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Deployment

This page explains how MNE-CPP handles deployment on Win, Linux and MacOS.

Build Rules

All MNE-CPP libraries are built to the mne-cpp/lib folder. All applications, test, and examples are built to the mne-cpp/out/Release folder.

Dependency Solving

MNE-CPP depends on Qt and Eigen. Eigen, as a lightweight template library, is included in the MNE-CPP repository by default and does not need further dependency solving. For Qt dependencies we use Qt specific deployment tools (windeployqt, linuxdeployqt, macdeployqt).

Windows

The WinDynamic workflow run in release.yml is configured to exclude examples as well as tests. Next to mne-cpp/lib the MNE-CPP libraries are also copied to the mne-cpp/out/Release folder. This is performed in the libraries’ .pro files.

Dependency solving for libraries and executables is done via the windeployqt tool, which is officially developed and maintained by Qt. Calling windeployqt is performed in the deploy.bat file with dynamic as first argument. windeployqt is called on the MNE Scan .exe and the Disp3D .dll file. Disp3D is the most top level library and links against all needed Qt modules. MNE Scan links against all relevant Qt modules application wise. Subsequently, Qt and all needed system libraries reside in the mne-cpp/out/Release folder.

The no longer needed folder resources/data/mne-cpp-test-datais deleted before packaging. The folder mne-cpp/out/Release is compressed to a .zip file and uploaded as release asset to the corresponding GitHub release.

Linux

The LinuxDynamic workflow run in release.yml is configured to exclude examples as well as tests. The RPATH is specified in the executable’s .pro file in order to link to the libraries in mne-cpp/lib.

Dependency solving for libraries and executables is done via the linuxdeployqt tool. Calling linuxdeployqt is performed in the deploy.bat script (Remember that in unix/linux environments, the extension of a file has no special meaning, being just part of the filename).

The, no longer needed, folder mne-cpp/resources/data/mne-cpp-test-data is deleted before packaging. The folders mne-cpp/out/Release/apps, mne-cpp/out/Release/lib, mne-cpp/out/Release/plugins, mne-cpp/out/Release/translations are compressed to a .tar.gz file and uploaded as release assets to the corresponding GitHub release.

MacOS

The MacOSDynamic workflow run in release.yml is configured to exclude examples as well as tests. All applications are build as .app bundles using the withAppBundles configuration flag.

Dependency solving for libraries and executables is done via the macdeployqt tool, which is officially developed and maintained by Qt. Calling macdeployqt is performed in the deploy_macos file. All MNE-CPP libraries are manually copied to the .app’s Contents/Frameworks folder. The resource and applications’ plugins folders are copied to the corresponding mne-cpp/out/Release/apps/<app_name>.app/ folders.

The, no longer needed, folders mne-cpp/out/Release/apps/mne_scan_plugins, mne-cpp/out/Release/apps/mne_analyze_plugins, mne-cpp/out/Release/apps/mne_rt_server_plugins and the symlink mne-cpp/out/Release/resources are deleted before packaging. The folder mne-cpp/out/Release is compressed to a .tar.gz file and uploaded as release assets to the corresponding GitHub release.

Static Builds

The information above corresponds to deploying the dynamically build version of MNE-CPP. In case of static deployment the process differs a bit. See the deploy.bat file.

Deployment script deploy.bat

The script used by MNE-CPP to perform the deployment in the three platforms to which MNE-CPP is compiled is the same deploy.bat file, which is inside tools/deployment folder. The script will run in all platforms and generate the necesary libraries for the correct execution of any of the project’s applications. This script can be run from anywhere in the file system, but do not change the script’s location within the project’s folder structure, since it depends on it for a correct execution. deploy.bat takes two input arguments: the first argument specifies the type of linkage to use in the project’s applications. The second argument specifies if a compressed folder (zip, tar, …) should be created with all the necessary files to run the project’s application. The way this is achieved is by writing deploy.bat in a way in which different operating systems running the same script will actually execute different parts of it. If you take a look at its contents it is easy to identify the parts executed by each operating system because they are marked with comments.

Independently of the type of linkage needed during the deployment, the script is just one script which depends on a couple of input arguments. A first input argument accepts either dynamic or static in order to decide which type of linkage to perform. If empty, the linkage option will be set to dynamic. This script can be useful during development. Since it allows a developer to solve the dependencies a particular MNE-CPP application might have by providing the necessary libraries. For this reasons the script has a second input argument. If the second input argument is pack the script will generate the above mentioned zip/tar file with the binary executable files and libraries needed for a correct execution.