Adding dependencies

This tutorial covers the usage of dependencies with fpm and how to reuse existing fpm projects.

Using the standard library

We start with a new project with fpm, we want to build a command line application to read a file, find a certain pattern and replace it. Since we do not want to write the replace function ourselves, we will use the Fortran standard library (stdlib) as dependency. In the package manifest we define stdlib in the dependencies table:

fpm.toml
name = "demo"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
stdlib = "*"

Now we create a module with a procedure to perform the substitution. It requires three steps:

  1. reading a whole line from one unit

  2. replace the pattern in the string

  3. write the new string to an output

We will use the replace_all function from the stdlib_strings module for this purpose. The implementation is shown here

src/demo.f90
module demo
  use stdlib_io, only : getline
  use stdlib_strings, only : replace_all
  implicit none
  private

  public :: substitute

contains

  !> Read all lines from input, replace pattern and print it to output
  subroutine substitute(input, output, pattern, replacement)
    !> Formatted input unit
    integer, intent(in) :: input
    !> Formatted output unit
    integer, intent(in) :: output
    !> Pattern to replace in input
    character(len=*), intent(in) :: pattern
    !> Replacement for pattern in output
    character(len=*), intent(in) :: replacement

    character(len=:), allocatable :: line
    integer :: stat

    do
      call getline(input, line, stat)
      if (stat /= 0) exit
      write(output, '(a)') replace_all(line, pattern, replacement)
    end do
  end subroutine substitute

end module demo

Finally, we need a command line driver to make use of our new function.

app/main.f90
program main
  use, intrinsic :: iso_fortran_env, only : output_unit
  use demo, only : substitute
  implicit none
  character(len=256) :: pattern, replacement, input_file
  integer :: input

  call get_command_argument(1, pattern)
  call get_command_argument(2, replacement)
  call get_command_argument(3, input_file)

  open(newunit=input, file=input_file, status='old')
  call substitute(input, output_unit, trim(pattern), trim(replacement))
  close(input)
end program main

We can check our command line driver by running it with fpm:

❯ fpm run -- demo substitute fpm.toml
name = "substitute"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
stdlib = "*"

Adding a testing framework

Before we continue implementing new features, we want to add some tests to verify that our implementation keeps working as we modify it. A minimalist testing framework is available with test-drive. Since the testing framework is only required when developing the package itself, but not for other packages which might in the future make use of our modules, we add it as a development dependency. The test-drive package is added in the dev-dependencies table as shown below

fpm.toml
name = "demo"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
stdlib = "*"

[dev-dependencies]
test-drive.git = "https://github.com/fortran-lang/test-drive"
test-drive.tag = "v0.4.0"

Note

For a development dependency like a testing framework we choose a strict version pin by specifying the tag we want to use.

Now we can write a simple unit test, since our function works with units, we will create scratch units to create the input and capture the output. For now we will add a simple one line substitution as single test case

test/main.f90
module test_demo
  use demo, only : substitute
  use stdlib_io, only : getline
  use testdrive, only : error_type, unittest_type, new_unittest, check
  implicit none
  private

  public :: collect_demo

contains

  !> Collect all exported unit tests
  subroutine collect_demo(testsuite)
    !> Collection of tests
    type(unittest_type), allocatable, intent(out) :: testsuite(:)

    testsuite = [new_unittest("substitute", test_substitute)]
  end subroutine collect_demo

  !> Check substitution of a single line
  subroutine test_substitute(error)
    !> Error handling
    type(error_type), allocatable, intent(out) :: error
    integer :: input, output, stat
    character(len=:), allocatable :: line
    open(newunit=input, status="scratch")
    write(input, '(a)') "This is a valid test"
    rewind(input)

    open(newunit=output, status="scratch")
    call substitute(input, output, "test", "example")
    close(input)

    rewind(output)
    call getline(output, line, stat)
    close(output)

    call check(error, line, "This is a valid example")
  end subroutine test_substitute
end module test_demo

program tester
  use, intrinsic :: iso_fortran_env, only : error_unit
  use testdrive, only : run_testsuite
  use test_demo, only : collect_demo
  implicit none
  integer :: stat

  stat = 0
  call run_testsuite(collect_demo, error_unit, stat)

  if (stat > 0) then
    write(error_unit, '(i0, 1x, a)') stat, "test(s) failed!"
    error stop
  end if

end program tester

We run our new test using fpm

❯ fpm test
  Starting substitute ... (1/1)
       ... substitute [PASSED]

Creating the scratch units for multiple unit tests will be repetitive, this kind of tasks can usually be done in a separate procedure and reused in several tests.

Target-specific dependencies

Dependencies can also be used for specific targets only. This can be used for adding a command line interface package, which is only used for the executable but not part of the library dependencies.

fpm.toml
name = "demo"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
stdlib = "*"

[dev-dependencies]
test-drive.git = "https://github.com/fortran-lang/test-drive"
test-drive.tag = "v0.4.0"

[[executable]]
name = "demo"
[executable.dependencies]
M_CLI2.git = "https://github.com/urbanjost/M_CLI2"

We restructure our main program a bit for using M_CLI2 to handle the command line input. The unnamed array contains all positional command line arguments, we still use the first two as pattern and replacement, and use all remaining arguments as input. We also add an option to redirect the output. Our final main program looks like

app/main.f90
program main
  use, intrinsic :: iso_fortran_env, only : output_unit
  use demo, only : substitute
  use m_cli2, only : set_args, unnamed, sget
  implicit none
  character(len=:), allocatable :: input_file, output_file, pattern, replacement
  integer :: input, output, i

  call set_args("--output:o ''")

  output_file = trim(sget("output"))
  if (len(output_file) > 0) then
    open(file=output_file, newunit=output)
  else
    output = output_unit
  end if

  pattern = trim(unnamed(1))
  replacement = trim(unnamed(2))

  do i = 3, size(unnamed)
    input_file = trim(unnamed(i))
    open(file=input_file, newunit=input, status='old')
    call substitute(input, output_unit, trim(pattern), trim(replacement))
    close(input)
  end do

  if (output /= output_unit) close(output)
end program main

Again we run a quick check using fpm

❯ fpm run -- demo substitute fpm.toml
name = "substitute"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
stdlib = "*"

[dev-dependencies]
test-drive.git = "https://github.com/fortran-lang/test-drive"
test-drive.tag = "v0.4.0"

[[executable]]
name = "substitute"
[executable.dependencies]
M_CLI2.git = "https://github.com/urbanjost/M_CLI2"

The output looks as expected with two substitutions.

Summary

In this tutorial you learned how to

  • depend on another fpm project in the package manifest

  • add development dependencies for testing

  • use dependencies for executables