This section describes how to install the NeXus API and details the requirements. The NeXus API is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.
The source code and binary versions for some popular platforms can be found on http://download.nexusformat.org/kits/. Up to date instructions can be found on the NeXus Wiki Download page (http://www.nexusformat.org/Download). In case you need help, feel free to contact the NeXus mailing list: http://lists.nexusformat.org/mailman/listinfo/nexus
Note
HDF5 is the preferred format to use for NeXus.
NeXus uses HDF5 as the main underlying binary format. (HDF4 is supported as a legacy underlying binary format but is not recommended for new use.) It is necessary first to install the HDF subroutine libraries and include files before compiling the NeXus API. It is not usually necessary to download the HDF source code since precompiled object libraries exist for a variety of operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and various other flavors of Unix. Check the HDF web pages for more information: http://www.hdfgroup.org/
Packages for HDF4 and HDF5 are available for both Fedora (hdf, hdf5, hdf-devel, hdf5-devel) and Ubuntu/Debian (libhdf4g, libhdf5).
Note
XML is not the preferred format to use for NeXus.
The NeXus API also supports using XML as a legacy underlying on-disk format. This uses the Mini-XML library, developed by Michael Sweet, which is also available as a precompiled binary library for several operating systems. Check the Mini-XML web pages for more information: http://www.minixml.org/
Packages for MXML are available for both Fedora (mxml, mxml-devel) and Ubuntu/Debian (libmxml1).
An installation kit (source or binary) can be downloaded from: http://download.nexusformat.org/kits/
A NeXus binary RPM (nexus-*.i386.rpm) contains ready compiled NeXus libraries whereas a source RPM (nexus-*.src.rpm) needs to be compiled into a binary RPM before it can be installed. In general, a binary RPM is installed using the command
rpm -Uvh file.i386.rpm
or, to change installation location from the default (e.g. /usr/local) area, using
rpm -Uvh --prefix /alternative/directory file.i386.rpm
If the binary RPMS are not the correct architecture for you (e.g. you need x86_64 rather than i386) or the binary RPM requires libraries (e.g. HDF4) that you do not have, you can instead rebuild a source RPM (.src.rpm) to generate the correct binary RPM for you machine. Download the source RPM file and then run
rpmbuild --rebuild file.src.rpm
This should generate a binary RPM file which you can install as above. Be careful if you think about specifying an alternative buildroot for rpmbuild by using --buildroot option as the “buildroot” directory tree will get remove (so --buildroot / is a really bad idea). Only change buildroot it if the default area turns out not to be big enough to compile the package.
If you are using Fedora, then you can install all the dependencies by typing
yum install hdf hdf-devel hdf5 hdf5-devel mxml mxml-devel
A Windows MSI based installation kit is available and can be downloaded from: http://download.nexusformat.org/kits/windows/
An installation disk image (.dmg) can be downloaded from: http://download.nexusformat.org/kits/macosx/
The build uses autoconf (so autools are required) to determine what features will be available by your system. You must have the development libraries installed for all the file backends you want support for (see above). If you intend to build more than the C language bindings, you need to have the respective build support in a place where autoconf will pick them up (i.e. python development files, a Java Development Kit, etc.).
For more information see the README in the toplevel of the source distribution. In case you need help, feel free to contact the NeXus Mailing List:
| Archives: | http://lists.nexusformat.org/mailman/listinfo/nexus |
|---|---|
| email: | nexus@nexusformat.org |
Download the appropriate gzipped tar file, unpack it, and run the standard configure procedure from the resulting nexus directory. For example, for version 4.2.1;
$ tar zxvf nexus-4.2.1.tar.gz
$ cd nexus-4.2.1
$ ./configure
To find out how to customize the installation, e.g., to choose different installation directories, type
$ ./configure --help
Carefully check the final output of the configure run. Make sure all features requested are actually enabled.
$ make
$ make install
See the README file for further instructions.
HDF4 is not supported under CYGWIN - both HDF5 and MXML are supported and can be downloaded and built as usual. When configuring HDF5 you should explicitly pass a prefix to the configure script to make sure the libraries are installed in a “usual” location i.e.
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/hdf5
Otherwise you will have to use the --with-hdf5=/path/to/hdf5 option later when configuring NeXus to tell it where to look for hdf5. After building hdf5, configure and build NeXus using the instructions for source code distribution above.