Build LAMMPS with make
======================

Building LAMMPS with traditional makefiles requires that you have a
``Makefile.<machine>`` file appropriate for your system in either the
``src/MAKE``, ``src/MAKE/MACHINES``, ``src/MAKE/OPTIONS``, or
``src/MAKE/MINE`` directory (see below).  It can include various options
for customizing your LAMMPS build with a number of global compilation
options and features.

This build system is slowly being phased out and may not support all
optional features and packages in LAMMPS.  It is recommended to switch
to the :doc:`CMake based build system <Build_cmake>`.

Requirements
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Those makefiles are written for and tested with GNU make and may not
be compatible with other make programs.  In most cases, if the "make"
program is not GNU make, then there will be a GNU make program
available under the name "gmake".  If GNU make or a compatible make is
not available, you may have to first install it or switch to building
with :doc:`CMake <Build_cmake>`.  The makefiles of the traditional
make based build process and the scripts they are calling expect a few
additional tools to be available and functioning.

  * A working C/C++ compiler toolchain supporting the C++11 standard; on
    Linux, these are often the GNU compilers. Some older compiler versions
    require adding flags like ``-std=c++11`` to enable the C++11 mode.
  * A Bourne shell compatible "Unix" shell program (frequently this is ``bash``)
  * A few shell utilities: ``ls``, ``mv``, ``ln``, ``rm``, ``grep``, ``sed``, ``tr``, ``cat``, ``touch``, ``diff``, ``dirname``
  * Python (optional, required for ``make lib-<pkg>`` in the ``src``
    folder).  Python scripts are currently tested with 3.6 to 3.11.
    The procedure for :doc:`building the documentation <Build_manual>`
    *requires* Python 3.8 or later.

Getting started
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To include LAMMPS packages (i.e. optional commands and styles) you must
enable (or "install") them first, as discussed on the :doc:`Build
package <Build_package>` page.  If a package requires (provided or
external) libraries, you must configure and build those libraries
**before** building LAMMPS itself and especially **before** enabling
such a package with ``make yes-<package>``.  :doc:`Building LAMMPS with
CMake <Build_cmake>` can automate much of this for many types of
machines, especially workstations, desktops, and laptops, so we suggest
you try it first when building LAMMPS in those cases.

The commands below perform a default LAMMPS build, producing the LAMMPS
executable ``lmp_serial`` and ``lmp_mpi`` in ``lammps/src``:

.. code-block:: bash

   cd lammps/src   # change to main LAMMPS source folder
   make serial     # build a serial LAMMPS executable using GNU g++
   make mpi        # build a parallel LAMMPS executable with MPI
   make            # see a variety of make options

Compilation can take a long time, since LAMMPS is a large project with
many features. If your machine has multiple CPU cores (most do these
days), you can speed this up by compiling sources in parallel with
``make -j N`` (with N being the maximum number of concurrently executed
tasks).  Installation of the `ccache <https://ccache.dev/>`_ (= Compiler
Cache) software may speed up repeated compilation even more, e.g. during
code development, especially when repeatedly switching between branches.

After the initial build, whenever you edit LAMMPS source files, or add
or remove new files to the source directory (e.g. by installing or
uninstalling packages), you must re-compile and relink the LAMMPS
executable with the same ``make <machine>`` command.  The makefile's
dependency tracking should ensure that only the necessary subset of
files is re-compiled.  If you change settings in the makefile, you have
to recompile *everything*.  To delete all objects, you can use ``make
clean-<machine>``.

.. note::

   Before the actual compilation starts, LAMMPS will perform several
   steps to collect information from the configuration and setup that is
   then embedded into the executable.  When you build LAMMPS for the
   first time, it will also compile a tool to quickly determine a list
   of dependencies.  Those are required for the make program to
   correctly detect, which files need to be recompiled or relinked
   after changes were made to the sources.

Customized builds and alternate makefiles
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The ``src/MAKE`` directory tree contains the ``Makefile.<machine>``
files included in the LAMMPS distribution.  Typing ``make example`` uses
``Makefile.example`` from one of those folders, if available.  The
``make serial`` and ``make mpi`` lines above, for example, use
``src/MAKE/Makefile.serial`` and ``src/MAKE/Makefile.mpi``,
respectively.  Other makefiles are in these directories:

.. code-block:: bash

   OPTIONS      # Makefiles which enable specific options
   MACHINES     # Makefiles for specific machines
   MINE         # customized Makefiles you create (you may need to create this folder)

Simply typing ``make`` lists all the available ``Makefile.<machine>``
files with a single line description toward the end of the output.  A
file with the same name can appear in multiple folders (not a good
idea).  The order the directories are searched is as follows:
``src/MAKE/MINE``, ``src/MAKE``, ``src/MAKE/OPTIONS``,
``src/MAKE/MACHINES``.  This gives preference to a customized file you
put in ``src/MAKE/MINE``.  If you create your own custom makefile under
a new name, please edit the first line with the description and machine
name, so you will not confuse yourself, when looking at the machine
summary.

Makefiles you may wish to try out, include those listed below (some
require a package first be installed).  Many of these include specific
compiler flags for optimized performance.  Please note, however, that
some of these customized machine Makefile are contributed by users, and
thus may have modifications specific to the systems of those users.
Since compilers, OS configurations, and LAMMPS itself keep changing,
their settings may become outdated, too:

.. code-block:: bash

   make mac             # build serial LAMMPS on macOS
   make mac_mpi         # build parallel LAMMPS on macOS
   make intel_cpu       # build with the INTEL package optimized for CPUs
   make knl             # build with the INTEL package optimized for KNLs
   make opt             # build with the OPT package optimized for CPUs
   make omp             # build with the OPENMP package optimized for OpenMP
   make kokkos_omp      # build with the KOKKOS package for OpenMP
   make kokkos_cuda_mpi # build with the KOKKOS package for GPUs
   make kokkos_phi      # build with the KOKKOS package for KNLs
