Components

Extend HOOMD-blue with a component implemented in C++ for performance-critical tasks, such as pair potential evaluation. A component provides a number of related functionalities. For example, the hoomd.hpmc component enables hard particle Monte Carlo methods with HOOMD-blue.

Compile and install components built-in or as external components. The HOOMD-blue build process compiles all core and built-in components together, requiring one only one set of configure, make, and install commands. External components compile and link against a HOOMD-blue installation from a separate build directory with their own set of configure, make, and install commands. You may compile a component either way. When the end user is compiling HOOMD-blue and components from source, built-in components compile and install everything at once which minimizes chances for errors (e.g. building HOOMD-blue against python 3.6, but the component against python 3.7). External components provide more flexibility for packaging purposes.

The HOOMD-Blue source provides an example component template in the example_plugin subdirectory. example_plugin demonstrates how to add a new update command with both CPU and GPU implementations. Use this as a template when developing your component.

Built-in components

You can fork HOOMD-blue and add your component directly, or you can create a separate source repository for your component. Create a symbolic link to the component in the hoomd source directory to compile it as a built-in component:

$ ln -s <path-to-component>/<component> hoomd-blue/hoomd/<component>

Note

Built-in components may be used directly from the build directory or installed.

External components

To compile an external component, you must first install HOOMD-blue. Then, configure your component with CMake and install it into the hoomd python library. Point CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH at your virtual environment (if needed) so that cmake can find HOOMD-blue:

$ cmake -B build/<component> -S <path-to-component>
$ cmake --build build/<component>
$ cmake --install build/<component>

The component build environment, including the compiler, CUDA, MPI, python, and other libraries, must match exactly with those used to build HOOMD-blue.

Note

External components must be installed before use.