56.9 Installing the MeatAxe Package

The MeatAxe is written in C, and it is assumed that the package is installed under UNIX. Some other systems --currently MS-DOS and VM/CMS-- are supported, but this applies only for the standalone and not for the use of the MeatAxe from within GAP (see the MeatAxe manual~Rin93 for details of the installation in these cases).

If you got a complete binary and source distribution, skip the extraction and compilation part of this section. All what you have to do in this case is to make the executables accessible via a pathname that contains the hostname of the machine; this is best done by creating suitable links, as is described at the end of this section.

If you got a complete source distribution, skip the extraction part of this section and proceed with the compilation part below.

In the example we will assume that you, as user gap, are installing the MeatAxe package for use by several users on a network of two DECstations, called bert and tiffy, and a NeXTstation, called bjerun. We assume that GAP is also installed on these machines following the instructions given in Installation of GAP for UNIX.

Note that certain parts of the output in the examples should only be taken as rough outline, especially file sizes and file dates are not to be taken literally.

First of all you have to get the file meataxe.zoo (see Getting GAP). Then you must locate the GAP directory containing lib/ and doc/, this is usually gap3r4p0 where 0 is to be be replaced by the patch level.

    gap@tiffy:~ > ls -l
    drwxr-xr-x  11 gap      gap          1024 Nov  8  1991 gap3r4p0
    -rw-r--r--   1 gap      gap        359381 May 11 11:34 meataxe.zoo
    gap@tiffy:~ > ls -l gap3r4p0
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          3072 Nov 26 11:53 doc
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          1024 Nov  8  1991 grp
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          2048 Nov 26 09:42 lib
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          2048 Nov 26 09:42 src
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          1024 Nov 26 09:42 tst

Unpack the package using unzoo (see Installation of GAP for UNIX). Note that you must be in the directory containing gap3r4p0 to unpack the files. After you have unpacked the source you may remove the archive-file.

    gap@tiffy:~ > unzoo x meataxe.zoo
    gap@tiffy:~ > ls -l gap3r4p0/pkg/meataxe
    -rw-r--r--    1 gap         17982 Aug  6  1993 COPYING
    -rw-r--r--    1 gap          3086 Mar 15 15:07 README
    drwxr-xr-x    3 gap           512 Mar 26 18:01 bin
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap           512 Feb 25 12:07 doc
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap           512 May 11 09:34 gap
    -rw-r--r--    1 gap          1023 May 11 09:34 init.g
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          1024 Mar 26 18:02 lib
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap          1536 Mar 26 18:02 src
    drwxr-xr-x    2 gap           512 Mar 15 11:36 tests 

Switch into the directory bin/, edit the Makefile, and follow the instructions given there. In most cases it will suffice to choose the right COMPFLAGS. Then type make to compile the MeatAxe. In your case we first compile the DECstation version.

    gap@tiffy:~ > cd gap3r4p0/pkg/meataxe/bin
    gap@tiffy:../bin > make
    
# you will see a lot of messages

The executables reside in a directory with the same name as the host, in this case this is tiffy. The programs will be called from GAP using the hostname, thus for every machine that shall run the MeatAxe under GAP such a directory is necessary. In your case there is a second DEC-station called bert which can use the same executables, we make them available via a link.

gap@tiffy:../bin > ln -s tiffy bert

Now repeat the compilation for the NeXTstation. If you want to save space you can clean up using make clean but this is not necessary. If the make run was interrupted you can return to the prior situation using make delete, and then call make again.

    gap@tiffy:../bin > rlogin bjerun
    gap@bjerun:~ > cd gap3r4p0/pkg/meataxe/bin
    gap@bjerun:../bin > make clean
    gap@bjerun:../bin > make
    
#
 you will see a lot of messages
    gap@bjerun:../bin > exit
    gap@tiffy:../bin > 

Now it is time to test the package. Switch into the directory ../tests/ and type ./testmtx. You should get no error messages, and end up with the message all tests passed.

    gap@tiffy:../bin > cd ../tests
    gap@tiffy:../tests > ./testmtx
    
#
 you will see a lot of messages
    gap@tiffy:../tests > 

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GAP 3.4.4
April 1997