[Tutorial] Build SystemC Environment

Published: by Creative Commons Licence (Last updated: )

Build SystemC Environment

In Windows

I used CLion as the IDE tool and MinGW as the Compatibility layer. You can also choose Visual Studio as the IDE tool, which will be more convenient in the environment setup.

Visual Studio

You can find the installation notes in the file ./INSTALL.

The download directory contains two subdirectories: 'msvc10' and
'examples/build-msvc'.

The 'msvc10' directory contains the project and workspace files to
compile the 'systemc.lib' library. Double-click on the 'SystemC.sln'
file to launch Visual C++ 2010 with the workspace file. The workspace file
will have the proper switches set to compile for Visual C++ 2010.
Select `Build SystemC' under the Build menu or press F7 to build
`systemc.lib'.

The `examples/build-msvc' directory contains the project and workspace
files to compile the SystemC examples. Go to one of the examples
subdirectories and double-click on the .vcxproj file to launch Visual C++
with the workspace file. The workspace file will have the proper switches
set to compile for Visual C++ 2010. Select 'Build <example>.exe' under the
Build menu or press F7 to build the example executable.

For convenience, a combined solution file 'SystemC_examples.sln' with
all example projects can be found in the 'examples/build-msvc' directory.
A similar solution file 'tlm_examples.sln' for the TLM examples is available
as well.

The provided project files are prepared for both the 32-bit 'Win32' and
64-bit 'x64' configurations.  Please refer to the Microsoft Visual Studio
documentation for details about 64-bit builds.

In addition to building static libraries for SystemC, the provided project
files include support for building a SystemC DLL (configurations DebugDLL,
ReleaseDLL).

CLion

In some blogs, e.g., this one, said that we should compile it under ./src/ and needed to change the ./scr/CMakeLists.txt, which is quite complex I thought.

Actually, we can simple open the whole root directory, then it will be automatically compiled with this info:

[100%] Built target systemc

Build finished

Or you can build it with ctrl + F9.

Then, under Build tool bar of CLion, you can find the install option. Then click it, and you can successively install the SystemC.

If you meet the error that you don't have the permission to access the directories, then you need to change the installation directory defined in ./cmake-build-degug/cmake_install.cmake file.

# Set the install prefix
if(NOT DEFINED CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
  set(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX "C:/Program Files/SystemC")
endif()

Just replace the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to another directory that you have permission to access.

Errors: sc_core

If you meet the error:

CMakeFiles\Adder.dir/objects.a(main.cpp.obj): In function `__static_initialization_and_destruction_0':
E:/systemc-2.3.3/SystemC/include/sysc/kernel/sc_ver.h:182: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_api_version_2_3_3_cxx201402L<&sc_core::SC_DISABLE_VIRTUAL_BIND_UNDEFINED_>::sc_api_version_2_3_3_cxx201402L(sc_core::sc_writer_policy)'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

Then you can change the CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD from 98 to 14.1

set (CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 98 CACHE STRING
     "C++ standard to build all targets. Supported values are 98, 11, and 14.")
     
set (CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 14)

And then rebuild the project, install it again.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Added on 23 June, 2020.

I followed the instructions of this video and set up the environment for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

You need to install these firstly: cmake, g++, and doxygen.

# check the softwares
g++ -v
cmake --version
doxygen
# if you don't have, then you need to `apt-get install xxx`
# enter the directory you download the file
cd systemc-2.3.3/
# create a directory to generate some temp files
mkdir buildDebug
cd buildDebug/
# -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX is the directory you install SystemC
# be care of -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_DEBUG_POSTFIX="-d" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/systemc-2.3.3-install -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=14 -DBUILD_SOURCE_DOCUMENTATION=ON ..
# -j means the number of jobs run parallelly
make -j 6
make check -j 6
make install

Then you can find include, lib file folders under that directory.

Example CMakeLists

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)
project(Adder)

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 14)
set(CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH E:/systemc-2.3.3/SystemC)

include_directories(${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH}/include)
find_package(SystemCLanguage CONFIG REQUIRED)
link_directories(${CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH}/lib)
add_executable(Adder main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(Adder SystemC::systemc)

CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD

The CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD should be the same as that in compiling stage.

include_directories

The directory of SystemC include files you installed in.

The directory of SystemC library you installed in.

add_executable

All the C++ files of your project.

Will cause errors like following if absent.

CMakeFiles\Adder.dir/objects.a(main.cpp.obj): In function `Hello_SystemC::method1()':
F:/main.cpp:18: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_time_stamp()'
CMakeFiles\Adder.dir/objects.a(main.cpp.obj): In function `Hello_SystemC::method2()':
F:/main.cpp:24: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_time_stamp()'
CMakeFiles\Adder.dir/objects.a(main.cpp.obj): In function `sc_main':
F:/main.cpp:30: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_time::sc_time(double, sc_core::sc_time_unit)'
F:/main.cpp:31: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_clock::sc_clock(char const*, sc_core::sc_time const&, double, sc_core::sc_time const&, bool)'
F:/main.cpp:32: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_module_name::sc_module_name(char const*)'
F:/main.cpp:32: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_module_name::~sc_module_name()'
F:/main.cpp:31: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_clock::~sc_clock()'
F:/main.cpp:35: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_module_name::~sc_module_name()'
F:/main.cpp:31: undefined reference to `sc_core::sc_clock::~sc_clock()'
CMakeFiles\Adder.dir/objects.a(main.cpp.obj): In function `__static_initialization_and_destruction_0':

  1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46875731/setting-up-a-systemc-project-with-cmake-undefined-reference-to-sc-core ↩