Installation

Requirements

• CMake 3.21+

• A C++17 compiler (GCC 9+, Clang 10+, MSVC 2019+)

• x86-64 with at least SSE4 (AVX2 recommended for full performance)

No other system dependencies are required — NLopt ships with the repository.

C++

Option A — find_package (recommended for installed use)

Configure and install Blast once:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local
cmake --build build
cmake --install build

Then, in your project’s CMakeLists.txt:

find_package(Blast REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE Blast::blast)

Option B — add_subdirectory (submodule / embedded)

git submodule add https://github.com/Dynamium-Lab/blast.git extern/blast

add_subdirectory(extern/blast)
target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE blast)

Developer targets (examples, tests, benchmarks) are automatically excluded when Blast is consumed this way.

Python

Requires Python 3.9+, a C++17 compiler, and CMake 3.21+ on your PATH.

Create an isolated environment first:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

Then build and install the bindings:

pip install .

This compiles the native extension and installs the blast package into the active environment.

Updating

find_package install — pull the latest, rebuild, and reinstall:

git pull
cmake --build build
cmake --install build

Submodule — update to the latest commit on main:

git submodule update --remote extern/blast
git add extern/blast
git commit -m "Update blast"