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Installing Octave

Here is the procedure for installing Octave from scratch on a Unix system. For instructions on how to install the binary distributions of Octave, see section Binary Distributions.

Run the shell script `configure'. This will determine the features your system has (or doesn't have) and create a file named `Makefile' from each of the files named `Makefile.in'. Here is a summary of the configure options that are most frequently used when building Octave:

--prefix=prefix
Install Octave in subdirectories below prefix. The default value of prefix is `/usr/local'.
--srcdir=dir
Look for Octave sources in the directory dir.
--with-f2c
Use f2c even if Fortran compiler is available.
--enable-dld
Use DLD to make Octave capable of dynamically linking externally compiled functions. This only works on systems that have a working port of DLD.
--enable-lite-kernel
Compile smaller kernel. This currently requires DLD so that Octave can load functions at run time that are not loaded at compile time.
--help
Print a summary of the options recognized by the configure script.
See the file `INSTALL' for more information about the command line options used by configure. That file also contains instructions for compiling in a directory other than where the source is located.
Run make. You will need a recent version of GNU make. Modifying Octave's makefiles to work with other make programs is probably not worth your time. We recommend you get and compile GNU make instead. For plotting, you will need to have gnuplot installed on your system. Gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program. Gnuplot is copyrighted, but freely distributable. The `gnu' in gnuplot is a coincidence--it is not related to the GNU project or the FSF in any but the most peripheral sense. For version 2.0.2, you must have the GNU C++ compiler (gcc) version 2.7.2 or later to compile Octave. You will also need version 2.7.1 or 2.7.2 of the GNU C++ class library (libg++). If you plan to modify the parser you will also need GNU bison and fles. If you modify the documentation, you will need GNU Texinfo, along with the patch for the makeinfo program that is distributed with Octave. GNU make, gcc, and libg++, gnuplot, bison, flex, and Texinfo are all available from many anonymous ftp archives. The primary site is prep.ai.mit.edu, but it is often very busy. A list of sites that mirror the software on prep is available by anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu in the file `/pub/gnu/GNUinfo/FTP', or by fingering fsf@prep.ai.mit.edu. If you don't have a Fortran compiler, or if your Fortran compiler doesn't work like the traditional Unix f77, you will need to have the Fortran to C translator f2c. You can get f2c from any number of anonymous ftp archives. The most recent version of f2c is always available from netlib.att.com. On an otherwise idle SPARCstation II, it will take somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes to compile everything, depending on whether you are compiling the Fortran libraries with f2c or using the Fortran compiler directly. You will need about 50 megabytes of disk storage to work with (considerably less if you don't compile with debugging symbols). To do that, use the command
```
make CFLAGS=-O CXXFLAGS=-O LDFLAGS=
```
instead of just `make'.
If you encounter errors while compiling Octave, first check the list of known problems below to see if there is a workaround or solution for your problem. If not, see section Known Causes of Trouble with Octave, for information about how to report bugs.
Once you have successfully compiled Octave, run `make install'. This will install a copy of octave, its libraries, and its documentation in the destination directory. As distributed, Octave is installed in the following directories. In the table below, prefix defaults to `/usr/local', version stands for the current version number of the interpreter, and host_type is the type of computer on which Octave is installed (for example, `i586-unknown-gnu').

`prefix/bin'
Octave and other binaries that people will want to run directly.
`prefix/lib'
Libraries like libcruft.a and liboctave.a.
`prefix/share'
Architecture-independent data files.
`prefix/include/octave'
Include files distributed with Octave.
`prefix/man/man1'
Unix-style man pages describing Octave.
`prefix/info'
Info files describing Octave.
`prefix/share/octave/version/m'
Function files distributed with Octave. This includes the Octave version, so that multiple versions of Octave may be installed at the same time.
`prefix/lib/octave/version/exec/host_type'
Executables to be run by Octave rather than the user.
`prefix/lib/octave/version/oct/host_type'
Object files that will be dynamically loaded.
`prefix/share/octave/version/imagelib'
Image files that are distributed with Octave.

Installation Problems

This section contains a list of problems (and some apparent problems that don't really mean anything is wrong) that may show up during installation of Octave.

On some SCO systems, info fails to compile if HAVE_TERMIOS_H is defined int `config.h'. Simply removing the definition from `info/config.h' should allow it to compile.
If configure finds dlopen, dlsym, dlclose, and dlerror, but not the header file `dlfcn.h', you need to find the source for the header file and install it in the directory `usr/include'. This is reportedly a problem with Slackware 3.1. For Linux/GNU systems, the source for `dlfcn.h' is in the `ldso' package.
If you encounter errors like
```
passing `void (*)()' as argument 2 of
  `octave_set_signal_handler(int, void (*)(int))'
```
or
```
warning: ANSI C++ prohibits conversion from `(int)' to `(...)'
```
while compiling `sighandlers.cc', you may need to edit some files in the gcc include subdirectory to add proper prototypes for functions there. For example, Ultrix 4.2 needs proper declarations for the signal() and the SIG_IGN macro in the file `signal.h'. On some systems the SIG_IGN macro is defined to be something like this:
```
#define  SIG_IGN  (void (*)())1
```
when it should really be something like:
```
#define  SIG_IGN  (void (*)(int))1
```
to match the prototype declaration for signal(). This change should also be made for the SIG_DFL and SIG_ERR symbols. It may be necessary to change the definitions in `sys/signal.h' as well. The gcc fixincludes/fixproto script should probably fix these problems when gcc installs its modified set of header files, but I don't think that's been done yet. You should not change the files in `/usr/include'. You can find the gcc include directory tree by running the command
```
gcc -print-libgcc-file-name
```
The directory of gcc include files normally begins in the same directory that contains the file `libgcc.a'.
There is a bug with the makeinfo program that is distributed with Texinfo (through version 3.9) that causes the indices in Octave's on-line manual to be generated incorrectly. If you need to recreate the on-line documentation, you should get the makeinfo program that is distributed with texinfo-3.9 and apply the patch for makeinfo that is distributed with Octave. See the file `MAKEINFO.PATCH' for more details.

Some of the Fortran subroutines may fail to compile with older versions of the Sun Fortran compiler. If you get errors like

zgemm.f:
	zgemm:
warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
zgemm.f, line 245: warning: unexpected parent of complex
  expression subtree
warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
zgemm.f, line 304: warning: unexpected parent of complex
  expression subtree
warning: unexpected parent of complex expression subtree
zgemm.f, line 327: warning: unexpected parent of complex
  expression subtree
pcc_binval: missing IR_CONV in complex op
make[2]: *** [zgemm.o] Error 1

when compiling the Fortran subroutines in the `libcruft' subdirectory, you should either upgrade your compiler or try compiling with optimization turned off.

On NeXT systems, if you get errors like this:
```
/usr/tmp/cc007458.s:unknown:Undefined local symbol LBB7656
/usr/tmp/cc007458.s:unknown:Undefined local symbol LBE7656
```
when compiling `Array.cc' and `Matrix.cc', try recompiling these files without -g.
Some people have reported that calls to shell_cmd and the pager do not work on SunOS systems. This is apparently due to having G_HAVE_SYS_WAIT defined to be 0 instead of 1 when compiling libg++.
On NeXT systems, linking to `libsys_s.a' may fail to resolve the following functions
```
_tcgetattr
_tcsetattr
_tcflow
```
which are part of `libposix.a'. Unfortunately, linking Octave with -posix results in the following undefined symbols.
```
.destructors_used
.constructors_used
_objc_msgSend
_NXGetDefaultValue
_NXRegisterDefaults
.objc_class_name_NXStringTable
.objc_class_name_NXBundle
```
One kluge around this problem is to extract `termios.o' from `libposix.a', put it in Octave's `src' directory, and add it to the list of files to link together in the makefile. Suggestions for better ways to solve this problem are welcome!
If Octave crashes immediately with a floating point exception, it is likely that it is failing to initialize the IEEE floating point values for infinity and NaN. If your system actually does support IEEE arithmetic, you should be able to fix this problem by modifying the function octave_ieee_init in the file `lo-ieee.cc' to correctly initialize Octave's internal infinity and NaN variables. If your system does not support IEEE arithmetic but Octave's configure script incorrectly determined that it does, you can work around the problem by editing the file `config.h' to not define HAVE_ISINF, HAVE_FINITE, and HAVE_ISNAN. In any case, please report this as a bug since it might be possible to modify Octave's configuration script to automatically determine the proper thing to do.
If you don't have NPSOL but you still want to be able to solve NLPs, or if you don't have QPSOL but you still want to solve QPs, you'll need to find replacements or order them from Stanford. If you know of a freely redistributable replacement, please let us know--we might be interested in distributing it with Octave. You can get more information about NPSOL and QPSOL from

Stanford Business Sofrtware, Inc.
2680 Bayshore Parkway, Suite 304
Mountain View, CA 94043
Tel: (415) 962-8719
Fax: (415) 962-1869
Octave may soon support FSQP, an NLP solver from Andre Tits (andre@src.umd.edu) of the University of Maryland. FSQP is available free of charge to academic sites, but can not be redistributed to third parties.

Binary Distributions

This section contains instructions for creating and installing a binary distribution.

Installing Octave from a Binary Distribution

To install Octave from a binary distribution, execute the command
```
sh ./install-octave
```
in the top level directory of the distribution. Binary distributions are normally compiled assuming that Octave will be installed in the following subdirectories of `/usr/local'.

`bin'
Octave and other binaries that people will want to run directly.
`lib'
Shared libraries that Octave needs in order to run. These files are not included if you are installing a statically linked version of Octave.
`man/man1'
Unix-style man pages describing Octave.
`info'
Info files describing Octave.
`share/octave/version/m'
Function files distributed with Octave. This includes the Octave version, so that multiple versions of Octave may be installed at the same time.
`libexec/octave/version/exec/host_type'
Executables to be run by Octave rather than the user.
`libexec/octave/version/oct/host_type'
Object files that will be dynamically loaded.
`share/octave/version/imagelib'
Image files that are distributed with Octave.
where version stands for the current version number of the interpreter, and host_type is the type of computer on which Octave is installed (for example, `i486-unknown-gnu'). If these directories don't exist, the script `install-octave' will create them for you. The installation script also creates the following subdirectories of `/usr/local' that are intended for locally installed functions:

`share/octave/site/m'
Locally installed M-files.
`libexec/octave/site/exec/host_type'
Locally installed binaries intendec to be run by Octave rather than by the user.
`libexec/octave/site/octave/host_type'
Local object files that will be dynamically linked.
If it is not possible for you to install Octave in `/usr/local', or if you would prefer to install it in a different directory, you can specify the name of the top level directory as an argument to the `install-octave' script. For example:
```
sh ./install-octave /some/other/directory
```
will install Octave in subdirectories of the directory `/some/other/directory'.

Creating a Binary Distribution

Here is how to build a binary distribution for others.

Unpack the source distribution.
Configure Octave using the command
```
./configure --disable-dl --disable-shl --disable-shared
```
If your system supports shared libraries and dynamic linking, you should also build a binary that supports those features, but it is important to create a statically linked executable that will run no matter what versions of the libraries are installed on the target system.
Build the binaries using the command
```
make LDFLAGS=-static
```
Type `make static-binary-dist'. This will create a compressed tar file ready for distribution. The file will have a name like `octave-version-host_type-static.tar.gz'.
If your system supports dynamic linking and shared libraries, build another version of Octave that supports these features. Use the commands
```
configure --enable-shared
make
make dynamic-binary-dist
```
This will create a compressed tar file ready for distribution. The file will have a name like `octave-version-host_type-dynamic.tar.gz'.

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