Apache Thrift - quick tutorial

Installation of Apache Thrift

Download tar.gz archive from the download site, decompress archive in your home directory:

tar -xvzf thrift-0.2.0-incubating.tar.gz

Make sure, that you meet all dependencies (listed here). If not, install all needed packages - in debian it is as easy as typing:

apt-get install package-name

If you receive information such as

E: Couldn't find package (...)

type

apt-cache search package-name

to find proper name of the package (list could be long, so use | more or | grep package-name to navigate). For me, most troublesome was package libboost1.35-dev (I had problem with default libboost 1.34, despite the fact, that Apache Thrift requires only 1.33).

Ah, and don't forget to run apt-get as root (or using sudo).

So, go to the directory, where you unpacked the thrift and run

./configure

Important! Some manuals say, that you can run ./bootstrap.sh first, but it's not necessary. Running this command gave me a lot of trouble, so my suggestion is – don't do it. If you did – delete whole directory and unpack it one more time.

After running ./configure you may encounter this error:

checking for boostlib >= 1.33.1... configure: error: We could not detect the boost libraries (version 1.33 or higher). If you have a staged boost library (still not installed) please specify $BOOST_ROOT in your environment and do not give a PATH to --with-boost option. If you are sure you have boost installed, then check your version number looking in <boost/version.hpp>. See http://randspringer.de/boost for more documentation.

Solution: I got rid of this error, when I installed libboost 1.35 instead of default libboost 1.34. If it still doesn't resolve the problem, try running configure with parameter stating the location of libboost In my case it was:

./configure --with-boost=/usr/include

I encountered also another error:

./configure: line 21183: syntax error near unexpected token `MONO,'
./configure: line 21183: `  PKG_CHECK_MODULES(MONO, mono >= 1.2.6, have_mono=yes, have_mono=no)'

Solution: install package pkg-config.

If ./configure finishes succesfully, run

make

Some of the errors, that you may encounter include:

../../ylwrap: line 109: yacc: command not found

Solution: install byacc package.

/root/thrift-0.2.0/missing: line 52: flex: command not found
WARNING: `flex' is missing on your system.  You should only need it if
         you modified a `.l' file.  You may need the `Flex' package
         in order for those modifications to take effect.  You can get
         `Flex' from any GNU archive site.

Solution: install flex package.

After installing additional packages you should re-run ./cofigure script. If "make" fails without any apparent reason, i.e.: on something like

/bin/sh ../../ylwrap `test -f 'src/thriftl.ll' || echo './'`src/thriftl.ll .c thriftl.cc -- /bin/sh /root/thrift-0.2.0/missing --run flex

it means you forgot to re-run ./configure.

After successful make, install Thrift by running

make install

with root privileges.

If you can run

thrift

command and see result like below – congratulations! You have thrift installed.

home-debian:~# thrift
Usage: thrift [options] file
Options:
  -version    Print the compiler version
  -o dir      Set the output directory for gen-* packages
               (default: current directory)
  -I dir      Add a directory to the list of directories
                searched for include directives
  -nowarn     Suppress all compiler warnings (BAD!)
  -strict     Strict compiler warnings on
  -v[erbose]  Verbose mode
  -r[ecurse]  Also generate included files
  -debug      Parse debug trace to stdout
  --gen STR   Generate code with a dynamically-registered generator.
                STR has the form language[:key1=val1[,key2,[key3=val3]]].
                Keys and values are options passed to the generator.
                Many options will not require values.

Available generators (and options):
  cocoa (Cocoa):
    log_unexpected:  Log every time an unexpected field ID or type is encountered.
  cpp (C++):
    dense:           Generate type specifications for the dense protocol.
    include_prefix:  Use full include paths in generated files.
  csharp (C#):
  erl (Erlang):
  hs (Haskell):
  html (HTML):
  java (Java):
    beans:           Generate bean-style output files.
    nocamel:         Do not use CamelCase field accessors with beans.
    hashcode:        Generate quality hashCode methods.
  ocaml (OCaml):
  perl (Perl):
  php (PHP):
    inlined:         Generate PHP inlined files
    server:          Generate PHP server stubs
    autoload:        Generate PHP with autoload
    oop:             Generate PHP with object oriented subclasses
    rest:            Generate PHP REST processors
  py (Python):
    new_style:       Generate new-style classes.
    twisted:         Generate Twisted-friendly RPC services.
  rb (Ruby):
  st (Smalltalk):
  xsd (XSD):