[ACE] 2 Installing and Loading the ACE Package

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# 2 Installing and Loading the ACE Package

### Sections

1. Installing the ACE Package
2. Loading the ACE Package

## 2.1 Installing the ACE Package

To install, unpack the archive file, which should have a name of form `ace-`XXX`.zoo` for some package version number XXX, as a sub-directory in the `pkg` hierarchy of your version of GAP 4. This might be the `pkg` directory of the GAP 4 home directory; it is however also possible to keep an additional `pkg` directory in your private directories. The only essential difference with installing ACE in a `pkg` directory different to the GAP 4 home directory is that one must start GAP with the `-l` switch (see Section Command Line Options), e.g. if your private `pkg` directory is a subdirectory of `mygap` in your home directory you might type:

`gap -l ";`myhomedir`/mygap"`

where myhomedir is the path to your home directory, which (since GAP 4.3) may be replaced by a tilde. The empty path before the semicolon is filled in by the default path of the GAP 4 home directory.

After unpacking the archive, go to the newly created `ace` directory and call `./configure` path`` where path is the path to the GAP home directory. So for example if you install the package in the main `pkg` directory call

    ./configure ../..

This will fetch the architecture type for which GAP has been compiled last and create a `Makefile`. Now simply call

    make

to compile the binary and to install it in the appropriate place.

Note that the current version of the configuration process only sets up directory paths. If you need a different compiler or different compiler options, you need to edit `src/Makefile.in` yourself, prior to calling `make`.

If you use this installation of GAP on different hardware platforms you will have to compile the binary for each platform separately. This is done by calling `configure`, editing `src/Makefile.in` possibly, and calling `make` for the package anew immediately after compiling GAP itself for the respective architecture. If your version of GAP is already compiled (and has last been compiled on the same architecture) you do not need to compile GAP again, it is sufficient to call the `configure` script in the GAP home directory.

The manual you are currently reading describes how to use the ACE Package; it can be found in the `doc` subdirectory of the package.

The subdirectory `standalone-doc` contains the file `ace3001.ps` which holds a version of the user manual for the ACE standalone; it forms part of Ram99ace). You should consult it if you are going to switch to the ACE standalone, e.g. in order to directly use interactive facilities.

The `src` subdirectory contains a copy of the original source of ACE. (The only modification is that a file `Makefile.in` was obtained from the different `make.xyz` and will be used to create a `Makefile`.) You can replace the source by a newer version before compiling.

If you encounter problems in installation please read the `README`.

## 2.2 Loading the ACE Package

To use the ACE Package you have to request it explicitly. Since GAP 4.4, this is done by calling

    gap> LoadPackage("ace");
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Loading    ACE (Advanced Coset Enumerator) 5.2
    GAP code by Greg Gamble <Greg.Gamble@uwa.edu.au> (address for correspondence)
           Alexander Hulpke (http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke)
               [uses ACE binary (C code program) version: 3.001]
    C code by  George Havas (http://staff.itee.uq.edu.au/havas)
               Colin Ramsay <cram@itee.uq.edu.au>
    Co-maintainer: Max Horn <max.horn@math.uni-giessen.de>

                     For help, type: ?ACE
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    true

In version 4.1 of the ACE package there was an option `pkgbanner` that allowed the user some control on how the banner above was displayed. This only worked with GAP 4.3. Since, the ACE package now requires at least GAP 4.4, this option has been removed. If you still have GAP 4.3, you will need to use ACE 4.1.

The banner may be suppressed by providing the version string (`"5.2"`) as second argument and `false` as third argument to the `LoadPackage` command. The `LoadPackage` command is described in Section LoadPackage in the GAP Reference Manual.

If GAP cannot find a working binary, the call to `LoadPackage` will fail.

If you want to load the ACE package by default, you can put the `LoadPackage` command into your `gaprc` (or `.gaprc` file) (see Section The gap.ini and gaprc files in the GAP Reference Manual).

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