LENS

Getting Started: Installing a Copy


If you have been using the public version of Lens on eagle (/home/eagle/dr/Lens) or on the sp2 (/home/sp/dr/Lens) within the CNBC and you would like to make some changes to the source code, you will need a private version of Lens. Those who have already installed their own version of Lens can probably ignore all of this.

In order for any changes in the main version to propagate to yours automatically and to eliminate the need to recompile the TclTk libraries, you will want most of the directories and source files in your private Lens version to be symbolic links to files in one of the public Lens directories. If you later need to change a source file, the link can be replaced with an actual copy of the file and the copy changed. From then on, if the public version of that file changes and you wish to keep up-to-date, you will have to reimplement your alterations in the new version or implement the public changes in your private copy. Because this is annoying, most of your changes should be made to the extension module, as this rarely changes in the public version.

The createCopy command is used to create your own Lens directory. However, this won't be a stand-alone directory and will use symbolic links to the public (or some other) version. To use createCopy, first create the directory you want to hold your version of Lens and cd to it. Then call, createCopy and pass it the name of the public Lens directory you want to leech off of. Here are the steps assuming the public directory is ~dr/Lens:

  1. cd ~
  2. mkdir MyLens
  3. cd MyLens
  4. ~dr/Lens/createCopy ~dr/Lens

If all goes well, you should be able to immediately compile lens by simply typing "make" or compile both lens and alens by typing "make all".

You will probably want to change your LENSDIR environment variable to point to your personal Lens directory and either add it to your path or put links to lens and alens in your ~/bin directory so that your versions of Lens are the default.


Douglas Rohde
Last modified: Thu Jul 22 02:16:59 EDT 1999