install

vfplot source installation


Executive summary

Building vfplot is quite standard: the usual

./configure
make
sudo make install

Use the --prefix option to ./configure if you want to install elsewhere than /usr/local.

See ./configure --help for a full list of configuration options.

Optional features

POSIX threads

If the --enable-pthread configuration option is given and the pthread (POSIX thread) library is found then vfplot will support multithreaded force calculations giving a substantial speedup on multiprocessor hardware.

This option is enabled by default, if you do not want POSIX threading support then use the --disable-pthread option.

NetCDF

If the --enable-netcdf configuration option given and the NetCDF library is found then vfplot will be able to read GMT grd files.

This option is enabled by default, if you do not want NetCDF support then use the --disable-netcdf option.

JSON

If the --enable-json configuration option is given and the Jansson library is found then vfplot will be able to read and write JSON files.

This option is enabled by default, if you do not want JSON support then use the --disable-json option.

Matlab

If the --enable-matlab configuration option is given and the matio library is found then vfplot will be able to read mat (Matlab binary) files.

This option is disabled by default.

Gerris

If the --enable-gerris configuration option is given and the Gerris libraries are found, then vfplot will be able to read Gerris GFS files.

This option is disabled by default.

Platform specific notes

The program should compile on any modern POSIX operating system with a C99 compiler. It is developed on Linux on the AMD64 architectures with the GNU C compiler.

Windows XP with Cygwin

Earlier version of the program were tested on Windows XP with the Cygwin POSIX compatibility layer.

To build, first use the Cygwin startup.exe program to install the gcc and make packages. Then obtain, compile and install the netcdf and libmatio libraries listed above. Finally, configure with --disable-pthread then make and install as usual.

OS X

The POSIX thread (pthread) library supplied with the OS does not include some functionality on which vfplot relies (in particular, barriers). That functionality can be provided by a built-in implementation with the --enable-pthread-extra configuration option.