This folder contains the C++ source code for the P4-16 compiler. This is a reference implementation of a compiler for the 2015 version of the P4 programming language, also called P4_16. For the P4 programming language see http://p4.org.
The code contains three sample compiler back-ends:
- p4c-bm2-ss: can be used to target the P4 simple_switch written using the BMv2 behavioral model https://github.com/p4lang/behavioral-model
- p4c-ebpf: can be used to generate C code which can be compiled to EBPF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Packet_Filter
- p4test: a source-to-source P4 translator which can be used for testing, learning and debugging All these compilers can accept both P4_14 (i.e., P4 v1.0, v1.1) and P4_16 programs.
The code and documentation are hosted in the following git repository: https://github.com/p4lang/p4c
The code is currently alpha quality. Currently there is no way to install the compiler.
We have tested the compiler on U*X systems (MacOS and Ubuntu). The following tools are required to build and run the compiler and tests:
-
A C++11 compiler E.g., gcc 4.8 or later, or clang++
-
git
for version control -
GNU autotools for the build process
-
Boehm-Weiser garbage-collector C++ library
-
Gnu Bison and Gnu Flex
-
Gnu multiple precision library GMP
-
C++ boost library (minimally used)
-
Python 2.7 for scripting (especially for running tests)
The compiler is modular, and it contains multiple back-ends. New ones can be added easily. Each back-end may have additional dependences. This repository contains the following two back-ends; please read for installing more dependences:
Most dependences can be installed using apt-get install
:
sudo apt-get install g++ git automake libtool libgc-dev bison flex libgmp-dev libboost-dev python2.7 python-scapy python-ipaddr
Installing on macOS:
-
Enable XCode's command-line tools:
xcode-select --install
-
Install Homebrew:
sudo /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Be sure to add
/usr/local/bin/
to your$PATH
. -
Install dependencies using Homebrew:
brew install autoconf automake libtool bdw-gc boost bison pkg-config
Install GMP built in C++11 mode:
brew install gmp --c++11
By default, Homebrew doesn't link programs into
/usr/local/bin
if they would conflict with a version provided by the base system. This includes Bison, since an older version ships with macOS.make check
depends on the newer Bison we just installed from Homebrew (see #83), so you'll want to add it to your$PATH
one way or another. One simple way to do that is to request that Homebrew link it into/usr/local/bin
:brew link --force bison
-
We recommend installing a new version of gdb, because older gdb versions do not always handle C++11 correctly. See
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb
. -
We recommend exuberant ctags for navigating source code in Emacs and vi.
sudo apt-get install exuberant-ctags.
The Makefile targetsmake ctags
andmake etags
generate tags for vi and Emacs respectively. (Make sure that you are using the correct version of ctags; there are several competing programs with the same name in existence.) -
Steps for setting up Eclipse under Ubuntu Linux 14.04 can be found in Eclipse-readme.
By default the build is performed in a separate folder build
.
./bootstrap.sh
cd build
make -j4
make check -j4
We recommend using clang++
with no optimizations for speeding up
compilation and simplifying debugging.
More documentation is in docs/README.md