3.3 Building GiNaC

After proper configuration you should just build the whole library by typing

$ make

at the command prompt and go for a cup of coffee. The exact time it takes to compile GiNaC depends not only on the speed of your machines but also on other parameters, for instance what value for CXXFLAGS you entered. Optimization may be very time-consuming.

Just to make sure GiNaC works properly you may run a collection of regression tests by typing

$ make check

This will compile some sample programs, run them and check the output for correctness. The regression tests fall in three categories. First, the so called exams are performed, simple tests where some predefined input is evaluated (like a pupils' exam). Second, the checks test the coherence of results among each other with possible random input. Third, some timings are performed, which benchmark some predefined problems with different sizes and display the CPU time used in seconds. Each individual test should return a message ‘passed’. This is mostly intended to be a QA-check if something was broken during development, not a sanity check of your system. Some of the tests in sections checks and timings may require insane amounts of memory and CPU time. Feel free to kill them if your machine catches fire. Another quite important intent is to allow people to fiddle around with optimization.

By default, the only documentation that will be built is this tutorial in ‘.info’ format. To build the GiNaC tutorial and reference manual in HTML, DVI, PostScript, or PDF formats, use one of

$ make html
$ make dvi
$ make ps
$ make pdf

Generally, the top-level Makefile runs recursively to the subdirectories. It is therefore safe to go into any subdirectory (doc/, ginsh/, …) and simply type make target there in case something went wrong.