GAP (Example) - Chapter 2: Installing and Loading the Example Package

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2 Installing and Loading the Example Package
2.1 Unpacking the Example Package
2.2 Compiling Binaries of the Example Package
2.3 Loading the Example Package

### 2 Installing and Loading the Example Package

#### 2.1 Unpacking the Example Package

If the Example package was obtained as a part of the GAP distribution from the "Download" section of the GAP website, you may proceed to Section 2.2. Alternatively, the Example package may be installed using a separate archive, for example, for an update or an installation in a non-default location (see Reference: GAP Root Directories).

Below we describe the installation procedure for the `.tar.gz` archive format. Installation using other archive formats is performed in a similar way.

To install the Example package, unpack the archive file, which should have a name of form `example-XXX.tar.gz` for some version number XXX, by typing

`gzip -dc example-XXX.tar.gz | tar xpv`

It may be unpacked in one of the following locations:

- in the `pkg` directory of your GAP 4 installation;

- or in a directory named `.gap/pkg` in your home directory (to be added to the GAP root directory unless GAP is started with `-r` option);

- or in a directory named `pkg` in another directory of your choice (e.g. in the directory `mygap` in your home directory).

In the latter case one one must start GAP with the `-l` option, 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).

#### 2.2 Compiling Binaries of the Example Package

After unpacking the archive, go to the newly created `example` directory and call `./configure` to use the default `../..` path to the GAP home directory or `./configure path` where path is the path to the GAP home directory, if the package is being installed in a non-default location. So for example if you install the package in the `~/.gap/pkg` directory and the GAP home directory is `~/gap4r5` then you have to call

    ./configure ../../../gap4r5/

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.

#### 2.3 Loading the Example Package

To use the Example Package you have to request it explicitly. This is done by calling `LoadPackage` (Reference: LoadPackage):

    gap> LoadPackage("example");
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    Loading  Example 3.3 (Example/Template of a GAP Package)
    by Werner Nickel (http://www.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~nickel),
       Greg Gamble (http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de/~Greg.Gamble), and
       Alexander Konovalov (http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~alexk/).
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    true

If GAP cannot find a working binary, the call to `LoadPackage` will still succeed but a warning is issued informing that the `HelloWorld()` function will be unavailable.

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

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