Need guidance on modifying OpenFHE for custom bootstrapping implementation

Library Questions
1

Hi OpenFHE community,

I’m trying to implement a custom bootstrapping program in OpenFHE, which requires modifying underlying code and recompiling. I have a few questions:

  1. Development Location: Should I make changes directly in the downloaded OpenFHE source directory, rather than working externally after make install? My understanding is that make install is for end-users, while development requires source modification.
  2. Compilation Workflow: When testing iterative changes, is the correct workflow to:
cd build  
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=DEBUG  # Debug flags recommended  
make -j4                          # Parallel build

or are there better practices?

  1. Persistence: Do I need to re-run make install after every modification, or is rebuilding sufficient for testing?

Any advice on best practices for core modifications would be greatly appreciated!

2

I recommend making the changes in your own repo. Best practice is to fork OpenFHE and then work on your own repo to capture changes.

You do not need to run make install; that command will install OpenFHE on your system.

However, if you make changes in the library, you need to run make testall to run all unit tests and ensure that everything passes successfully.

1 Like