(macOS).
On an AIX system:
<prefix>/lib
On a Linux x86_64 system:
<prefix>/lib64
(RHEL, SLES, Amazon)<prefix>/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
(Ubuntu)
On macOS:
<prefix>/lib
When compiling Ice programs, you must pass the location of the
<prefix>/include
directory to the compiler with the -I
option, and the
location of the library directory with the -L
option.
If building a C++11 program, you must define the ICE_CPP11_MAPPING
macro
during compilation with the -D
option (c++ -DICE_CPP11_MAPPING
) and add the
++11
suffix to the library name when linking (such as -lIce++11
).
You can create a NuGet package with the following command:
msbuild msbuild\ice.proj /t:NuGetPack /p:BuildAllConfigurations=yes
This creates zeroc.ice.v100\zeroc.ice.v100.nupkg
,
zeroc.ice.v120\zeroc.ice.v120.nupkg
, zeroc.ice.v140\zeroc.ice.v140.nupkg
,
zeroc.ice.v141\zeroc.ice.v141.nupkg
, zeroc.ice.v142\zeroc.ice.v142.nupkg
or zeroc.ice.v143\zeroc.ice.v143.nupkg
depending on the compiler you are using.
Running make clean
will remove the binaries created for the default
configuration and platform.
To clean the binaries produced for a specific configuration or platform, you
need to specify the CONFIGS
or PLATFORMS
variable. For example,
make CONFIGS=cpp11-shared clean
will clean the C++11 mapping build.
To clean the build for all the supported configurations and platforms, run
make CONFIGS=all PLATFORMS=all clean
.
Running make distclean
will also clean the build for all the configurations
and platforms. In addition, it will also remove the generated files created by
the Slice compilers.
Python is required to run the test suite. Additionally, the Glacier2 tests
require the Python module passlib
, which you can install with the command:
pip install passlib
After a successful source build, you can run the tests as follows:
python allTests.py # default config (C++98) and platform
For the C++11 mapping, you need to specify a C++11 config:
- Linux/macOS
python allTests.py --config=cpp11-shared # cpp11-shared config with the default platform
- Windows C++11 debug builds
python allTests.py --config Cpp11-Debug
- Windows C++11 release builds
python allTests.py --config Cpp11-Release
If everything worked out, you should see lots of ok
messages. In case of a
failure, the tests abort with failed
.
The test scripts require Ice for Python. You can build Ice for Python from
the python folder of this source distribution, or install the
Python module zeroc-ice
, using the following command:
pip install zeroc-ice
In order to run the test suite on iphoneos
, you need to build the
C++98 Test Controller app or C++11 Test Controller app from Xcode:
- Build the test suite with
make
for thexcodedsk
orcpp11-xcodesdk
configuration, and theiphoneos
platform. - Open the C++ Test Controller project located in the
cpp/test/ios/controller
directory. - Build the
C++98 Test Controller
or theC++11 Test Controller
app (it must match the configuration(s) selected when building the test suite).
- C++98 controller
python allTests.py --config=xcodesdk --platform=iphonesimulator --controller-app
- C++11 controller
python allTests.py --config=cpp11-xcodesdk --platform=iphonesimulator --controller-app
-
Start the
C++98 Test Controller
or theC++11 Test Controller
app on your iOS device, from Xcode. -
Start the C++98 controller on your Mac:
python allTests.py --config=xcodesdk --platform=iphoneos
- Start the C++11 controller on your Mac:
python allTests.py --config=cpp11-xcodesdk --platform=iphoneos
All the test clients and servers run on the iOS device, not on your Mac computer.