Cyclus Core

The core of the Cyclus nuclear fuel cycle simulator from the University of Wisconsin - Madison is intended to be a simulation framework upon which to develop innovative fuel cycle simulations.

To see user and developer documentation for this code, please visit the Cyclus Homepage.

LISCENSE

Copyright (c) 2010-2012, University of Wisconsin Computational Nuclear Engineering Research Group
 All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
    this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

  - Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

  - Neither the name of the University of Wisconsin Computational
    Nuclear Engineering Research Group nor the names of its
    contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
    from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Building Cyclus

The Cyclus Homepage has much more detailed guides and information. This Readme is intended to be a quick reference for building cyclus for the first time.

The Cyclus code requires the following software and libraries.

Package	Minimum Version
CMake	2.8
boost	1.34.1
libxml2	2
sqlite3	3.7.10

Building and Running Cyclus

In order to facilitate future compatibility with multiple platforms, Cyclus is built using Cmake. This relies on CMake version 2.8 or higher and the CMakeLists.txt file in src/. It is recommended that you use CMake to build the Cyclus executable external to the source code. To do this, execute the following steps:

.../core/$ mkdir build
.../core/$ cd build
.../core/build$ cmake ../src

You should see output like this:

...
...
>> -- Configuring done
>> -- Generating done
>> -- Build files have been written to: .../core/build
/core/build$ make cyclus
>> Scanning dependencies of target cyclus
...
...
>> [100%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/cyclus.dir/SourceFac.cpp.o
>> Linking CXX executable cyclus
>> [100%] Built target cyclus

Now, you can make cyclus, and run it with some input file, for this example, call it input.xml:

.../core/build$ make
.../core/build$ ./cyclus input.xml

The Cyclus Homepage has much more detailed guides and information. If you intend to develop for Cyclus, please visit it to learn more.

The Developer Workflow

Note that "blessed" repository refers to the primary `cyclus/core` repository.

As you do your development, push primarily only to your own fork. Push to the blessed repository (usually the "develop" branch) only after:

• You have pulled the latest changes from the blessed repository.
• You have completed a logical set of changes.
• Cyclus compiles with no errors.
• All tests pass.
• Cyclus input files run as expected.
• (recommended) your code has been reviewed by another developer.

Code from the "develop" branch generally must pass even more rigorous checks before being integrated into the "master" branch. Hotfixes would be a possible exception to this.

Workflow Notes

• Use a branching workflow similar to the one described at http://progit.org/book/ch3-4.html.

• The "develop" branch is how core developers will share (generally compilable) progress when we are not yet ready for the code to become 'production'.

• Keep your own "master" and "develop" branches in sync with the blessed repository's "master" and "develop" branches. The master branch should always be the 'stable' or 'production' release of cyclus.

  • Pull the most recent history from the blessed repository "master" and/or "develop" branches before you merge changes into your corresponding local branch. Consider doing a rebase pull instead of a regular pull or 'fetch and merge'. For example:

    git checkout develop
    git pull --rebase blessed develop
    

  • Only merge changes into your "master" or "develop" branch when you are ready for those changes to be integrated into the blessed repository's corresponding branch.

• As you do development on topic branches in your own fork, consider rebasing the topic branch onto the "master" and/or "develop" branches after pulls from the blessed repository rather than merging the pulled changes into your branch. This will help maintain a more linear (and clean) history. Please see caution about rebasing below. For example:

  git checkout [your topic branch]
  git rebase develop
  

• In general, every commit (notice this is not 'every push') to the "develop" and "master" branches should compile and pass tests. This means that when you are ready to move changes from one of your topic branches into the "develop" branch, you should use a NON-fast-forward merge. For example:

  git checkout develop
  git merge --no-ff [your topic branch]
  

  Possible exceptions to this 'no fast-forward' merge include:

  • your topic branch consists of only one (compileable and passes tests) commit.
  • every commit in your topic branch is compileable and passes tests.

Cautions

• NEVER merge the "master" branch into the "develop" branch. Changes should only flow to the "master" branch from the "develop" branch.

• DO NOT rebase any commits that have been pulled/pushed anywhere else other than your own fork (especially if those commits have been integrated into the blessed repository. You should NEVER rebase commits that are a part of the 'master' branch. If you do, you will be flogged publicly.

• Make sure that you are pushing/pulling from/to the right branches. When in doubt, use the following syntax:

  git push [remote] [from-branch]:[to-branch]
  

  and (note that pull always merges into the current checked out branch):

  git pull [remote] [from-branch]
  

An Example

Introduction

As this type of workflow can be complicated to converts from SVN and very complicated for brand new programmers, an example is provided.

For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that we want a single "sandbox" branch in which we would like to work, i.e. where we can store all of our work that may not yet pass tests or even compile, but where we also want to save our progress. Let us call this branch "Work". So, when all is said and done, in our fork there will be three branches: "Master", "Develop", and "Work".

Acquiring Cyclus and Workflow

We begin with a fork of the main ("blessed") Cyclus repository. After initially forking the repo, we will have two branches in our fork: "Master" and "Develop".

Acquiring a Fork of the Cyclus Repository

A fork is your copy of Cyclus. Github offers an excelent tutorial on how to set one up. The rest of this example assumes you have set up the "upstream" repository as cyclus/core. Note that git refers to your fork as "origin".

First, let's make our "work" branch:

.../cyclus_dir/$ git branch work
.../cyclus_dir/$ git push origin work

We now have the following situation: there exists the "blessed" copy of the Master and Develop branches, there exists your fork's copy of the Master, Develop, and Work branches, AND there exists your local copy of the Master, Develop, and Work branches. It is important now to note that you may wish to work from home or the office. If you keep your fork's branches up to date (i.e., "push" your changes before you leave), only your local copies of your branches may be different when you next sit down at the other location.

Workflow: The Beginning

Now, for the workflow! This is by no means the only way to perform this type of workflow, but I assume that you wish to handle conflicts as often as possible (so as to keep their total number small). Let us imagine that you have been at work, finished, and successfully pushed your changes to your Origin repository. You are now at home, perhaps after dinner (let's just say some time has passed), and want to continue working a bit (you're industrious, I suppose... or a grad student). To begin, let's update our home's local branches.

.../cyclus_dir/$ git checkout develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git pull origin develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git pull upstream develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git push origin develop

.../cyclus_dir/$ git checkout work
.../cyclus_dir/$ git pull origin work
.../cyclus_dir/$ git merge develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git push origin work

Perhaps a little explanation is required. We first want to make sure that this new local copy of the develop branch is up-to-date with respect to the remote origin's branch and remote upstream's branch. If there was a change from the remote upstream's branch, we want to push that to origin. We then follow the same process to update the work branch, except:

1. we don't need to worry about the upstream repo because it doesn't have a work branch, and
2. we want to incorporate any changes which may have been introduced in the develop branch update.

Workflow: The End

As time passes, you make some changes to files, and you commit those changes (to your local work branch). Eventually (hopefully) you come to a stopping point where you have finished your project on your work branch AND it compiles AND it runs input files correctly AND it passes all tests! Perhaps you have found Nirvana. In any case, you've performed the final commit to your work branch, so it's time to merge those changes with the local develop branch and push them to origin's develop branch:

.../cyclus_dir/$ git checkout develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git pull upstream develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git merge work
.../cyclus_dir/$ git push origin develop

.../cyclus_dir/$ git checkout work
.../cyclus_dir/$ git merge develop
.../cyclus_dir/$ git push origin work

This time we want to update our local develop branch based on the changes we made in work. First we checkout and update develop in case the upstream develop branch introduced any changes. We then apply our changes via merging work into develop, and push that back up to origin. In case the upstream pull did introduce changes, we go ahead and update the work branch on origin.

See also

A good description of a git workflow with good graphics is available at http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/