A field-theory motivated approach to computer algebra.
Kasper Peeters <[email protected]>
- End-user documentation at http://cadabra.science/
- Source code documentation at http://kpeeters.github.io/cadabra2
This repository holds the 2.x series of the Cadabra computer algebra system. It supersedes the 1.x series, which can still be found at http://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra.
Cadabra was designed specifically for the solution of problems encountered in quantum and classical field theory. It has extensive functionality for tensor computer algebra, tensor polynomial simplification including multi-term symmetries, fermions and anti-commuting variables, Clifford algebras and Fierz transformations, implicit coordinate dependence, multiple index types and many more. The input format is a subset of TeX. Both a command-line and a graphical interface are available.
Cadabra builds on Linux, macOS, OpenBSD and Windows. Select your system from the list below for detailed instructions.
- Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint)
- Linux (Fedora 24 and later)
- Linux (CentOS/Scientific Linux)
- Linux (openSUSE)
- Linux (Arch/Manjaro)
- Linux (Solus)
- OpenBSD
- macOS
- Windows
Binaries for these platforms may (or may not) be provided from the download page at http://cadabra.science/download.html, but they are not always very up-to-date.
See Building Cadabra as C++ library for instructions on how to build the entire Cadabra functionality as a library which you can use in a C++ program.
See Building a Jupyter kernel for instructions on how to build a Jupyter kernel for Cadabra sessions.
On Debian/Ubuntu you can install all that is needed with:
sudo apt install git cmake python3-dev g++ libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libgmp3-dev \
libgtkmm-3.0-dev libboost-all-dev libgmp-dev libsqlite3-dev uuid-dev \
texlive texlive-latex-extra dvipng \
python3-matplotlib python3-mpmath python3-sympy python3-gmpy2
(on Ubuntu 14.04 you need to replace cmake with cmake3 and also install g++-4.9; get in touch if you don't know how to do this). On older systems you may want to install sympy using sudo pip3 install sympy, but that is discouraged in general.
This is the development platform and issues are typically first fixed here. You can use either g++ or the clang++ compiler to build. You need to clone the cadabra2 git repository (if you download the .zip file you will not have all data necessary to build). So first do:
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
Building is then done with the standard:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install
This will produce the command line app cadabra2 and the Gtk
notebook interface cadabra2-gtk. You can also find the latter in
the 'Education' menu.
Fedora 24 is the first Fedora to have Python 3; you can build Cadabra using Python 2 but you are strongly encouraged to upgrade. The Fedora platform receives less testing so please get in touch if you run into any issues. You can use either g++ or the clang++ compiler.
Install the dependencies with:
sudo dnf install git python3-devel cmake gcc-c++ \
pcre-devel gmp-devel libuuid-devel sqlite-devel \
gtkmm30-devel boost-devel \
texlive python3-matplotlib \
python3-pip
sudo pip3 install sympy
You need to clone the cadabra2 git repository (if you download the .zip file you will not have all data necessary to build). So first do:
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
Building is then done with the standard:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install
This will produce the command line app cadabra2 and the Gtk
notebook interface cadabra2-gtk. You can also find the latter
when searching for the 'Cadabra' app from the 'Activities' menu.
On CentOS/Scientific Linux you need to activate The Software Collections (SCL) and Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) to get access to a modern C++ compiler, Python3 and all required build tools.
On CentOS first do:
sudo yum install centos-release-scl epel-release
On Scientific Linux the equivalent is:
sudo yum install yum-conf-softwarecollections epel-release
Now install all build dependencies with:
sudo yum install devtoolset-7 rh-python36 cmake3 \
gmp-devel libuuid-devel sqlite-devel \
gtkmm30-devel boost-devel git \
texlive python-matplotlib
You need to enable the Python3 and C++ compiler which you just installed with:
scl enable rh-python36 bash scl enable devtoolset-7 bash
(note: do not use sudo here!).
You also need to install sympy by hand:
sudo pip3 install sympy
Now need to clone the cadabra2 git repository (if you download the .zip file you will not have all data necessary to build):
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
Building is then done with the standard:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake3 .. make sudo make install
This will produce the command line app cadabra2 and the Gtk
notebook interface cadabra2-gtk. You can also find the latter in
the 'Education' menu.
For openSUSE (tested on 'Leap 15.0', probably also fine with minor changes for 'Tumbleweed') you first need to install the dependencies with:
sudo zypper install git cmake python3-devel gcc-c++ \
pcre-devel gmp-devel libuuid-devel sqlite-devel \
gtkmm3-devel \
texlive python3-matplotlib \
python3-sympy \
libboost_system1_69_0-devel libboost_filesystem1_69_0-devel \
libboost_date_time1_69_0-devel libboost_program_options1_69_0-devel
This platform receives less testing so please get in touch if you run into any issues. You need to clone the cadabra2 git repository (if you download the .zip file you will not have all data necessary to build). So first do:
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
Building is then done with the standard:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake .. make sudo make install
This will produce the command line app cadabra2 and the Gtk
notebook interface cadabra2-gtk.
The development package for Arch Linux is cadabra2-git https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cadabra2-git/. Building and installing (including dependencies) can be accomplished with:
yaourt -Sy cadabra2-git
Alternatively use makepkg:
curl -L -O https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/cadabra2-git.tar.gz tar -xvf cadabra2-git.tar.gz cd cadabra2-git makepkg -sri
Please consult the Arch Wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository#Installing_packages for more information regarding installing packages from the AUR.
Support for Solux Linux is experimental. To build from source on Solus Linux, first install the dependencies by doing:
sudo eopkg install -c system.devel sudo eopkg install libboost-devel gmp-devel libgtkmm-3-devel sudo eopkg install sqlite3-devel texlive python3-devel sudo eopkg install git cmake make g++
Then configure and build with:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr make sudo make install
This installs below /usr (instead of /usr/local on other
platforms) because I could not figure out how to make it pick up
libraries there.
Any feedback on these instructions is welcome.
Install the dependencies with:
pkg_add git cmake boost python-3.6.2 gtk3mm texlive_texmf-full py3-sympy
We will build using the default clang-4.0.0 compiler; building with the alternative g++-4.9.4 leads to trouble when linking against the libraries added with pkg_add.
Configure and build with:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake -DENABLE_MATHEMATICA=OFF .. make su make install
The command-line version is now available as cadabra2 and the
notebook interface as cadabra2-gtk.
Any feedback on this platform is welcome as this is not our development platform and testing is done only occasionally.
Cadabra builds with the standard Apple compiler, but in order to build on macOS you need a number of packages from Homebrew (see http://brew.sh). Quite a few Homebrew installations have broken permissions; best to first do:
sudo chown -R ${USER}:admin /usr/local/
to clean that up. Then install the required dependencies with:
brew install cmake boost pcre gmp python3 brew install pkgconfig brew install gtkmm3 adwaita-icon-theme pip3 install sympy gmpy2
If the lines above prompt you to install XCode, go ahead and let it do that.
You also need a TeX installation such as MacTeX, http://tug.org/mactex/ . Any TeX will do, as long as 'latex' and 'dvipng' are available. Make sure to install TeX before attempting to build Cadabra, otherwise the Cadabra style files will not be installed in the appropriate place. Make sure 'latex' works from the terminal in which you will build Cadabra.
You can build against an Anaconda Python installation (in case you prefer Anaconda over the Homebrew Python); cmake will automaticaly pick this up if available.
You need to clone the cadabra2 git repository (if you download the .zip file you will not have all data necessary to build). So do:
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
After that you can build with the standard:
cd cadabra2 mkdir build cd build cmake -DENABLE_MATHEMATICA=OFF .. make sudo make install
(note the -DENABLE_MATHEMATICA=OFF in the cmake line above; the Mathematica scalar backend does not yet work on macOS).
This will produce the command line app cadabra2 and the Gtk
notebook interface cadabra2-gtk.
Feedback from macOS users is very welcome because this is not the main development platform.
On Windows the main constraint on the build process is that we want to link to Anaconda's Python, which has been built with Visual Studio. The recommended way to build Cadabra is thus to build against libraries which are all built using Visual Studio as well (if you are happy to not use Anaconda, you can also build with the excellent MSYS2 system from http://www.msys2.org/; see below). It is practically impossible to build all dependencies yourself without going crazy, but fortunately that is not necessary because of the VCPKG library at https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg. This contains all dependencies (boost, gtkmm, sqlite and various others) in ready-to-use form.
If you do not already have it, first install Visual Studio Community Edition from https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ and install Anaconda (a 64 bit version!) from https://www.anaconda.com/download/. You also need a TeX distribution, for instance MiKTeX from http://miktex.org and of course git from e.g. https://gitforwindows.org/. You need all four before you can start building Cadabra.
The instructions below are for building using the Visual Studio 'x64 Native Tools Command Prompt' (not the GUI). First, clone the vcpkg repository:
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg
Run the bootstrap script to set things up:
cd vcpkg bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
Install all the dependencies with (this is a very slow process, be warned, it can easily take several hours, but at least it's automatic):
vcpkg install mpir:x64-windows glibmm:x64-windows (go have a coffee) vcpkg install sqlite3:x64-windows boost:x64-windows (go for dinner) vcpkg install gtkmm:x64-windows (run overnight) vcpkg integrate install
The last line will spit out a CMAKE toolchain path; write it down, you need that shortly. Now clone the cadabra repository and configure as:
cd ..
git clone https://github.com/kpeeters/cadabra2
cd cadabra2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=[the path obtained in the last step]
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
-DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-windows
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\Cadabra
-G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ..
the latter all on one line, in which you replace the
CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_PATH with the path produced by the vcpkg integrate
install step. Do _not_ forget the .. at the very end!
You can ignore warnings (but not errors) about Boost. Finally build with:
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo --target install
This will build and then install in C:\Cadabra. The self-tests can be run by
doing:
ctest
(still fails tensor_monomials, bianchi_identities, paper and young when in Release build).
Finally, the command-line version of Cadabra can now be started with:
python C:\Cadabra\bin\cadabra2
and you can start the notebook interface with:
C:\Cadabra\bin\cadabra2-gtk
It should be possible to simply copy the C:Cadabra folder to a different machine and run it there (that is essentially what the binary installer does).
Warning: the instructions below are just for guidance, we have not tried this for quite a while.
If you are happy with a Cadabra which cannot access an Anaconda Python distribution, it is possible to build using MSYS2. First, install MSYS2 from http://www.msys2.org. Once you have a working MSYS2 shell, do the following to install various packages (all from an MSYS2 shell!):
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gtkmm3
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-boost
pacman -S gmp gmp-devel pcre-devel
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-sqlite3
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-python3
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-adwaita-icon-theme
Then close the MSYS2 shell and open the MINGW64 shell. Run:
cd cadabra2/build cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/[user] .. mingw32-make
Replace '[user]' with your user name. If the cmake fails with a complaint about 'sh.exe', just run it again. The above builds for python2, let me know if you know how to make it pick up python3 on Windows.
This fails to install the shared libraries, but they do get built. Copy them all in ~/bin, and also copy a whole slew of other things into there. In addition you need:
cp /mingw64/bin/gspawn-win* ~/bin export PYTHONPATH=/mingw64/lib/python2.7:/home/[user]/bin
This fails to start the server with 'The application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way'.
The Cadabra build scripts are now able to build a Jupyter kernel for Cadabra, so that you can use the Cadabra notation inside a Jupyter notebook session. For full instructions, see building a Jupyter kernel. This is experimental at the moment; all feedback is welcome.
Please consult http://cadabra.science/ for tutorial-style notebooks and all other documentation, and http://cadabra.science/doxygen/html/ for doxygen documentation of the current master branch. The latter can also be generated locally; you will need (on Debian and derivatives):
sudo apt-get install doxygen libjs-mathjax
For any questions, please contact [email protected] .
EXPERIMENTAL: If you want to use the functionality of Cadabra inside your own C++ programs, you can build Cadabra as a shared library. To do this:
cd c++lib mkdir build cmake .. make sudo make install
There is a sample program simple.cc in the c++lib directory which shows how to use the Cadabra library.
Special thanks to José M. Martín-García (for the xPerm canonicalisation code), James Allen (for writing much of the factoring code), Dominic Price (for the conversion to pybind and the Windows port), the Software Sustainability Institute and the Institute of Advanced Study. Thanks to the many people who have sent me bug reports (keep 'm coming), and thanks to all of you who uses cadabra, sent feedback or cited the Cadabra papers.