CMake Installation

This section discusses how to build and install Verilator using cmake. Currently cmake is only officially supported for Windows builds (not Linux).

Quick Install

  1. Install Python for your platform from https://www.python.org/downloads/.

  2. Install CMake for your platform from https://cmake.org/download/ or build it from source.

  3. If the compiler of your choice is MSVC, then install https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/. If the compiler of your choice is Clang, then install https://releases.llvm.org/download.html or build it from source.

  4. For flex and bison use https://github.com/lexxmark/winflexbison to build and install.

  5. For build on Windows using MSVC set environment variable WIN_FLEX_BISON to install directory. For build on Windows/Linux/OS-X using ninja set the CMake variable FLEX_INCLUDE_DIR to the directory containing FlexLexer.h and ensure that flex/bison is available within the PATH.

To obtain Verilator sources download https://github.com/verilator/verilator/archive/refs/heads/master.zip or clone https://github.com/verilator/verilator using git Obtain Sources.

To build using MSVC:

cd verilator  # directory containing source files of verilator
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-prefix $PWD/../install
cmake --build . --config Release
cmake --install . --prefix $PWD/../install

To build using ninja:

cd verilator
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake -G Ninja .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --install-prefix $PWD/../install -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=<path to ninja binary> -DBISON_EXECUTABLE=<path to bison> -DFLEX_EXECUTABLE=<path to flex>
<path to ninja binary> #execute ninja
cmake --install . --prefix $PWD/../install

For coverage tools, use CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=CoverageRelease to build verilator_coverage_bin or CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Coverage to build verilator_coverage_bin_dbg.

Usage

To use Verilator set the environment variable VERILATOR_ROOT to the install directory specified in the above build.

Example

cd verilator/examples
cd cmake_hello_c
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..  # cmake -G Ninja ..
cmake --build . --config Release # ninja
# execute the generated binary