Building the ML SDK VGF Library

The build system must have:

  • CMake 3.22 or later.

  • C/C++ 17 compiler: GCC, or optionally Clang on Linux and MSVC on Windows®.

  • Python 3.10 or later. Required python libraries for building are listed in tooling-requirements.txt.

  • Flatbuffers flatc compiler 25.2.10 or later.

The following dependencies are also needed:

For the preferred dependency versions see the manifest file.

Providing Flatc

There are 3 options for providing the flatc binary and headers.

  1. Using the default path. When the repository is initialized using the repo manifest, the flatbuffers source is checked out in <repo-root>/dependencies/flatbuffers/. The VGF Library cmake scripts automatically find and build flatc in this location.

  2. Providing a custom flatc path. If flatc cannot be found in the default <repo-root>/dependencies/flatbuffers path, you can provide a custom binary file path to the build script using the --flatc-path <path_to_flatc> option, see Building with the script.

  3. Installing flatc to the system. If flatc cannot be found in the default path and no custom path is provided, it will be searched using PATH. To install flatc to the system and make it available on the searchable PATH, see the flatbuffers documentation. For example, on Linux navigate to the flatbuffers checkout location and run the following commands:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local
cmake --build build --target install

Building with the script

To make the build configuration options easily discoverable, we provide a python build script. When you run the script from a git-repo manifest checkout, the script uses default paths and does not require any additional arguments. If you do not use the script, you must specify paths to the dependencies.

To build on the current platform, for example on Linux or Windows®, run the following command:

python3 $SDK_PATH/sw/vgf-lib/scripts/build.py -j $(nproc)

To cross compile for AArch64 architecture, add the following option:

python3 $SDK_PATH/sw/vgf-lib/scripts/build.py -j $(nproc) --target-platform aarch64

To enable and run tests, use the --test option. To lint the tests, use the --lint option. To build the documentation, use the --doc option. To build the documentation, you must have sphinx and doxygen installed on your machine.

You can install the build artifacts for this project into a specified location. To install the build artifacts, pass the --install option with the required path.

To create an archive with the build artifacts option, you must add the --package option. The archive is stored in the provided location.

For more command line options, see the help output:

python3 $SDK_PATH/sw/vgf-lib/scripts/build.py --help