Requirements

• python >= 2.6 and python < 3.0
• atlas >= 3.6
• blas >= 1.2
• fftw3 >= 3.2
• gdbm >= 1.8
• swig >= 1.3
• setuptools >= 0.6.10
• numpy >= 1.2
• scipy >= 0.7
• jinja2 >= 2.3
• pyfits >= 2.1
• ephem >= 3.7.3
• aipy >= 0.9.1
• matplotlib >= 0.98.3 [1]
• paramiko >= 1.7.6 [1]

[1]	(1, 2) Required for some of the included scripts

In addition, the libnova C library is required. This is an astronomical calculation and ephemeris library. The lsl.libnova python module is built as a SWIG wrapper around the libnova library, and this provides the basis of the astronomical code contained in the package. If you are using binary packages, be sure to install the libnova-dev version, as the library header include files are required for the build. Some issues have arisen with the system version of swig for some platforms: this default version is too old to correctly generate wrapper code for python 2.6.

Warning

Use libnova version 0.13.0 or later; version 0.12 is known to contain errors.

The libnova C library can be found here.

Building

The LSL package is installed as a regular Python package using distutils. Unzip and untar the source distribution. Setup the python interpreter you wish to use for running the package applications and switch to the root of the source distribution tree.

A setup configuration script is required to run the build process. A sample config file may be found in the root directory of the source distribution as ‘setup.cfg’. This file must be edited to specify the location of the libnova library files if that location is not in ‘/usr/local’. Edit the following lines:

***********************************************************************
[DEFAULT]

# The libnova_prefix value should point to the platform installation of
# the libnova libraries and header files

libnova_prefix = /usr/local
***********************************************************************
and change to to the location where libnova is installed on your machine:
***********************************************************************
[DEFAULT]

# The libnova_prefix value should point to the platform installation of
# the libnova libraries and header files

libnova_prefix = /Software/libnova/0.13.0
***********************************************************************

The setup process will expect to find the libnova library C header files in ‘<libnova_prefix>/include/libnova’ and the share library object file in ‘<libnova_prefix>/lib’. Do not modify any of the lines in the [build_ext] section of the config file.

To build the LSL package, run:

python setup.py build

Testing

To test the as-build LSL package, run:

python setup.py test

Installing

Install LSL by running:

python setup.py install [--prefix=<prefix>|--user]

If the ‘–prefix’ option is not provided, then the installation tree root directory is the same as for the python interpreter used to run setup.py. For instance, if the python interpreter is in ‘/usr/local/bin/python’, then <prefix> will be set to ‘/usr/local’. Otherwise, the explicit <prefix> value is taken from the command line option. The package will install files in the following locations:

• <prefix>/bin
• <prefix>/lib/python2.6/site-packages
• <prefix>/share/doc
• <prefix>/share/install

If an alternate <prefix> value is provided, you should set the PATH environment to include directory ‘<prefix>/bin’ and the PYTHONPATH environment to include directory ‘<prefix>/lib/python2.6/site-packages’.

If the ‘–user’ option is provided, then then installation tree root directory will be in the current user’s home directory.