Note: these instructions refer to an older release of Frama-C; for the latest stable release, click here

Installing Frama-C Phosphorus (released on 2017-05-01)

Table of Contents

The preferred method of installation for Frama-C is using OPAM (v1.2 or newer).

First you need to install OPAM, then you may install Frama-C using OPAM:

opam install frama-c

Note: make sure your OPAM version is >= 1.2. Also, it is highly recommended that you install an external solver for OPAM, such as aspcud, otherwise unexpected dependency errors may occur during installation.

Installing OPAM

Several Linux distributions already include an opam package.

OSX has OPAM through Homebrew.

A Windows OPAM is currently being developed, but it is not yet stable.

Note: Some distributions include an old version of OPAM (<= 1.1). It cannot be used to reliably install Frama-C due to conflicts between dependencies.

If your system does not have an OPAM package, you can compile it from source, or use the provided OPAM binaries available at:

http://opam.ocaml.org/doc/Install.html

Installing Frama-C from OPAM

There are two Frama-C packages in OPAM:

  • frama-c-base: minimal Frama-C installation, without GUI; few dependencies
  • frama-c: includes all GUI-related dependencies, plus other recommended packages.

The frama-c package recommends the installation of optional packages, e.g. external provers for WP, such as why3 and coq.

To install frama-c, you may need to install Gtk, GtkSourceView and GnomeCanvas separately. These are C libraries with OCaml bindings used by the GUI. On many systems, OPAM can take care of these external dependencies through its depext plug-in: issuing the two commands

opam install depext
opam depext frama-c

will install the appropriate system packages (this of course requires to have administrator rights on the system).

Installing Custom Versions of Frama-C via OPAM

If you have a non-standard version of Frama-C available (with proprietary extensions, custom plugins, etc.), you can use OPAM to install Frama-C's dependencies and compile your own sources directly:

# optional: remove the standard frama-c package if it was installed
opam remove --force frama-c frama-c-base

# install Frama-C's dependencies
opam install depext
opam depext frama-c
opam install --deps-only frama-c

# install custom version of frama-c
opam pin add frama-c-base <dir>

where <dir> is the root of your unpacked Frama-C archive.

If your extensions require other libraries than the ones already used by Frama-C, they must of course be installed as well.

Installing Frama-C on Windows (via Cygwin + OPAM)

Windows is not officially supported by the Frama-C team (as in, we may not have the time to fix all issues), but Frama-C has been succesfully compiled in Windows with the following tools:

  • Cygwin (for shell and installation support only; the compiled binaries do not depend on Cygwin)
  • OPAM for Windows (currently experimental)
  • OCaml MinGW-based compiler

Installation instructions are described (and updated continuously) on the Frama-C wiki:

https://bts.frama-c.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=mantis:frama-c:compiling_from_source

Frama-C Windows releases are periodically made available on the non-official OPAM MinGW repository:

https://github.com/fdopen/opam-repository-mingw

Installing Frama-C on Mac OS X

OPAM works perfectly on Mac OS via Homebrew.

Recommended installation:

General Mac OS tools for OCaml:

xcode-select --install
open http://brew.sh
brew install git autoconf opam gmp
brew cask install meld

Graphical User Interface:

brew install gtk+ --with-jasper
brew install gtksourceview libgnomecanvas graphviz
opam install lablgtk ocamlgraph

Required for Frama-C:

opam install zarith

Necessary for Frama-C/WP:

opam install alt-ergo

Also recommended for Frama-C/WP:

opam install altgr-ergo coq coqide why3

Installing Frama-C via your Linux distribution (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora)

NOTE: Distribution packages are not as up-to-date as OPAM packages. We recommend using OPAM if possible.

Debian/Ubuntu

If you are using Debian >= Squeeze 6.0 or Ubuntu >= Lucid Lynx 10.04 then a Frama-C package is provided:

sudo apt-get install frama-c

or, if you don't want the Gtk-based GUI:

sudo apt-get install frama-c-base

Fedora

If you are using Fedora >= 13 then a Frama-C package is provided:

yum install frama-c

Compiling from source

Note: These instructions are no longer required in the vast majority of cases. They are kept here mostly for historical reference.

Quick Start

  1. Install OCaml, OCamlfind, OCamlGraph and Zarith if not already installed. Note that OCaml >= 4.02.3 is needed in order to compile Frama-C.

  2. (Optional) For the GUI, also install Gtk, GtkSourceView, GnomeCanvas and Lablgtk2 if not already installed. See section 'REQUIREMENTS' below for indications on the names of the packages to install, or use 'opam depext' as explained in section 'Opam' above.

  3. On Linux-like distributions:

     ./configure && make && sudo make install
    

    See section Configuration below for options.

  4. On Windows+Cygwin or Windows+MinGW+msys:

     ./configure --prefix C:/windows/path/with/direct/slash/no/space && make && make install
    
  5. The binary frama-c (and frama-c-gui if you have lablgtk2) is now installed.

  6. Optionally, test your installation by running:

     frama-c -val tests/misc/CruiseControl*.c
     frama-c-gui -val tests/misc/CruiseControl*.c # if frama-c-gui is available
    

Full Compilation Guide

Requirements

  • GNU make version >= 3.81
  • OCaml >= 4.02.3
  • a C compiler with standard C and POSIX headers and libraries
  • OCamlGraph >= 1.8.5
  • findlib >= 1.6.1
  • Zarith

The Frama-C GUI also requires:

  • Gtk (>= 2.4)
  • GtkSourceView 2.x
  • GnomeCanvas 2.x
  • LablGtk >= 2.18.2

Plugins may have their own requirements. Consult their specific documentations for details.

Ubuntu

If you are using Ubuntu >= Precise Pangolin 12.04 then an optimal list of packages is installed by:

sudo apt-get install ocaml ocaml-native-compilers graphviz \
             libzarith-ocaml-dev libfindlib-ocaml-dev \
             liblablgtksourceview2-ocaml-dev liblablgtk2-gnome-ocaml-dev
Fedora

If you are using a recent Fedora, an optimal list of packages can be installed through (replace dnf by yum in older versions of Fedora):

sudo dnf install ocaml graphviz \
             ocaml-zarith-devel ocaml-findlib ocaml \
             ocaml-lablgtk-devel gtksourceview2-devel libgnomecanvas-devel
Other Linux systems

Some other Linux systems provide packages for the required tools and libraries. Please send us patches to update this section for your favorite distro.

Configuration

Frama-C is configured by ./configure [options].

configure is generated by autoconf, so that the standard options for setting installation directories are available, in particular --prefix=/path.

A plugin can be enabled by --enable-plugin and disabled by --disable-plugin. By default, all distributed plugins are enabled. Those who defaults to 'no' are not part of the Frama-C distribution (usually because they are too experimental to be released as is).

See ./configure --help for the current list of plugins, and available options.

Under Cygwin or MinGW

Use ./configure --prefix C:/windows/path/with/direct/slash.

Compilation

Type make.

Some Makefile targets of interest are:

  • doc generates the API documentation
  • top generates an OCaml toplevel embedding Frama-C as a library.
  • oracles sets up the Frama-C test suite oracles for your own configuration.
  • tests performs Frama-C's own tests
Under Cygwin or MinGW

Use: make FRAMAC_ROOT_SRCDIR="$(cygpath -a -m $PWD)"

Installation

Type make install (depending on the installation directory, this may require superuser privileges. The installation directory is chosen through --prefix).

Testing the Installation

This step is optional.

Test your installation by running:

frama-c -val tests/misc/CruiseControl*.c
frama-c-gui -val tests/misc/CruiseControl*.c (if frama-c-gui is available)

API Documentation

For plugin developers, the API documentation of the Frama-C kernel and distributed plugins is available in the file frama-c-api.tar.gz, after running make doc-distrib.

Uninstallation

Type make uninstall to remove Frama-C and all the installed plugins. (Depending on the installation directory, this may require superuser privileges.)

Available resources

Once Frama-C is installed, the following resources should be installed and available:

Executables: (in /INSTALL_DIR/bin)

  • frama-c
  • frama-c-gui if available
  • frama-c-config displays Frama-C configuration paths
  • frama-c.byte bytecode version of frama-c
  • frama-c-gui.byte bytecode version of frama-c-gui, if available
  • ptests.opt testing tool for Frama-c
  • frama-c.toplevel if 'make top' previously done

Shared files: (in /INSTALL_DIR/share/frama-c and subdirectories)

  • some .h and .c files used as preludes by Frama-C
  • some Makefiles used to compile dynamic plugins
  • some .rc files used to configure Frama-C
  • some image files used by the Frama-C GUI

Documentation files: (in /INSTALL_DIR/share/frama-c/doc)

  • files used to generate dynamic plugin documentation

Object files: (in /INSTALL_DIR/lib/frama-c)

  • object files used to compile dynamic plugins

Plugin files: (in /INSTALL_DIR/lib/frama-c/plugins)

  • object files of available dynamic plugins

Man files: (in /INSTALL_DIR/man/man1)

  • man files for frama-c (and frama-c-gui if available)

Installing Additional Plugins

Plugins may be released independently of Frama-C.

The standard way for installing them should be:

./configure && make && sudo make install

Plugins may have their own custom installation procedures. Consult their specific documentations for details.

HAVE FUN WITH FRAMA-C!