CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxwindowsmacosopencl
sedona2222
sedona2222

Reputation: 77

Setting up an OpenCL environment across operating systems

We have a fairly large codebase worked on by two dozen programmers, across linux, windows and mac. We are adding some opencl code (initially targeting intel haswell) and are looking for ideas for how to do this with minimum disruption to the team. How can we arrange things so they can all happily compile against the correct opencl headers and libraries? In other words, what can we safely assume about their environments to allow us to set up the codebase to work out of the box for everyone?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 339

Answers (2)

Lubo Antonov
Lubo Antonov

Reputation: 2318

There are quite a few differences between OpenCL installations on different OSs. The best way to handle it is to start with a cross-platform build system - I personally use CMake. The newest versions of CMake include a module for finding the headers and libraries, so in theory you don't need to do anything special. However, in my experience, the module is not written well enough to support all possible SDKs and OSs. I've had to add more locations to look for the relevant files.

Once you have the headers and libraries located, you'll need to include the opencl.lib to your build, which you should be able to do in a platform-independed manner through your build system of choice.

The final part is how to include the headers in your code. Basically, there is a difference between where the cl.h is on Windows and Linux vs OS X. If you look at any OpenCL example, you will see what I mean. You'll need to have some #ifdefs around that, which I recommend you isolate to your own include file.

You will also need to decide how to handle your kernels. For any decent size kernel, you will want to keep the source in a separate file. I keep my kernels in .cl files and then I use the STRINGIFY macro to include the source directly in my CPP code into a string variable.

I hope this gives you enough to start with.

Upvotes: 2

Manish Kumar
Manish Kumar

Reputation: 1469

There can be many things to do but I am writing down a standard one:

Create a offline standard portable intermediate representation(SPIR) of opencl kernels across different OS and distribute. The main goal of SPIR was to enable application developers to avoid shipping their kernels in a source form, while maintaining portability between vendors and devices.

Refer this for more detail: https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/using-spir-for-fun-and-profit-with-intel-opencl-code-builder

Upvotes: 2

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