Installing Solang

The Solang compiler is a single binary. It can be installed in different ways, listed below.

Download from Homebrew (MacOS only)
Download pre-compiled binaries
Download from a Docker container
Build using Dockerfile
Build from source

Option 1: Download from Brew

Solang is available on Brew via a private tap. Currently, this works only for MacOS systems, both Intel and Apple Silicon. To install Solang via Brew, run the following command:

brew install hyperledger/solang/solang

Option 2: Download release binaries

There are binaries available on github releases:

On MacOS, remember to give execution permission to the file and remove it from quarantine by executing the following commands:

chmod +x solang-mac-arm
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine solang-mac-arm

If you are using an Intel based Mac, please, exchange solang-mac-arm by solang-mac-intel in both of the above commands.

On Linux, permission to execute the binary is also necessary, so, please, run chmod +x solang-linux-x86-64. If you are using an Arm based Linux, the command is the following: chmod +x solang-linux-arm64.

Option 3: Use ghcr.io/hyperledger/solang containers

New images are automatically made available on solang containers. There is a release v0.1.13 tag and a latest tag:

docker pull ghcr.io/hyperledger/solang:latest

The Solang binary is stored at /usr/bin/solang in this image. The latest tag gets updated each time there is a commit to the main branch of the Solang git repository.

Option 4: Build Solang using Dockerfile

First clone the git repo using:

git clone https://github.com/hyperledger/solang

Then you can build the image using:

docker image build .

Option 5: Build Solang from source

In order to build Solang from source, you will need rust 1.59.0 or higher, and a build of LLVM based on the Solana LLVM tree. There are a few patches which are not upstream yet. First, follow the steps below for installing LLVM and then proceed from there.

If you do not have the correct version of rust installed, go to rustup.

To install Solang from sources, do the following:

Install LLVM from Solana’s LLVM fork.
Build Solang from its source files.

Solang is also available on crates.io, so after completing step #1 from above, it is possible to build it using the release on crates.

Step 1: Install the LLVM Libraries

Solang needs a build of LLVM with some extra patches. These patches make it possible to generate code for Solana, and fixes some concurrency issues in the lld linker.

You can either download the pre-built libraries from github or build your own from source. After that, you need to add the bin directory to your path, so that the build system of Solang can find the correct version of LLVM to use.

Linux

A pre-built version of LLVM, specifically configured for Solang, is available at https://github.com/hyperledger/solang/releases/download/v0.1.13/llvm13.0-linux-x86-64.tar.xz. After downloading, untar the file in a terminal and add it to your path.

tar Jxf llvm13.0-linux-x86-64.tar.xz
export PATH=$(pwd)/llvm13.0/bin:$PATH

Windows

A pre-built version of LLVM, specifically configured for Solang, is available at https://github.com/hyperledger/solang/releases/download/v0.1.13/llvm13.0-win.zip.

After unzipping the file, add the bin directory to your path.

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\llvm13.0\bin

Mac

A pre-built version of LLVM for intel macs, is available at https://github.com/hyperledger/solang/releases/download/v0.1.13/llvm13.0-mac-intel.tar.xz and for arm macs there is https://github.com/hyperledger/solang/releases/download/v0.1.13/llvm13.0-mac-arm.tar.xz. After downloading, untar the file in a terminal and add it to your path like so:

tar Jxf llvm13.0-mac-arm.tar.xz
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine llvm13.0
export PATH=$(pwd)/llvm13.0/bin:$PATH

Building LLVM from source

The LLVM project itself has a guide to installing from source which you may need to consult. First if all clone our LLVM repository:

git clone --depth 1 --branch solana-rustc/13.0-2021-08-08 https://github.com/solana-labs/llvm-project
cd llvm-project

Now run cmake to create the makefiles. Replace the installdir argument to CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX with with a directory where you would like to have LLVM installed, and then run the build:

cmake -G Ninja -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=On '-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS=clang;lld'  \
        -DLLVM_ENABLE_TERMINFO=Off -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
        -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=installdir -B build llvm
cmake --build build --target install

Once the build has succeeded, the installdir/bin has to be added to your path so the Solang build can find the llvm-config from this build:

export PATH=installdir/bin:$PATH

And on Windows, assuming installdir was C:\Users\User\solang-llvm:

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\User\solang-llvm\bin

Step 2: Build Solang

Once you have the correct LLVM version in your path, simply run:

git clone https://github.com/hyperledger/solang/
cd solang
cargo build --release

The executable will be in target/release/solang.

Alternative step 2: Build Solang from crates.io

The latest Solang release is on crates.io. Once you have the correct LLVM version in your path, simply run:

cargo install solang