Issue enabling adjoint/AD during SU2 preconfigure step

[riddhi1228]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to enable adjoint/automatic differentiation support while building SU2.

When I run:
python3 preconfigure.py --enable-ad

I get the following error:
preconfigure.py: error: unrecognized arguments: --enable-ad

From the help message, it seems adjoint-related options are handled differently now.

Could someone clarify:

• What is the correct way to enable adjoint support in the current SU2 build system?
• Whether adjoint functionality is enabled by default or requires specific dependencies (e.g., CoDiPack)?

System details:

• OS: Ubuntu
• Python: 3.x
• SU2

Thanks for your time.

[pcarruscag]

That's not how SU2 is build anymore https://su2code.github.io/docs_v7/Build-SU2-Linux-MacOS/

[riddhi1228]

Thanks! I currently have Python 3.12 installed.
I’ll install Python 3.7/3.8 as recommended since SU2 adjoint seems sensitive to Python versions.

[bigfooted]

where is python 3.7/3.8 recommended? Everything more modern than 3.6 should work.
Also, you don't need python to compile SU2.

[riddhi1228]

Thanks for pointing this out. I misinterpreted some older build references and assumed Python version constraints were stricter for the adjoint build.

I understand now that Python is only required for the preconfigure stage and that modern versions should be fine. I’ll revisit my Meson configuration and AD toolchain setup.

Thanks for the clarification

[bigfooted]

You need python for compiling SU2 only when you want to use the python wrapper. And we have a bunch of python files (independent of compiling SU2) as helpers for the design optimization.