Beginner ILNumerics: install under VS2012

Question

I am very much interested in ILNUmerics and would like to try the free version, but I am having troubles.

I have started with a console application and was trying to run the 'hello ilnumerics'console application but I noticed that VS fails to find MKL libraries.

I am using VS2012 under Windwos 8 (through Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro mid 2010; should it be relevant); I have installed the NuGet Packages extension from the Project solution. Then right-click on references in the solution explorer, 'Manage Nu Get Packages', fron online/search found ilnumerics in various versions. I chose 'ILNumerics' and install. I got 'ILNumerics' and 'ILNumerics.Native' added to my project. Then I can see ILNumerics under 'References' in Solution Explorer and also get two new folders /bin32/ and /bin64/ they both contain two DLLs named: libiomp5md.dll and mkl_custom.dll. I have checked their 'Copy to Ouput Directory' property and they are all set to 'Copy if newer'.

Apparently mkl_custom is not found. I write the following code, taken from the quickstart guide:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using ILNumerics;

namespace ConsoleApplication3
{

  class Program  : ILMath
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        ILArray<double> A = array<double>
            (new double[] { 1,1,1,1,1,2,3,4,1,3,6,10,1,4,10,20} ,4, 4);
        ILArray<double> B = counter(4, 2);

        ILArray<double> Result = linsolve(A, B);
        Console.Out.WriteLine("A: " + Environment.NewLine +
                A.ToString());

            Console.Out.WriteLine("B: " + Environment.NewLine + B.ToString());

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

and I get this exception: An unhandled exception of type 'System.DllNotFoundException' occurred in ILNumerics.dll

Additional information: Unable to load DLL 'mkl_custom': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

If I do not invoke linsolve the ToString method of ILArray does work: if I comment // ILArray Result = linsolve(A, B);

I get the two matrices printed on the screen.

I have also tried to compute the determinant of a matrix and got the same exception: apparently any time I call mkl_custom VS is not capable to find it.

Any help/hint, please?

Also, is it necessary to install ILNumerics through NuGet on any project added to the solution? Would it be possible to install it locally once for all and then add the reference if necessary?

Answer 1

Two options:

1) Make sure, all binaries are accesible as intended: ILNumerics uses AnyCPU targets and chooses the platform dependend subfolder by adding the "bin32" / "bin64" directories to the PATH envoronment variable on startup. Possibly there is something failing on your machine? You can make sure by placing the correct binaries (depending on your platform) directly into the output path manually.

2) In case the error persists: mkl_custom.dll depends on some other dlls itself. One (libiomp5md.dll) is delivered with the ILNumerics nuget package. Others are expected to exist on your system: KERNEL32.DLL and MSVCR110.DLL. Make sure, you have these! If the kernel dll was missing -> call it a miracle and reinstall your system. If the msvcr110 is missing -> go here and install the "Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012".

In case the problem persists, you may file a bug on the ILNumerics bugtracker, because, the runtime should be there, as you wrote you are using VS2012. Possibly it is a versioning problem though.

EDIT: Since version 4.0 ILNumerics does not deploy the native binaries in bin32/ bin64/ subfolder anymore but installs all native dependencies systemwide into the GAC and System32/WOW folders. The old scheme will still work (for compatibility with old projects) though. But it is not necessary anymore to deal with any dependancies for ILNumerics explicitly. They should simply be found at runtime.

Answer 2

Like numbers303 said, ILNumerics.dll can't find a required dependency. You can brute force fixing this dependency by copying the required DLLs to the same directory as the ILNumerics.dll as a post build step, but I think there's a more elegant solution.

A VS2010 .NET console solution gets created by default with the x86 configuration. Compiling and running the ILNumerics example Hello ILNumerics! code with this configuration results in a DLL not found exception (mkl_custom.dll).

Re-targeting the solution via configuration manager to 'Any CPU' fixed the issue for me: In Solution Explorer, right click on the solution and select properties. Select Configuration Properties and click on the Configuration Manager... button in the upper right hand corner. Make sure that the project that uses ILNumerics has the 'Any CPU' selected. If 'Any CPU' isn't available as a selection, select '' from the pulldown and create an 'Any CPU' platform based on your current platform. Usually this just means accepting the default in the 'New Project Platform' dialog. You'll probably also want to modify the 'Active solution platform:' to contain an 'Any CPU' target as well.

Rebuild/run.

Answer 3

In my case it helped to install "Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012" although I work with Visual Studio 2010 with the corresponding "Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2010" installed. Which worked fine as long as the mkl_custom.dll is not needed. But colleagues of mine dosn't have this problem without having the 2012 Redistributable installed.