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

Installing Frama-C Sulfur (released on 2017-11-01)

Table of Contents

The preferred method of installation for Frama-C is using OPAM (v1.2.2 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 >= 1.2.2. 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 Cygwin-based OPAM is available on Windows. It is less stable than it is for the other OSes, but should work.

If your system does not have an OPAM package >= 1.2.2 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

Tha Frama-C package in OPAM is called frama-c, which includes both the command-line frama-c executable and the graphical interface frama-c-gui.

(Note: before version 16 Sulfur, there were two packages, frama-c-base and frama-c, which were merged together.)

frama-c includes non-OCaml dependencies, such as Gtk and GMP. In most 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 administrator rights on the system).

If your system is not supported by depext, you will need to install Gtk, GtkSourceView, GnomeCanvas and GMP, including development libraries, separately. If you do so, please consider providing the system name and list of packages (e.g. via a Github issue) so that we can add it to the Frama-C depext package.

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 --kind=path frama-c <dir>

where <dir> is the root of your unpacked Frama-C archive. See opam pin for more details.

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 successfully 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

You may follow these instructions for installing OCaml for Windows:

https://fdopen.github.io/opam-repository-mingw/installation/

Note that lablgtk (used by Frama-C) requires installing depext and depext-cygwinports, as indicated in the page.

Once the Windows-based OPAM repository is configured, simply run:

opam install frama-c

Some (now obsoleted) compilation instructions for older versions of Frama-C on Windows are available on the Frama-C wiki:

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

Installing Frama-C on Mac OS X

OPAM works perfectly on Mac OS via Homebrew. We recommend to rely on it for the installation of Frama-C.

  1. Install required general macOS tools for OCaml:

    brew install autoconf opam

    Do not forget to opam init and eval `opam config env` for a proper OPAM installation (if not already done before on your machine).

  2. Install required dependencies for Frama-C:

    brew install gmp gtk+ gtksourceview libgnomecanvas

  3. Install recommended dependencies for Frama-C:

    brew install graphviz
opam install altgr-ergo why3

  4. Install optional dependencies for Frama-C/WP:

    opam install coq coqide

  5. Install Frama-C:

    opam install frama-c

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 at all possible.

Also note that it is not recommended to mix OCaml packages installed by your distribution with packages installed via OPAM. When using OPAM, we recommend uninstalling all ocaml-* packages from your distribution, and then installing, exclusively via OPAM, an OCaml compiler and all the OCaml packages you need. This ensures that only those versions will be in the PATH.

Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install frama-c

Fedora: dnf install frama-c

Arch Linux: yaourt -S 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:

     ./configure --prefix="$(cygpath -a -m <installation path>)" && 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

Frama-C Requirements

  • GNU make version >= 3.81
  • OCaml >= 4.02.3
  • a C compiler with standard C and POSIX headers and libraries
  • OCamlGraph >= 1.8.8
  • findlib >= 1.6.1
  • Zarith

The Frama-C GUI also requires:

  • Gtk (>= 2.4)
  • GtkSourceView 2.x
  • GnomeCanvas 2.x
  • LablGtk >= 2.18.5

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

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 default 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

Use ./configure --prefix="$(cygpath -a -m <installation path>)".

(using Unix-style paths without the drive letter will probably not work)

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.

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
  • some files for Frama-C/plug-in development (autocomplete scripts, Emacs settings, scripts for running EVA, ...)

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 && make install

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

HAVE FUN WITH FRAMA-C!