Building on Windows

Building on Windows

This is a simple step-by-step explanation of how I was able to build RocksDB (or RocksJava) and all of the 3rd-party libraries on Microsoft Windows 10. The Windows build system was already in place, however it took some trial-and-error for me to be able to build the 3rd-party libraries and incorporate them into the build.

Pre-requisites

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 (Community) with "Desktop development with C++" installed
2. CMake
3. Git - I used the Windows Git Bash.
4. Mercurial - I used the 64bit MSI installer
5. wget

Steps

Create a directory somewhere on your machine that will be used a container for both the RocksDB source code and that of its 3rd-party dependencies. On my machine I used C:\Users\aretter\code, from hereon in I will just refer to it as %CODE_HOME%; which can be set as an environment variable, i.e. SET CODE_HOME=C:\Users\aretter\code.

All of the following is executed from the "Developer Command Prompt for VS2015":

Build GFlags

cd %CODE_HOME%
wget https://github.com/gflags/gflags/archive/v2.2.0.zip
unzip v2.2.0.zip
cd gflags-2.2.0
mkdir target
cd target
cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 Win64" ..

Open the project in Visual Studio, create a new x64 Platform by copying the Win32 platform and selecting x64 CPU. Close Visual Studio.

msbuild gflags.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64
msbuild gflags.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64

The resultant static library can be found in %CODE_HOME%\gflags-2.2.0\target\lib\Debug\gflags_static.lib or %CODE_HOME%\gflags-2.2.0\target\lib\Debug\gflags_static.lib.

Build Snappy

cd %CODE_HOME%
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/robertvazan/snappy-visual-cpp
cd snappy-visual-cpp
hg diff --reverse -r 44:45 > exports.patch
hg import exports.patch
devenv snappy.sln /upgrade
msbuild snappy.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64
msbuild snappy.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64

When running the msbuild step, if you get an error like:

error : This project references NuGet package(s) that are mis sing on this computer. Enable NuGet Package Restore to download them.

You will need to open the project in Visual Studio and build it from there. You can then exit Visual Studio and re-run the msbuild steps; Unfortunately I have been unable to resolve how to fix the NuGet enablement from the command line.

The resultant static library can be found in %CODE_HOME%\snappy-visual-cpp\x64\Debug\snappy64.lib or %CODE_HOME%\snappy-visual-cpp\x64\Release\snappy64.lib.

Build LZ4

cd %CODE_HOME%
wget https://github.com/lz4/lz4/archive/v1.7.5.zip
unzip v1.7.5.zip
cd lz4-1.7.5
cd visual\VS2010
devenv lz4.sln /upgrade
msbuild lz4.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64
msbuild lz4.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64

The resultant static library can be found in %CODE_HOME%\lz4-1.7.5\visual\VS2010\bin\x64_Debug\liblz4_static.lib or %CODE_HOME%\lz4-1.7.5\visual\VS2010\bin\x64_Release\liblz4_static.lib.

Build ZLib

cd %CODE_HOME%
wget http://zlib.net/zlib1211.zip
unzip zlib1211.zip
cd zlib-1.2.11\contrib\vstudio\vc14

Edit the file zlibvc.vcxproj, changing <command>cd ..\..\contrib\masmx64 bld_ml64.bat</command> to <command>cd ..\..\masmx64 bld_ml64.bat</command>. Add a new line after masmx64.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\amd64_x86\vcvarsamd64_x86.bat"
msbuild zlibvc.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64
msbuild zlibvc.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64
copy x64\ZlibDllDebug\zlibwapi.lib x64\ZlibStatDebug\
copy x64\ZlibDllRelease\zlibwapi.lib x64\ZlibStatRelease\

The resultant static library can be found in %CODE_HOME%\zlib-1.2.11\contrib\vstudio\vc14\x64\ZlibStatDebug\zlibstat.lib or %CODE_HOME%\zlib-1.2.11\contrib\vstudio\vc14\x64\ZlibStatRelease\zlibstat.lib.

Build RocksDB

cd %CODE_HOME%
git clone https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb.git
cd rocksdb

Edit the file %CODE_HOME%\rocksdb\thirdparty.inc to have these changes:

set(GFLAGS_HOME $ENV{THIRDPARTY_HOME}/gflags-2.2.0)
set(GFLAGS_INCLUDE ${GFLAGS_HOME}/target/include)
set(GFLAGS_LIB_DEBUG ${GFLAGS_HOME}/target/lib/Debug/gflags_static.lib)
set(GFLAGS_LIB_RELEASE ${GFLAGS_HOME}/target/lib/Release/gflags_static.lib)

set(SNAPPY_HOME $ENV{THIRDPARTY_HOME}/snappy-visual-cpp)
set(SNAPPY_INCLUDE ${SNAPPY_HOME})
set(SNAPPY_LIB_DEBUG ${SNAPPY_HOME}/x64/Debug/snappy64.lib)
set(SNAPPY_LIB_RELEASE ${SNAPPY_HOME}/x64/Release/snappy64.lib)

set(LZ4_HOME $ENV{THIRDPARTY_HOME}/lz4-1.7.5)
set(LZ4_INCLUDE ${LZ4_HOME}/lib)
set(LZ4_LIB_DEBUG ${LZ4_HOME}/visual/VS2010/bin/x64_Debug/liblz4_static.lib)
set(LZ4_LIB_RELEASE ${LZ4_HOME}/visual/VS2010/bin/x64_Release/liblz4_static.lib)

set(ZLIB_HOME $ENV{THIRDPARTY_HOME}/zlib-1.2.11)
set(ZLIB_INCLUDE ${ZLIB_HOME})
set(ZLIB_LIB_DEBUG ${ZLIB_HOME}/contrib/vstudio/vc14/x64/ZlibStatDebug/zlibwapi.lib)
set(ZLIB_LIB_RELEASE ${ZLIB_HOME}/contrib/vstudio/vc14/x64/ZlibStatRelease/zlibwapi.lib)

And then finally to compile RocksDB:

• NOTE: The default CMake build will generate MSBuild project files which include the /arch:AVX2 flag. If you have this CPU extension instruction set, then the generated binaries will also only work on other CPU's with AVX2. If you want to create a build which has no specific CPU extensions, then you should also pass the -DPORTABLE=1 flag in the cmake arguments below.

mkdir build
cd build
set THIRDPARTY_HOME=%CODE_HOME%
cmake -G "Visual Studio 14 Win64" -DJNI=1 -DGFLAGS=1 -DSNAPPY=1 -DLZ4=1 -DZLIB=1 -DXPRESS=1 ..
msbuild rocksdb.sln /p:Configuration=Release