|
2330
|
1 Octave -- a high-level language for numerical computations. |
|
|
2 |
|
|
3 Copyright (C) 1996 John W. Eaton |
|
|
4 |
|
2582
|
5 Last updated: Tue Dec 10 01:41:30 1996 |
|
2330
|
6 |
|
|
7 Overview |
|
|
8 -------- |
|
|
9 |
|
|
10 Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical |
|
|
11 computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for |
|
|
12 solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically. |
|
|
13 |
|
|
14 Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it |
|
|
15 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the |
|
|
16 Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any |
|
|
17 later version. |
|
|
18 |
|
|
19 Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT |
|
|
20 ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or |
|
|
21 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the file COPYING for more |
|
|
22 details. |
|
|
23 |
|
|
24 Availability |
|
|
25 ------------ |
|
|
26 |
|
|
27 The latest released version of Octave is always available via |
|
|
28 anonymous ftp from ftp.che.wisc.edu in the directory /pub/octave. |
|
|
29 Complete source and binaries for several popular systems are |
|
|
30 available. |
|
|
31 |
|
|
32 Installation and Bugs |
|
|
33 --------------------- |
|
|
34 |
|
2484
|
35 Octave requires approximately 125MB of disk storage to unpack and |
|
|
36 compile from source (significantly less if you don't compile with |
|
|
37 debugging symbols or create shared libraries). Once installed, Octave |
|
|
38 requires approximately 65MB of disk space (again, considerably less if |
|
2580
|
39 you don't build shared libraries or the binaries and libraries do not |
|
|
40 include debugging symbols). |
|
2484
|
41 |
|
|
42 In order to build Octave, you will need a current version of g++, |
|
2580
|
43 libg++, and GNU make. Recommended versions are |
|
|
44 |
|
|
45 g++ 2.7.2 or 2.7.2.1 |
|
|
46 libg++ 2.7.1 or 2.7.2 |
|
|
47 make 3.75 |
|
2330
|
48 |
|
|
49 YOU MUST HAVE GNU MAKE TO COMPILE OCTAVE. Octave's Makefiles use |
|
2484
|
50 features of GNU Make that are not present in other versions of make. |
|
2330
|
51 GNU Make is very portable and easy to install. |
|
|
52 |
|
|
53 See the notes in the files INSTALL and INSTALL.OCTAVE for more |
|
|
54 specific installation instructions, including directions for |
|
|
55 installing Octave from a binary distribution. |
|
|
56 |
|
|
57 The file BUGS contains a recommended procedure for reporting bugs, as |
|
|
58 well as a list of known problems and possible fixes. |
|
|
59 |
|
2580
|
60 Documentation |
|
|
61 ------------- |
|
2330
|
62 |
|
2580
|
63 Octave's manual has been revised for version 2.0, but it is lagging a |
|
|
64 bit behind the development of the software. In particular, there is |
|
|
65 currently no complete documentation of the C++ class libraries or the |
|
|
66 support for dynamic linking and user-defined data types. If you |
|
|
67 notice ommissions or inconsistencies, please report them as bugs to |
|
|
68 bug-octave@bevo.che.wisc.edu. Specific suggestions for ways to |
|
|
69 improve Octave and its documentation are always welcome. |
|
2330
|
70 |
|
|
71 Implemenation |
|
|
72 ------------- |
|
|
73 |
|
|
74 Octave is being developed with the Free Software Foundation's make, |
|
|
75 bison (a replacement for YACC), flex (a replacement for lex), gcc/g++, |
|
2484
|
76 and libg++ on an Intel Pentium 133 system running Debian Linux/GNU. |
|
|
77 It should be possible to install it on any machine that runs GCC/G++. |
|
|
78 It may also be possible to install it using other implementations of |
|
|
79 these tools, but it will most certainly require much more work. Do |
|
|
80 yourself a favor and get the GNU development tools, either via |
|
|
81 anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu or by writing the Free Software |
|
|
82 Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. |
|
2330
|
83 |
|
|
84 The underlying numerical solvers are currently standard Fortran ones |
|
|
85 like Lapack, Linpack, Odepack, the Blas, etc., packaged in a library |
|
|
86 of C++ classes (see the files in the libcruft and liboctave |
|
|
87 subdirectories). If possible, the Fortran subroutines are compiled |
|
|
88 with the system's Fortran compiler, and called directly from the C++ |
|
|
89 functions. If that's not possible, they are translated with f2c and |
|
|
90 compiled with a C compiler. Better performance is usually achieved if |
|
|
91 the intermediate translation to C is avoided. |
|
|
92 |
|
|
93 The library of C++ classes may also be useful by itself. |
|
|
94 |
|
2582
|
95 Additional Information |
|
|
96 ---------------------- |
|
|
97 |
|
|
98 Up to date information about Octave is available on the WWW at the |
|
|
99 URL http://bevo.che.wisc.edu/octave, including archives of the |
|
|
100 help-octave, bug-octave, and octave-sources mailing lists. |
|
|
101 |
|
2330
|
102 -- |
|
|
103 John W. Eaton |
|
|
104 jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu |
|
|
105 University of Wisconsin-Madison |
|
|
106 Department of Chemical Engineering |
