Installation

This guide covers installing SyntheticData from source.

Prerequisites

Required

Optional

Installing Rust

If you don’t have Rust installed, use rustup:

# Linux/macOS
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Windows
# Download and run rustup-init.exe from https://rustup.rs

# Verify installation
rustc --version
cargo --version

Building from Source

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/ey-asu-rnd/SyntheticData.git
cd SyntheticData

Build Release Binary

# Build optimized release binary
cargo build --release

# The binary is at target/release/datasynth-data

Verify Installation

# Check version
./target/release/datasynth-data --version

# View help
./target/release/datasynth-data --help

# Run quick validation
./target/release/datasynth-data info

Adding to PATH

To run datasynth-data from anywhere:

Linux/macOS

# Option 1: Symlink to local bin
ln -s $(pwd)/target/release/datasynth-data ~/.local/bin/datasynth-data

# Option 2: Copy to system bin (requires sudo)
sudo cp target/release/datasynth-data /usr/local/bin/

# Option 3: Add target/release to PATH in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/SyntheticData/target/release"

Windows

Add the target/release directory to your system PATH environment variable.

Building the Desktop UI

The desktop UI requires additional setup:

# Navigate to UI crate
cd crates/datasynth-ui

# Install Node.js dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode
npm run tauri dev

# Build production release
npm run tauri build

Platform-Specific Dependencies

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt-get install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
    libgtk-3-dev \
    libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
    librsvg2-dev

macOS: No additional dependencies required.

Windows: Install WebView2 runtime (usually pre-installed on Windows 10/11).

Running Tests

Verify your installation by running the test suite:

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run tests for a specific crate
cargo test -p datasynth-core
cargo test -p datasynth-generators

# Run with output
cargo test -- --nocapture

Development Setup

For development work:

# Check code without building
cargo check

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Run lints
cargo clippy

# Build documentation
cargo doc --workspace --no-deps --open

Running Benchmarks

# Run all benchmarks
cargo bench

# Run specific benchmark
cargo bench --bench generation_throughput

Troubleshooting

Build Failures

Missing C compiler:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install build-essential

# macOS
xcode-select --install

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install gcc

Out of memory during build:

# Limit parallel jobs
cargo build --release -j 2

Runtime Issues

Permission denied:

chmod +x target/release/datasynth-data

Library not found (Linux):

# Check for missing dependencies
ldd target/release/datasynth-data

Next Steps

• Follow the Quick Start Guide to generate your first dataset
• Explore Demo Mode for a hands-on introduction
• Review the CLI Reference for all commands