GAP (Ferret) - Chapter 3: Installing and Loading the Ferret Package

Goto Chapter: Top 1 2 3 Ind
[Top of Book] [Contents] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

[MathJax off]

3 Installing and Loading the Ferret Package
3.1 Unpacking the Ferret Package
3.2 Compiling Binaries of the Ferret Package
3.3 Loading the Ferret Package

### 3 Installing and Loading the Ferret Package

#### 3.1 Unpacking the Ferret Package

If the Ferret package was obtained as a part of the GAP distribution from the Download section of the GAP website, you may proceed to Section 3.2. Alternatively, the Ferret 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.

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).

#### 3.2 Compiling Binaries of the Ferret Package

After unpacking the archive, go to the newly created `ferret` 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.

#### 3.3 Loading the Ferret Package

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

    gap> LoadPackage("ferret");
    true

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

[Top of Book] [Contents] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]
Goto Chapter: Top 1 2 3 Ind

generated by GAPDoc2HTML