/!\ Most users need not follow the instructions on this page. Only GNU/Linux users (and users of old versions of Mac OS X) should be interested in recompiling Dynare from source. Windows and Mac users should rather use a precompiled package.

This page explains how to build from source:

This source can be retrieved in three forms:

Note that if you use the Git version, you will need to install more tools (see below).

The first section of this page gives general instructions, which apply to all platforms. Then some specific platforms are discussed.

/!\ Here, when we refer to 32-bit or 64-bit, we refer to the type of MATLAB installation, not the type of Windows installation. It is perfectly possible to run a 32-bit MATLAB on a 64-bit Windows: in that case, instructions for Windows 32-bit should be followed. To determine the type of your MATLAB installation, type:

>> computer

at the MATLAB prompt: if it returns PCWIN, then you have a 32-bit MATLAB; if it returns PCWIN64, then you have a 64-bit MATLAB.

1. General instructions

1.1. Prerequisites

A number of tools and libraries are needed in order to recompile everything. You don't necessarily need to install everything, depending on what you want to compile.

1.2. Preparing the sources

If you have downloaded the sources from an official source archive or the source snapshot, just unpack it.

If you want to use Git, do the following from a terminal:

git clone http://www.dynare.org/git/dynare.git
cd dynare
autoreconf -s -i

The last line runs Autoconf and Automake in order to prepare the build environment (this is not necessary if you got the sources from an official source archive or the source snapshot).

If you are using the unstable version, you need to configure submodules:

git submodule update --init

1.3. Configuring the build tree

You just launch the configure script from a terminal:

./configure

If you have MATLAB, you need to indicate both MATLAB location and MATLAB version. For example, on GNU/Linux:

./configure --with-matlab=/usr/local/matlab78 MATLAB_VERSION=7.8

Note that MATLAB version can also specified via the MATLAB family product release (R2009a, R2008b, ...).

/!\ On MATLAB versions strictly older than 7.1, you need to explicitly give the MEX extension, via MEXEXT variable of the configure script (for example, MEXEXT=dll for Windows with MATLAB < 7.1).

Alternatively, you can disable the compilation of MEX files for MATLAB with the --disable-matlab flag, and MEX files for Octave with --disable-octave.

You may need to specify additional options to the configure script, see the platform specific instructions below.

Note that if you don't want to compile with debugging information, you can specify the CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS variables to configure, such as:

./configure CFLAGS="-O3" CXXFLAGS="-O3"

If you want to give a try to the parallelized versions of some mex files (A_times_B_kronecker_C and sparse_hessian_times_B_kronecker_C used to get the reduced form of the second order approximation of the model) you can add the --enable-openmp flag, for instance:

./configure --with-matlab=/usr/local/matlab78 MATLAB_VERSION=7.8 --enable-openmp

If the configuration goes well, the script will tell you which components are correctly configured and will be built.

1.4. Building

Binaries and Info documentation are built with:

make

PDF and HTML documentation are respectively built with:

make pdf
make html

The testsuites can be run with:

make check

2. Debian or Ubuntu

All the prerequisites are packaged. If you want to build everything, install the following packages:

3. Windows

3.1. Setting up the compilation environment

3.2. Compiling the preprocessor, Dynare++, the MEX for MATLAB and the documentation

Download and uncompress the Dynare source tree, let’s say in c:\cygwin\home\user\dynare.

Launch a Cygwin shell, and enter the Dynare source tree:

cd dynare

If you retrieved the source from Git, don't forget to do:

autoreconf -i -s

Then, configure the package.

./configure --host=i686-w64-mingw32 --with-boost=/usr/local/mingw-libs/boost --with-blas=/usr/local/mingw-libs/blas/blas.a --with-lapack=/usr/local/mingw-libs/lapack/lapack.a --with-matlab=/cygdrive/c/Progra~1/MATLAB/R2008b MATLAB_VERSION=R2008b --disable-octave

A few remarks:

Then compile everything with:

make all pdf html

This should build:

3.3. Compiling the MEX for Octave (MinGW package)

Download and run the Octave MinGW installer for version 3.4.3.

From the Windows Explorer, run the MSYS.bat script located in c:/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/MSYS/. This should open a terminal window.

Then you need to adjust the path to include MinGW-DW2 executables and the ATLAS library:

export PATH=$PATH:/c/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/mingw32/bin:/c/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/bin

Go to the directory containing Dynare sources for MEX for Octave, do the following (replacing by the right directory):

cd /c/cygwin/home/user/dynare/mex/build/octave

Configure and make:

./configure --with-boost=/c/cygwin/usr/local/mingw-libs/boost CPPFLAGS="-I/c/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/include -I/c/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/include/octave-3.4.3 -I/c/Octave/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/Octave3.4.3_gcc4.5.2/include/octave-3.4.3/octave"
make

Note for Dynare developers: the CPPFLAGS option above duplicates the output of mkoctfile -p INCFLAGS, which is not correct in this context (it contains c:/ type paths instead of /c/ type paths)

3.4. Compiling the MEX for Octave (Cygwin package)

In addition to those mentionned above, install the following Cygwin packages:

/!\ If you want to use the graphics capabilities of Octave for Cygwin, note that you must also install an X11 server.

If you are installing Dynare unstable, and want to compile the estimation DLL, you also need to install the MAT File I/O library: download the source from the web site, compile and install it with configure --without-zlib && make install.

Then from a Cygwin shell, do the following (replacing by the right directory):

cd /home/user/dynare/mex/build/octave
./configure LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib/
make

4. Mac OS X

4.1. Creating an executable that runs on either 10.5 or 10.6

You do not need to install BLAS, LAPACK, xsltproc or the GNU Compilers as these come standard with OS X. Further, after installing XCode, you will not need to install Bison, Flex, Autoconf and Automake.

To build Dynare on Mac OS X, follow the General Instructions above, modified as described herein. NB: Install XCode first.

4.2. Creating an executable that runs on both 10.5 and 10.6

In order to create executables that run on both 10.5 & 10.6, one must slightly modify the build process. This is because OS X does not provide a fortran compiler. Hence, unless you recompile a fortran compiler against both the 10.5 and 10.6 SDKs, the configure script will fail when it checks for the presence of the blas and lapack libraries.

To modify the build system, follow these steps:

  1. In m4/ax_blas.m4, comment out the following lines

    AC_REQUIRE([AC_F77_LIBRARY_LDFLAGS])
    AC_F77_FUNC(sgemm)
    AC_F77_FUNC(dgemm)

    and replace AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC($sgemm, [ax_blas_ok=yes], [BLAS_LIBS=""]) with ax_blas_ok=yes

  2. In m4/ax_lapack.m4, comment out AC_F77_FUNC(cheev) and replace AC_TRY_LINK_FUNC($cheev, [ax_lapack_ok=yes], [LAPACK_LIBS=""]) with ax_lapack_ok=yes

  3. In both mex/build/matlab/configure.ac and mex/build/octave/configure.ac, move AC_PROG_CC above AC_PROG_F77

  4. run autoreconf -s -i

  5. run ./configure CFLAGS='-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.5 -arch i386' FFLAGS='-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.5 -arch i386' CPPFLAGS='-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.5 -arch i386' CXXFLAGS='-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.5 -arch i386' LDFLAGS='-isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk -mmacosx-version-min=10.5 -arch i386' BLAS_LIBS='-framework Accelerate' LAPACK_LIBS='-framework Accelerate'

4.3. Building Dynare on OS X 10.7 (and probably earlier)

  1. Install Xcode 4.2.1 from the App Store

  2. Install homebrew with /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"

    • Install the following brews:
      brew install gsl
      brew install texinfo
      brew install boost
      brew install doxygen
      brew install autoconf
      brew install xz
  3. Install gcc-42-5666.3-darwin11.pkg from AT&T

  4. Install the latest version of MacTeX

  5. Install Automake 1.11.5 (not 1.12 or later)

  6. Ensure /usr/local/bin is in your search path. For bash: PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/bin

  7. To create the makefiles, run ./configure --with-matlab=/Applications/MATLAB_R2011b.app MATLAB_VERSION=7.13 --with-gsl=/usr/local/Cellar/gsl/1.15, adjusting the Matlab path/version to correspond with yours

4.3.1. Building Octave mex files on 10.7

  1. Install the latest version of Octave

  2. Create an alias for octave and add the Octave bin directory to your path. For bash:
    alias octave='/Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin/octave'
    PATH=${PATH}:/Applications/Octave.app/Contents/Resources/bin
  3. Download the MAT File I/O library and do the following from the Terminal prompt:

    tar zxvf matio-1.3.4.tar.gz
    cd matio-1.3.4/
    ./configure CFLAGS='-arch i386' CXXFLAGS='-arch i386' FFLAGS='-arch i386' LDFLAGS='-arch i386' --without-zlib && make install
  4. Then change directories to the mex/build/octave Dynare subdirectory (i.e. from the root dynare directory) and configure it with

    ./configure CFLAGS='-arch i386' CXXFLAGS='-arch i386' FFLAGS='-arch i386' LDFLAGS='-arch i386 -L/usr/local/lib/'