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# Installing and building hipSPARSE for Microsoft Windows

This topic describes how to install or build hipSPARSE on Microsoft Windows by using prebuilt packages or building from source. For information on installing and building hipSPARSE on Linux, see hipSPARSE for Linux.

## Prerequisites

hipSPARSE on Windows requires an AMD HIP SDK-enabled platform. It’s supported on the same Windows versions and toolchains that the HIP SDK supports. For more information, see HIP SDK installation for Windows.

## Installing prebuilt packages

hipSPARSE can be installed on Windows 10 or 11 using the AMD HIP SDK installer.

To add hipSPARSE to your code, use CMake. Add the SDK installation location to your `CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH`.

Note

You must use quotes because the path contains a space.

    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="C:\Program Files\AMD\ROCm\7.0"

In your `CMakeLists.txt` file, use these lines:

    find_package(hipsparse)
    target_link_libraries( your_exe PRIVATE roc::hipsparse )

After hipSPARSE is installed, it can be used just like any other library with a C API. To call hipSPARSE, the `hipsparse.h` header file must be included in the user code. This means the hipSPARSE import library and dynamic link library respectively become link-time and run-time dependencies for the user application.

After the installation, you can find `hipsparse.h` in the HIP SDK `\\include\\hipsparse` directory. When you need to include hipSPARSE in your application code, you must only use this file. You can find the other hipSPARSE files included in the HIP SDK `\\include\\hipsparse\\internal` directory, but do not include these files directly in your source code.

## Building hipSPARSE from source

It isn’t necessary to build hipSPARSE from source because it’s ready to use after installing the prebuilt packages, as described above. To build hipSPARSE from source, follow the instructions in this section.

### Requirements

To compile and run hipSPARSE, the AMD ROCm Platform is required. Building hipSPARSE from source also requires the following components and dependencies:

- rocSPARSE

- git

- CMake (Version 3.5 or later)

- vcpkg

- GoogleTest (Optional: only required to build the clients)

- Python

- PyYAML

When building hipSPARSE from source, select a supported version of the rocSPARSE library dependency. Given a specific version of hipSPARSE, it’s best to use the same version of rocSPARSE.

### Downloading hipSPARSE

The hipSPARSE source code for Windows, which is the same as for Linux, is available from the hipSPARSE folder of the rocm-libraries GitHub. The ROCm HIP SDK version might be shown in the default installation path, but you can run the HIP SDK compiler from the `bin/` folder to display the version using this command:

    hipcc --version

The HIP version number consists of major, minor, and patch fields, and is sometimes followed by a build-specific identifier. For example, the HIP version might be `6.4.22880-135e1ab4`. This corresponds to major release `6`, minor release `4`, patch `22880`, and build identifier `135e1ab4`. The rocm-libraries GitHub includes branches with names like `release/rocm-rel-major.minor`, where major and minor have the same meaning as the HIP version.

To limit your local checkout to only the hipSPARSE project, configure `sparse-checkout` before cloning. This uses the Git partial clone feature (`--filter=blob:none`) to reduce the data download. Use the following commands for a sparse checkout:

Note

To include the rocSPARSE dependency, set the projects for the sparse checkout using `git sparse-checkout set projects/hipsparse projects/rocsparse`.

    git clone --no-checkout --filter=blob:none https://github.com/ROCm/rocm-libraries.git
    cd rocm-libraries
    git sparse-checkout init --cone
    git sparse-checkout set projects/hipsparse # add projects/rocsparse to include dependency
    git checkout release/rocm-rel-x.y  # or use the branch you want to work with

Replace `x.y` in the above command with the version of HIP SDK installed on your machine. For example, if you have HIP 7.0 installed, use `-b release/rocm-rel-7.0`.

To download all projects in rocm-libraries, use these commands. This process takes longer but is recommended for those working with a large number of libraries.

    git clone -b release/rocm-rel-x.y https://github.com/ROCm/rocm-libraries.git
    cd rocm-libraries/projects/hipsparse

Note

To build ROCm 6.4.3 and earlier, use the hipSPARSE repository at ROCm/hipSPARSE. For more information, see the documentation associated with the release you want to build.

Add the SDK tools to your path with an entry like the following:

    %HIP_PATH%\bin

### Building using the Python script

This section describes the steps required to build hipSPARSE using the `rmake.py` script. You can build:

- The library

- The library and client

To call hipSPARSE from your code, you only need the library. The client contains testing and benchmark tools. `rmake.py` prints the full `cmake` command being used to configure hipSPARSE based on the `rmake` command line options. This full `cmake` command can be used in your own build scripts to bypass the Python helper script for a fixed set of build options.

#### Building the library from source

The following table lists the common ways to use `rmake.py` to build the hipSPARSE library only.

Note

You can run `rmake.py` from the `projects\hipsparse` directory.

Command | Description
--- | ---
`./rmake.py -h` | Print the help information.
`./rmake.py` | Build the library.
`./rmake.py -i` | Build the library, then build and install the hipSPARSE package. To keep hipSPARSE in your local tree, do not use the `-i` flag.
`./rmake.py -in` | Build the library without rocBLAS, then build and install the hipSPARSE package. To keep hipSPARSE in your local tree, do not use the `-i` flag.
`./rmake.py -i -a gfx900` | Build the library using only the gfx900 architecture, then build and install the hipSPARSE package. To keep hipSPARSE in your local tree, do not use the `-i` flag.

#### Building the library and client from source

The following table lists the common ways to use `rmake.py` to build the hipSPARSE library and clients.

Command | Description
--- | ---
`./rmake.py -h` | Print the help information.
`./rmake.py -c` | Build the library and client in your local directory.
`./rmake.py -ic` | Build and install the hipSPARSE package and build the client. To keep hipSPARSE in your local directory, do not use the `-i` flag.
`./rmake.py -icn` | Build and install the hipSPARSE package without rocBLAS and build the client. To keep hipSPARSE in your local tree, do not use the `-i` flag.
`./rmake.py -ic -a gfx900` | Build and install the hipSPARSE package using only the gfx900 architecture and build the client. To keep hipSPARSE in your local tree, do not use the `-i` flag.