Tensorflow Windows Build Script

Building Tensorflow on Windows is really a tough thing and there should be many problems to solve. Thus, this script automates the process of building on Windows, which does the following things for you:

• Installation of Dependencies
• Management of Environment Variables
• Patching (For more information, view wiki)

This script has tested on v1.12.0 and v1.11.0.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

You may need to do some preparations below:

• If you need to build GPU version, you need to follow this official guide to install GPU support.

• If you need to build C++ API, you should add symbols that you need into patches\tf_exported_symbols_msvc.lds. If you don't know what symbols you need, never mind and skip this step. When you use the built C++ API, the linker will probably give you link errors, telling what symbols you need.

Building

1. Clone this repository or directly download it.
2. Run the script in the repository directory with administrator rights.

   .\build.ps1 -BazelBuildParameters <parameter_string> [optional_parameters]

3. The output files should be in source\bazel-bin or deps folder.

Details of Parameters

• -BazelBuildParameters <string> Mandatory

  A string which is passed to Bazel to build Tensorflow.

  If you want to build a PyPI wheel, you need //tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package.

  If you want to build a C API, you need //tensorflow:libtensorflow.so.

  If you want to build a C++ API, you need //tensorflow:libtensorflow_cc.so.

  For more information, click here.

• -BuildCppAPI Optional

  This is needed when buiding C++ API.

• -BuildCppProtoBuf Optional

  Denote it to build Protocol Buffer when building C++ API.

• -ReserveSource Optional

  Denote it when you confirm that you have a valid tensorflow repository in source folder and do not want to re-clone it in the next building.

• -ReserveVenv Optional

  Denote it when you confirm that you have a valid virtual environment in venv folder and do not recreate one.

• -IgnoreDepsVersionIssues Optional

  Denote it to ignore the warnings due to different versions of dependencies you have installed.

• -InstallDefaultDeps Optional

  Install default version of dependencies if not installed.

Example

# It is an example for building C++ API with GPU support.
$parameterString = "--config=opt --config=cuda --define=no_tensorflow_py_deps=true --copt=-nvcc_options=disable-warnings //tensorflow:libtensorflow_cc.so --verbose_failures"
.\build.ps1 `
    -BazelBuildParameters $parameterString `
    -BuildCppAPI -BuildCppProtoBuf -ReserveSource -ReserveVenv

Known Issues

• The absolute path of your cloned folder should not contain any special characters. Otherwise, the configure process will raise a subprocess.CalledProcessError.

Acknowledgements

• My script is based on Steroes's work.
• My solution to build C++ API library is based on gittyupagain.

References

These are what I have referenced during contributing to this repo. They are probably useful for you to solve some problems and even get a better idea to build.

TODO

• Put latest news on related topics in Wiki together.
• Delete the API which builds protobuf.
• Write an example to use built results.
• Pay continuous attention to new building API on Windows.

Done

• Write a wiki about details of patches.
• Add support for other versions of Tensorflow.
• Check if a specific version of dependency is installed and give a warning if another version of it is installed.
• Refactor the structure of script.
• Change how to process the output files.
• Denote how to solve the symbol problem in C++ API.
• Let user choose what versions of dependencies to install.