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Packaging quickstart

Install QPacker and work through some examples of using it to build applications

Install QPacker

QPacker installers are delivered via Nexus:

└── qpacker
    ├── qpacker-install-2.0.14-4.0.0.sh
    ├── qpacker-2.0.14-4.0.0.deb
    └── qpacker-2.0.14-4.0.0.x86_64.rpm

To install using the shell installer run:

sh qpacker-install-2.0.14-4.0.0.sh

The installer will also prompt for an installation directory.

Installation Directory [default /home/user]
Installed.

Set your Git username and email:

git config --global user.name "John Smith"
git config --global user.email "jsmith@email.com"

This completes the successful installation and configuration of QPacker.

C example

Combine q and C code

Download the qpacker-examples.tgz package via Nexus:

Extract and examine the cloud-c-sample folder.

From the qp.json file you can see that the entry point of the application that is being built is the hello.q script, which has a dependency on clib. The clib dependency has been included as a subfolder of the application, which has its own qp.json file defining its entrypoint and dependencies.

The share object library is built from the underlying clib. Inspect the chained build dependencies as defined in the qp.json files. qp will

  1. Run make in clib to create libihello.so
  2. Link functions in hello.q to libhello.so
  3. Create an application that loads the clib library and executes the entry point hello.q, which contains a call to the hello C function.

Run qp build to build the project. You will see something like

user@instance:~/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample$ qp build
INFO  | Build   | Starting build for application [default]
INFO  | Build   | Dependency [so]
INFO  | Main    | (18646-4) Finished.
INFO  | Build   | Dependency [clib]
INFO  | Build   | Docker build --build-arg base=alpine:3.9.6 -f /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/qpbuild/dep/so/Dockerfile.alpine -t sobuilder /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/qpbuild/dep/so
INFO  | Build   | docker run --rm -v /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/clib:/opt/qpacker/ -v /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample:/opt/qpbuildroot -v /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/qpbuild/dep/so:/opt/so/ -w /opt/qpacker -e CFLAGS=-I/opt/so/kx-c-lib/c/c sobuilder qpmake clib libhello.so
INFO  | Build   | Creating clib.0.20210226.75658.qpk
INFO  | Main    | (18612-3) Finished.
INFO  | Build   | Dependency [q]
INFO  | Main    | (19011-3) Finished.
INFO  | Build   | App [default]
INFO  | Build   | [docker build -t qlocker /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/qpbuild/dep/q]
INFO  | Build   | Building with docker...
INFO  | Build   | [docker run --env-file /tmp/qp.19047.env.list --rm -v /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample:/opt/kx/data -v /tmp/qp.19047.qpignore:/opt/kx/qpconfig/.qpignore -v /home/user/.qp.licenses:/opt/kx/lic-out -w /opt/kx/data qlocker]
INFO  | Build   | Write loaders for locked q files
INFO  | Build   | Creating cloud-c-sample.0.20210226.75662.qpk
INFO  | Build   | Creating Dockerfile [Dockerfile.default]
INFO  | Build   | [docker build -f Dockerfile.default .]
INFO  | Main    | (18582-2) Finished.

Notice that the application has been packaged as an artifact called cloud-c-sample.qpk in the qpbuild/qpk/ folder which can be used in other projects.

Next step is to run the application by executing qp run. A call has been executed print a hello message via the clib library.

INFO  | Run     | Target [default]
INFO  | Run     | docker run --rm --env-file /home/user/qpacker-examples/cloud-c-sample/qpbuild/.env  -v /home/user/.config/gcloud/:/root/.config/gcloud:ro -it 4bdafcfbde8e98b5f8d431fc3217a90f10f67e7a1756b86ce0c42d3408d83a5d
INFO: Get kdb+ license from KDB_LICENSE_B64 environment variable
INFO: testing and installing kc.lic
INFO: successful
RUN [q startq.q ]
KDB+ 4.0 Cloud Edition 2021.03.12 Copyright (C) 1993-2021 Kx Systems
l64/ 2()core 3735MB root 3b3147e22fc8 172.17.0.2 EXPIRE 2022.02.23 user@kx.com KXCE #????????

hello from q test
hello from C!
INFO  | Main    | (20510-2) Finished.

Reset the project with qp clean.

Basic tick system

An application that consists of a feed, a tickerplant, a realtime database, a historical database and a gateway

Download the qpacker-examples.tgz package via Nexus:

Extract and examine the basic-tick-example folder.

The entrypoint for each of the processes can be seen in qp.json. The README.md describes the contents of the package.

Run qp build to build the images, following instructions in the README file.

In this example we see how easy it is to configure and run a multiprocess system using QPacker.

make use of the QPPATH environment variable for future examples in the quickstart guide

QPPATH items are separated by colon : on Linux and macOS, but by semicolon ; on Windows.

See extra details in qp.json documentation

QPacker documentation