openfoam/plugins

[[TOC]]

OpenFOAM plugins

This directory is a location for additional OpenFOAM components or tools to placed and have them built as part of the normal OpenFOAM build process. It is assumed that each subdirectory contain an appropriate Allwmake (or Allwmake.override) file.

The primary distinction between modules and plugins is that modules are mainly maintained and released by OpenFOAM developers, whereas plugins are an open and welcoming area for add-ons, predominantly maintained and driven by OpenFOAM community members and groups.

How to use

On the first use, you need to register the submodules, and then update them. You can execute both steps for all the available submodules (including the nested ones) as follows while you are at $WM_PROJECT_DIR:

cd $WM_PROJECT_DIR

git submodule update --init --recursive

Executing this single-line command clones all the submodules from their respective repositories and prepares them for compilation. Note that you can also make only a certain group of submodules ready by explicitly specifying the requested submodules' names at the end of the command above. For example, if you would like to use only the turbulence-community submodule, you specify:

git submodule update --init --recursive plugins/turbulence-community

You can display information about the status of submodules as follows:

git submodule status --recursive

An easy way to see which submodules are actually in use:

cat .gitmodules

Which will reveal content resembling the following:

[submodule "xyz"]
    path = plugins/xyz
    url = ...
...

If you need to remove a specific submodule or wish to restart the process, you can simply carry out the task as follows:

git submodule deinit plugins/turbulence-community

This command deregisters the specified submodule and clears the plugins/turbulence-community directory.

A quick overview of git submodules can be found in this blog with full details in the manpage.

Build locations

Any individual plugin will normally also be able to exist outside of the plugins directory structure and will typically build into user locations ($FOAM_USER_APPBIN, $FOAM_USER_LIBBIN).

When compiled from the top-level OpenFOAM Allwmake or the plugins/Allwmake, they should build into OpenFOAM project locations ($FOAM_APPBIN, $FOAM_LIBBIN). This can be adjusted by supplying an alternative -prefix= to the corresponding Allwmake command.

Command	Install location
./Allwmake -prefix=user	$FOAM_USER_APPBIN, $FOAM_USER_LIBBIN
./Allwmake -prefix=group	$FOAM_SITE_APPBIN, $FOAM_SITE_LIBBIN
./Allwmake -prefix=openfoam	$FOAM_APPBIN, $FOAM_LIBBIN
./Allwmake -prefix=/some/pathname	/some/pathname/bin, /some/pathname/lib

Documentation (doxygen)

To build the doxygen information for the components, it is also necessary to link the directories to the doc/ subdirectory. This is a purely manual operation.

Developer information

Build locations

To accomodate building into various locations, the plugin code should be adapted with the following changes:

• Make/files

  ...
  EXE = $(FOAM_MODULE_APPBIN)/someExecutable
  
  LIB = $(FOAM_MODULE_LIBBIN)/libSomeLibrary
  

• Make/options should include this

  include $(GENERAL_RULES)/module-path-user
  ...
  

The following changes to Make/options are universally applicable (ie, work with older or other versions of OpenFOAM), but more verbose.

• Make/options with the following

  sinclude $(GENERAL_RULES)/module-path-user
  
  /* Failsafe - user locations */
  ifeq (,$(FOAM_MODULE_APPBIN))
  FOAM_MODULE_APPBIN = $(FOAM_USER_APPBIN)
  endif
  ifeq (,$(FOAM_MODULE_LIBBIN))
  FOAM_MODULE_LIBBIN = $(FOAM_USER_LIBBIN)
  endif
  ...
  

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