Please visit our web page for information and tutorials about MeTA!

• master:
• develop:

• Intro
  • Documentation
  • Tutorials
  • Citing
• Project Setup
  • Mac OS X
  • Ubuntu
  • Arch Linux
  • Fedora
  • CentOS
  • EWS/EngrIT (this is UIUC-specific)
  • Windows
  • Generic Setup Notes

MeTA is a modern C data sciences toolkit featuring

• text tokenization, including deep semantic features like parse trees
• inverted and forward indexes with compression and various caching strategies
• a collection of ranking functions for searching the indexes
• topic models
• classification algorithms
• graph algorithms
• language models
• CRF implementation (POS-tagging, shallow parsing)
• wrappers for liblinear and libsvm (including libsvm dataset parsers)
• UTF8 support for analysis on various languages
• multithreaded algorithms

Doxygen documentation can be found here.

We have walkthroughs for a few different parts of MeTA on the MeTA homepage.

If you used MeTA in your research, we would greatly appreciate a citation for our ACL demo paper:

@InProceedings{meta-toolkit,
  author    = {Massung, Sean and Geigle, Chase and Zhai, Cheng{X}iang},
  title     = {{MeTA: A Unified Toolkit for Text Retrieval and Analysis}},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of ACL-2016 System Demonstrations},
  month     = {August},
  year      = {2016},
  address   = {Berlin, Germany},
  publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics},
  pages     = {91--96},
  url       = {http://anthology.aclweb.org/P16-4016}
}

Mac OS X 10.6 or higher is required. You may have success with 10.5, but this is not tested.

You will need to have homebrew installed, as well as the Command Line Tools for Xcode (homebrew requires these as well, and it will prompt for them during install, or you can install them with xcode-select --install on recent versions of OS X).

Once you have homebrew installed, run the following commands to get the dependencies for MeTA:

brew update
brew install cmake jemalloc lzlib icu4c

To get started, run the following commands:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
CXX=clang   cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DICU_ROOT=/usr/local/opt/icu4c
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

The directions here depend greatly on your installed version of Ubuntu. To check what version you are on, run the following command:

cat /etc/issue

Based on what you see, you should proceed with one of the following guides:

• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Build Guide
• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Build Guide
• Ubuntu 15.10 Build Guide

If your version is less than 12.04 LTS, your operating system is not supported (even by your vendor!) and you should upgrade to at least 12.04 LTS (or 14.04 LTS, if possible).

Building on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS requires more work than its more up-to-date 14.04 sister, but it can be done relatively easily. You will, however, need to install a newer C compiler from a ppa, and switch to it in order to build meta. We will also need to install a newer CMake version than is natively available.

Start by running the following commands to get the dependencies that we will need for building MeTA.

# this might take a while
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

# add the ppa that contains an updated g  
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update

# this will probably take a while
sudo apt-get install g   g  -4.8 git make wget libjemalloc-dev zlib1g-dev

wget http://www.cmake.org/files/v3.2/cmake-3.2.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
sudo sh cmake-3.2.0-Linux-x86_64.sh --prefix=/usr/local

During CMake installation, you should agree to the license and then say "n" to including the subdirectory. You should be able to run the following commands and see the following output:

g  -4.8 --version

should print

g  -4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.1-2ubuntu1~12.04) 4.8.1
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

and

/usr/local/bin/cmake --version

should print

cmake version 3.2.0

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
CXX=g  -4.8 /usr/local/bin/cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

Ubuntu 14.04 has a recent enough GCC for building MeTA, but we'll need to add a ppa for a more recent version of CMake.

Start by running the following commands to install the dependencies for MeTA.

# this might take a while
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

# add the ppa for cmake
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:george-edison55/cmake-3.x
sudo apt-get update

# install dependencies
sudo apt-get install g   cmake libicu-dev git libjemalloc-dev zlib1g-dev

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should double check your versions by running the following commands.

g   --version

should output

g   (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) 4.8.2
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

and

cmake --version

should output

cmake version 3.2.2

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

Ubuntu's non-LTS desktop offering in 15.10 has enough modern software in its repositories to build MeTA without much trouble. To install the dependencies, run the following commands.

apt update
apt install g   git cmake make libjemalloc-dev zlib1g-dev

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

Arch Linux consistently has the most up to date packages due to its rolling release setup, so it's often the easiest platform to get set up on.

To install the dependencies, run the following commands.

sudo pacman -Sy
sudo pacman -S clang cmake git icu libc   make jemalloc zlib

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
CXX=clang   cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

This has been tested with Fedora 22 (the oldest currently supported Fedora as of the time of writing). You may have success with earlier versions, but this is not tested. (If you're on an older version of Fedora, use yum instead of dnf for the commands given below.)

To get started, install some dependencies:

# These may be already installed
sudo dnf install make git wget gcc-c   jemalloc-devel cmake zlib-devel

You should be able to run the following commands and see the following output:

g   --version

should print

g   (GCC) 5.3.1 20151207 (Red Hat 5.3.1-2)
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

and

cmake --version

should print

cmake version 3.3.2

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system with the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

MeTA can be built in CentOS 7 and above. CentOS 7 comes with a recent enough compiler (GCC 4.8.5), but too old a version of CMake. We'll thus install the compiler and related libraries from the package manager and install our own more recent cmake ourselves.

# install build dependencies (this will probably take a while)
sudo yum install gcc gcc-c   git make wget zlib-devel epel-release
sudo yum install jemalloc-devel

wget http://www.cmake.org/files/v3.2/cmake-3.2.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
sudo sh cmake-3.2.0-Linux-x86_64.sh --prefix=/usr/local --exclude-subdir

You should be able to run the following commands and see the following output:

g   --version

should print

g   (GCC) 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-4)
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

and

/usr/local/bin/cmake --version

should print

cmake version 3.2.0

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

Once the dependencies are all installed, you should be ready to build. Run the following commands to get started:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
/usr/local/bin/cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

Note: Please don't do this if you are able to get MeTA working in any other possible way, as the EWS filesystem has a habit of being unbearably slow and increasing compile times by several orders of magnitude. For example, comparing the cmake, make, and unit-test steps on my desktop vs. EWS gives the following:

If you are on a machine managed by Engineering IT at UIUC, you should follow this guide. These systems have software that is much too old for building MeTA, but EngrIT has been kind enough to package updated versions of research software as modules. The modules provided for GCC and CMake are recent enough to build MeTA, so it is actually mostly straightforward.

To set up your dependencies (you will need to do this every time you log back in to the system), run the following commands:

module load gcc
module load cmake/3.5.0

Once you have done this, double check your versions by running the following commands.

g   --version

should output

g   (GCC) 5.3.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

and

cmake --version

should output

cmake version 3.5.0

CMake suite maintained and supported by Kitware (kitware.com/cmake).

If your versions are correct, you should be ready to build. To get started, run the following commands:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta/

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
CXX=`which g  ` CC=`which gcc` cmake ../ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

MeTA can be built on Windows using the MinGW-w64 toolchain with gcc. We strongly recommend using MSYS2 as this makes fetching the compiler and related libraries significantly easier than it would be otherwise, and it tends to have very up-to-date packages relative to other similar MinGW distributions.

Note: If you find yourself confused or lost by the instructions below, please refer to our visual setup guide for Windows which includes screenshots for every step, including updating MSYS2 and the MinGW-w64 toolchain.

To start, download the installer for MSYS2 from the linked website and follow the instructions on that page. Once you've got it installed, you should use the MinGW shell to start a new terminal, in which you should run the following commands to download dependencies and related software needed for building:

pacman -Syu git make patch mingw-w64-x86_64-{gcc,cmake,icu,jemalloc,zlib} --force

(the --force is needed to work around a bug with the latest MSYS2 installer as of the time of writing.)

Then, exit the shell and launch the "MinGW-w64 Win64" shell. You can obtain the toolkit and get started with:

# clone the project
git clone https://github.com/meta-toolkit/meta.git
cd meta

# set up submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# set up a build directory
mkdir build
cd build
cp ../config.toml .

# configure and build the project
cmake .. -G "MSYS Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

You can now test the system by running the following command:

./unit-test --reporter=spec

If everything passes, congratulations! MeTA seems to be working on your system.

• There are rules for clean, tidy, and doc. After you run the cmake command once, you will be able to just run make as usual when you're developing---it'll detect when the CMakeLists.txt file has changed and rebuild Makefiles if it needs to.

• To compile in debug mode, just replace Release with Debug in the appropriate cmake command for your OS above and rebuild using make after.

• Don't hesitate to reach out on the forum if you encounter problems getting set up. We routinely build with a wide variety of compilers and operating systems through our continuous integration setups (travis-ci for Linux and OS X and Appveyor for Windows), so we can be fairly certain that things should build on nearly all major platforms.