EECS Publication
How LAPACK library enables Microsoft Visual Studio support with CMake and LAPACKE
Julie Langou, Bill Hoffman, and Brad King
This article is an extended version of the blog 'Fortran for C/C++ developers made easier with CMake' posted on the Kitware blog at http://www.kitware.com/blog/home/post/231. This extended version is intended especially for Fortran library developers and includes many useful examples available for download. LAPACK is written in Fortran and offers a native Fortran interface simple enough to interoperate with other languages. Recently, INTEL Inc and the LAPACK team developed a C language API for LAPACK called LAPACKE to guarantee LAPACK interoperability with C. However, many developers are either unfamiliar with the non-trivial process of mixing C and Fortran together or develop with Microsoft Visual Studio which offers no builtin Fortran support. Starting with LAPACK 3.3.0, the LAPACK team decided to join forces with Kitware Inc. to develop a new build system for LAPACK using CMake. This fruitful collaboration gave LAPACK the ability to easily compile and run on the popular Linux, Windows, and Mac OS/X platforms in addition to most UNIX-like platforms. In addition, LAPACK now offers Windows users the ability to code in C using Microsoft Visual Studio and link to LAPACK Fortran libraries without the need of a vendor-supplied Fortran compiler add-on.
Published 2012-07-02 04:00:00 as ut-cs-12-698 (ID:11)