How to link Gmsh SDK and EASIFEM

[vickysharma0812]

Introduction

We can install Gmsh + SDK by as a python package as mentioned here

pip install --upgrade gmsh

We can also download the latest automatic snapshot of both Gmsh and the SDK with pip:

pip install -i https://gmsh.info/python-packages-dev --force-reinstall --no-cache-dir gmsh

Problem

The problem with this approach is that it is difficult to find the location of python packages. Sometimes they are located at non-standard locations such as ~/.local/lib.

Solution:

Step (1): Export GMSH_LIB environment variable

Before installing easifemClasses, the user should export the location of Gmsh SDK as an environment variable named GMSH_LIB, for example:

# for bash shell
export GMSH_LIB=${HOME}/.local/lib

# for fish
set -gx GMSH_LIB $HOME/.local/lib

Step (2): Make symlink

Create a symlink of Gmsh SDK library in $EASIFEM_EXTPKGS/lib. (Note that the variable EASIFEM_EXTPKGS is defined when you install EASIFEM.

For example if you have libgmsh.so.4.11 in ~/.local/lib then you should create following symlink:

# for bash
ln -sf ${HOME}/.local/lib/libgmsh.so.4.11 ${EASIFEM_EXTPKGS}/lib/libgmsh.so

# for fish shell use following
ln -sf $HOME/.local/lib/libgmsh.so.4.11 $EASIFEM_EXTPKGS/lib/libgmsh.so

Step (3): Update LD_LIBRARY_PATH

To update LD_LIBRARY_PATH you can perform following tasks depending upon your shell script.

# for bash 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:${HOME}/.local/lib"

# for fish 
set -gx LD_LIBRARY_PATH $LD_LIBRARY_PATH $HOME/.local/lib

After exporting the environment variable and LD_LIBRARY_PATH, you can install the easifemClasses library.

Regards
Vikas