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example/extensions/lib_external_ops/README.md

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External Operators Example and Tutorial

Introduction

Extending MXNet with custom components used to mean distributing a custom fork. This feature allows adding custom components to MXNet by dynamically loading external libraries at runtime. Currently it is only supported on Linux systems (Windows and Mac are NOT supported).

Getting Started

Have MXNet Ready

For this tutorial, clone MXNet from source like:

git clone https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet.git --recursive --init

Build MXNet like:

cp config/linux.cmake config.cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .

Run An Example

This example shows compiling a custom backend operator and then dynamically loading it into MXNet at runtime. Go to the lib_external_ops directory and follow these steps:

  1. Touch or modify the min_ex.cc and/or min_ex-inl.h file(s)
  2. Go into the build directory that was created when building MXNet.
  3. Run cmake .. -DBUILD_EXTENSION_PATH=$(pwd)/../example/extensions/lib_external_ops
  4. Run cmake --build .
  5. Go to the example/extensions/lib_external_ops directory again
  6. Run python test_loading.py to execute the test program. You should see the following output:
Operator not registered yet
MXNet version 20000 supported
[]
Operator executed successfully

Writing an External Operator Library

To build your own library containing custom components, compose a C++ source file like mycomp_lib.cc, include the lib_api.h header file, compile the lib_api.cc file, and implement the following required function:

  • initialize - Library Initialization Function

Then create a CMakeLists.txt file and set mxnet as a link library like:

add_library(external_lib SHARED ${SRCS})
target_link_libraries(external_lib PUBLIC mxnet)

Next, build MXNet and set the path to your directory with the CMakeLists.txt file via the BUILD_EXTENSION_PATH option. This will build your library with all of the MXNet includes.