As a general guideline, .cmd files are non-standalone batch files that need to be run from command prompt or from another batch file, and/or while the Visual Studio environment variables set, and .bat files are standalone batch files that can be run also e.g. from the File Explorer.

Usage Instructions

Execute build-deps.cmd to fetch, build and install the dependencies. The batch file will print the requirements for a successful execution. The script allows a few user-configurable build options which are listed in the usage instructions. Either edit the script file or set these values before running the script.

build-deps.cmd expects a CMake generator as %1 and a build configuration type (RelWithDebInfo/Release/MinSizeRel/Debug, defaults to RelWithDebInfo) as %2. If the generator is not provided, the generator is deduced from the Visual Studio environment variables. A build type (Build/Rebuild/Clean, defaults to Build) can be provided as %3. See vs-cfg.cmd if you wish to change the defaults. The batch file will create deps\ and deps-vs<VERSION>-<ARCHITECTURE>-installed\ directories to the project root. Debug and release builds of the depedencies can co-exist by simply running build-deps.cmd <GENERATOR> Debug and build-deps.cmd <GENERATOR> <Release|RelWithDebInfo|MinSizeRel>.

After the dependencies are build, execute run-cmake.bat. The batch file expects always a CMake generator as %1 (if not provided, the same default value as above is used), and the rest of possible parameters are passed as is. If you wish to use any library from a custom location, modify the paths in run-cmake.bat accordingly. The batch script will create a folder of form build-vs<VERSION>-<ARCHITECTURE>\ which will contain the solution and project files for Visual Studio.

Note that building IfcOpenShell as 64-bit is recommended as many of real life IFC files has been observed to take easily more than 2 GBs of RAM while converting.

After this, one can build the project using the IfcOpenShell.sln file in the build folder. Build the INSTALL project if wanted. Convenience batch files build-ifcopenshell.cmd and install-ifcopenshell.cmd can also be used. The batch files expect %1 and %2 in same fashion as above and possible extra parameters are passed for the MSBuild call. The project will be installed to installed-vs<VERSION>-<ARCHITECTURE>\ folder in the project's root folder and the required IfcOpenShell-Python parts are deployed to the <PYTHONPATH>\Lib\site-packages\ folder.

Note: All of the dependencies are build as static libraries against the static run-time allowing the developer to effortlessly deploy standalone IFCOS binaries.

Using an already existing Python installation

Let's say you have already installed 64-bit Python 3.5.1 to C:\Python3. Before building the dependencies, disable the script from installing Python:

> set IFCOS_INSTALL_PYTHON=FALSE
> buid-deps.cmd

After bulding the dependencies, create BuildDepsCache file to IfcOpenShell\win which tells the used Python version and intallation directory:

> echo PY_VER_MAJOR_MINOR=35> BuildDepsCache-x64.txt
> echo PYTHONPATH=C:\Python3>> BuildDepsCache-x64.txt

After this you should be able to run run-cmake.bat normally. If using 32-bit Python, the name of the file must be BuildDepsCache-x86.txt.

Directory Structure

..
+---build-vs<VER>-<ARCH>            - Created by run-cmake.bat, for a certain VS version and target architecture
+---deps                            - Created by build-deps.cmd, common for all VS versions and target architectures
+---deps-installed-vs<VER>-<ARCH>   - Created by build-deps.cmd,  for a certain VS version and target architecture
+---installed-vs<VER>-<ARCH>        - Created by building the IFCOS's INSTALL project
\---win
|   build-all.cmd                   - Runs all of the build scripts for IFCOS and it dependencies in a row without pauses
|   build-deps.cmd                  - Fetches and builds all needed dependencies for IFCOS
|   BuildDepsCache-<ARCH>.txt       - Cache file created by build-deps.cmd
|   build-ifcopenshell.cmd          - Builds IFCOS
|   build-type-cfg.cmd              - Utility file used by the build scripts
|   install-ifcopenshell.cmd        - Builds IFCOS's INSTALL project
|   readme.md                       - This file
|   run-cmake.bat                   - Sets environment variables for the dependencies and runs CMake for IFCOS
|   set-python-to-path.bat          - Utility for setting PYTHONPATH (read from BuildDepsCache-<ARCH>.txt) to PATH
|   vs-cfg.cmd                      - Utility file used by the build scripts
+---sln                             - Contains the old Visual Studio solution and project files
\---utils                           - Contains various utilities for the build scripts