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1 Octave -- a high-level language for numerical computations. |
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2 |
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3 Copyright (C) 1996 John W. Eaton |
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4 |
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5 Last updated: Thu Nov 7 17:17:25 1996 |
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6 |
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7 Overview |
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8 -------- |
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9 |
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10 Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical |
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11 computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for |
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12 solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically. |
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13 |
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14 Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it |
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15 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the |
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16 Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any |
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17 later version. |
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18 |
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19 Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT |
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20 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or |
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21 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the file COPYING for more |
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22 details. |
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23 |
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24 Availability |
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25 ------------ |
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26 |
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27 The latest released version of Octave is always available via |
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28 anonymous ftp from ftp.che.wisc.edu in the directory /pub/octave. |
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29 Complete source and binaries for several popular systems are |
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30 available. |
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31 |
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32 Installation and Bugs |
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33 --------------------- |
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34 |
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35 Octave requires approximately 125MB of disk storage to unpack and |
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36 compile from source (significantly less if you don't compile with |
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37 debugging symbols or create shared libraries). Once installed, Octave |
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38 requires approximately 65MB of disk space (again, considerably less if |
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39 the binaries and libraries do not include debugging symbols). |
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40 |
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41 In order to build Octave, you will need a current version of g++, |
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42 libg++, and GNU make. |
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43 |
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44 YOU MUST HAVE GNU MAKE TO COMPILE OCTAVE. Octave's Makefiles use |
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45 features of GNU Make that are not present in other versions of make. |
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46 GNU Make is very portable and easy to install. |
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47 |
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48 As of version 2.0, you must have G++ 2.7.2 or later to compile |
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49 Octave. |
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50 |
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51 See the notes in the files INSTALL and INSTALL.OCTAVE for more |
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52 specific installation instructions, including directions for |
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53 installing Octave from a binary distribution. |
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54 |
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55 The file BUGS contains a recommended procedure for reporting bugs, as |
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56 well as a list of known problems and possible fixes. |
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57 |
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58 Binary Distributions |
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59 -------------------- |
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60 |
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61 Binary copies of Octave are now distributed for several popular Unix |
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62 systems. To save disk space, the complete source code for Octave is |
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63 not included in the binary distributions, but should be available in |
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64 the same place as the binaries. If not, please contact |
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65 bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu. |
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66 |
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67 The file INSTALL.OCTAVE contains specific installation instructions, |
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68 for installing Octave from a binary distribution. |
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69 |
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70 Implemenation |
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71 ------------- |
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72 |
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73 Octave is being developed with the Free Software Foundation's make, |
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74 bison (a replacement for YACC), flex (a replacement for lex), gcc/g++, |
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75 and libg++ on an Intel Pentium 133 system running Debian Linux/GNU. |
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76 It should be possible to install it on any machine that runs GCC/G++. |
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77 It may also be possible to install it using other implementations of |
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78 these tools, but it will most certainly require much more work. Do |
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79 yourself a favor and get the GNU development tools, either via |
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80 anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu or by writing the Free Software |
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81 Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. |
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82 |
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83 The underlying numerical solvers are currently standard Fortran ones |
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84 like Lapack, Linpack, Odepack, the Blas, etc., packaged in a library |
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85 of C++ classes (see the files in the libcruft and liboctave |
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86 subdirectories). If possible, the Fortran subroutines are compiled |
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87 with the system's Fortran compiler, and called directly from the C++ |
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88 functions. If that's not possible, they are translated with f2c and |
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89 compiled with a C compiler. Better performance is usually achieved if |
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90 the intermediate translation to C is avoided. |
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91 |
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92 The library of C++ classes may also be useful by itself. |
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93 |
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94 -- |
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95 John W. Eaton |
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96 jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu |
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97 University of Wisconsin-Madison |
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98 Department of Chemical Engineering |
