15 stanc: Translating Stan to C++
CmdStan translates Stan programs to C++ using the Stan compiler
program which is included in the CmdStan release bin directory as
program stanc.
As of release 2.22, the CmdStan Stan to C++ compiler is written in OCaml. This compiler is called “stanc3” and has has its own repository https://github.com/stan-dev/stanc3, from which pre-built binaries for Linux, Mac, and Windows can be downloaded.
Prior to release 2.22, the Stan compiler program was compiled from C++
source code that was part of the core Stan library. This C++ compiler
is still available as program bin/stanc2. This compiler is no
longer being maintained, i.e., existing bugs will not be fixed and new
functions and features are only available in the stanc3 compiler. Its
intended use is as a diagnostic tool and backup for the new stanc3 compiler.
For some future version, it will be dropped from the release altogether.
15.1 Instantiating the stanc Binary
Before the Stan compiler can be used, the binary stanc must be created. This can be done using the makefile as follows. For Mac and Linux:
make bin/stancFor Windows:
make bin/stanc.exeTo build the bin/stanc2 program, specify:
make bin/stanc215.2 The Stan Compiler Program
The Stan compiler program stanc converts Stan programs to C++ concepts.
If the compiler encounters syntax errors in the program,
it will provide an error message indicating the location
in the input where the failure occurred and reason for the failure.
The following example illustrates a fully qualified call to stanc to
generate the C++ translation of the example model bernoulli.stan.
For Linux and Mac:
> cd <cmdstan-home>
> bin/stanc --o=bernoulli.hpp examples/bernoulli/bernoulli.stanFor Windows:
> cd <cmdstan-home>
> bin/stanc.exe --o=bernoulli.hpp examples/bernoulli/bernoulli.stanThe base name of the Stan program file determines the name of the C++ model class.
Because this name is the name of a C++ class, it must
start with an alphabetic character (a--z or A--Z) and
contain only alphanumeric characters (a--z, A--Z, and
0--9) and underscores (_) and should not conflict with
any C++ reserved keyword.
The C++ code implementing the class is written to the file
bernoulli.hpp in the current directory. The final argument,
bernoulli.stan, is the file from which to read the Stan
program.
In practice, stanc is invoked indirectly, via the GNU Make utility,
which contains rules that compile a Stan program to its corresponding
executable. To build the simple Bernoulli model via make, we specify
the name of the target executable file.
On Mac and Linux, this is the name of the Stan program with the .stan
omitted. On Windows, replace .stan with .exe, and make
sure that the path is given with slashes and not backslashes.
For Linux and Mac:
> make examples/bernoulli/bernoulliFor Windows:
> make examples/bernoulli/bernoulli.exeThe makefile rules first invoke the stanc compiler to translate the
Stan model to C++ , then compiles and links the C++ code to a binary
executable. The makefile variable STANCFLAGS can be used to to
override the default arguments to stanc, e.g.,
> make STANCFLAGS="--include-paths=~/foo" examples/bernoulli/bernoulliTo use the stanc2 compiler instead of the stanc3 compiler, set the
make option STANC2:
> make STANC2=TRUE examples/bernoulli/bernoulli15.3 Command-Line Options for stanc3
The stanc3 compiler has the following command-line syntax:
> stanc (options) <model_file>where <model_file> is a path to a Stan model
file ending in suffix .stan.
The stanc3 options are:
--help- Displays the complete list of stanc3 options, then exits.--version- Display stanc version number--name=<model_name>- Specify the name of the class used for the implementation of the Stan model in the generated C++ code.--o=<file_name>- Specify the name of the file into which the generated C++ is written.--allow-undefined- Do not throw a parser error if there is a function in the Stan program that is declared but not defined in the functions block.--include_paths=<dir1,...dirN>- Takes a comma-separated list of directories that may contain a file in an#includedirective.--use-opencl- If set, will use additional Stan OpenCL features enabled in the Stan-to-C++ compiler.--auto-format- Pretty prints the program to the console.--print-canonical- Prints the canonicalized program to the console.--print-cpp- If set, output the generated C++ Stan model class to stdout.--O- Allow the compiler to apply all optimizations to the Stan code. WARNING: This is currently an experimental feature!--warn-uninitialized- Emit warnings about uninitialized variables to stderr. Currently an experimental feature.
The compiler also provides a number of debug options which are
primarily of interest to stanc3 developers; use the --help
option to see the full set.
15.4 Command-Line Options for stanc2
The stanc2 compiler has the same command-line syntax as the stanc3 compiler, but has fewer options:
--help- Displays the complete list of stanc3 options, then exits.--version- Display stanc version number--name=<model_name>- Specify the name of the class used for the implementation of the Stan model in the generated C++ code.--o=<file_name>- Specify the name of the file into which the generated C++ is written.--allow_undefined- Do not throw a parser error if there is a function in the Stan program that is declared but not defined in the functions block.--include_paths=<dir1,...dirN>- Takes a comma-separated list of directories that may contain a file in an#includedirective.
15.5 Using External C++ Code
The --allow_undefined flag can be passed to the call to stanc,
which will allow undefined functions in the Stan language to be parsed
without an error. We can then include a definition of the function in
a C++ header file.
This requires specifying two makefile variables:
- STANCFLAGS=--allow_undedefined
- USER_HEADER=<header_file.hpp>, where <header_file.hpp> is the name of a header file that
defines a function with the same name and signature in a namespace
that is formed by concatenating the class_name argument to
stanc documented above to the string _namespace
As an example, consider the following variant of the Bernoulli example
functions {
real make_odds(real theta);
}
data {
int<lower=0> N;
int<lower=0,upper=1> y[N];
}
parameters {
real<lower=0,upper=1> theta;
}
model {
theta ~ beta(1,1); // uniform prior on interval 0,1
y ~ bernoulli(theta);
}
generated quantities {
real odds;
odds = make_odds(theta);
}Here the make_odds function is declared but not defined, which
would ordinarily result in a parser error. However, if you put
STANCFLAGS = --allow_undefined into the make/local file
or into the stanc call, then the stanc compiler will translate
this program to C++, but the generated C++ code will not compile
unless you write a file
such as examples/bernoulli/make_odds.hpp with the following lines
namespace bernoulli_model_namespace {
template <typename T0__> inline typename
boost::math::tools::promote_args<T0__>::type make_odds(const T0__&
theta, std::ostream* pstream__) {
return theta / (1 - theta); }
}Given the above, the following make invocation should work
> make STANCFLAGS=--allow_undefined USER_HEADER=examples/bernoulli/make_odds.hpp examples/bernoulli/bernoulli # on Windows add .exeAlternatively, you could put STANCFLAGS and USER_HEADER into the
make/local file instead of specifying them on the command-line.
If the function were more complicated and involved functions in the
Stan Math Library, then you would need to prefix the function calls
with stan::math:: The pstream__ argument is mandatory
in the signature but need not be used if your function does not print
any output. To see the necessary boilerplate look at the corresponding
lines in the generated C++ file.
For more details about how to write C++ code using the Stan Math Library, see https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.07164.