Unpacking and Installation Instructions for Mathematica Add-On Packages
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Installation of Mathematica Add-On Packages requires a prior installation of Mathematica. The term Mathematica Installation Directory refers to the directory/folder where Mathematica is installed on your computer (or on a network server). Mathematica's $TopDirectory variable gives you this Installation Directory.

The term Application Directory refers to a specific subdirectory inside the Mathematica Installation Directory where add-on packages should be installed. This is typically named AddOns/Applications or AddOns\Applications. If you evaluate Mathematica's $Path variable, you should see a component containing this name. This is your Application Directory.

The term Package Directory refers to a subdirectory of your Application Directory, where the package will be installed. The name of this subdirectory is taken from the name of the package you have downloaded, such as QRStreams or Parallel.

We assume that you downloaded the archive and put it into a temporary location. We will refer to the archive file as archive.zip, archive.tar.gz, or archive.tar.Z, depending on the archiving method you chose.

Installation consists of four steps:

  • 1. Determine where to install the package
  • 2. Unpack the archive
  • 3. Verify the install
  • 4. Finish up
These steps are explained in detail below.

1. Determine where to install the package

The recommended Package Directory is inside the AddOns/Applications directory inside your Mathematica Installation Directory. The Mathematica Installation Directory was chosen when you installed Mathematica. Although it could be any directory, it is customarily found in one of these places (depending on your operating system).
  • C:Program Files\Wolfram Research\Mathematica\3.0
  • /usr/local/mathematica
Mathematica's $TopDirectory variable gives you this Installation Directory. Inside your Mathematica Installation Directory there should be a subdirectory AddOns, and inside AddOns there should be a subdirectory Applications. This directory is the recommended Application Directory.

If you look at the variable $Path, you can see the various locations that Mathematica will search for applications. You should be able to identify the possible locations of the Application Directory among the elements of the list returned by $Path.

2. Unpack the archive

The details of unpacking the archive depend on the archive format you chose and the available programs for unpacking such archives. In each case, successfull unpacking will create a directory inside your Applications Directory, named after the package you downloaded.
ZIP or PKZIP archive
Windows
Double click on archive.zip to launch your zip extraction program. Select extract and specify your Applications Directory as the place to extract the files. Please make sure that subfolders are extracted recursively. Many programs allow you to extract everything into one folder instead, which is not what you want.

Unix, using unzip
Make the Application Directory your current directory, then extract the files with 
unzip /Temporary Directory/archive.zip
where /Temporary Directory/archive.zip is the location of the archive file you downloaded before.

Gzip compressed tar file
This description is for the Unix version of gunzip. Gzip-compressed tar archives can also be unpacked with a number of other programs, available also for the Macintosh and Windows.

Make the Application Directory your current directory, then uncompress and extract the files with 

gunzip -c /Temporary Directory/archive.tar.gz | tar xvf -
where /Temporary Directory/archive.tar.gz is the location of the archive file you downloaded before.

Compressed tar file
This description is for the Unix version of uncompress.

Make the Application Directory your current directory, then uncompress and extract the files with 

uncompress -c /Temporary Directory/archive.tar.Z | tar xvf -
where /Temporary Directory/archive.tar.Z is the location of the archive file you downloaded before.
After unpacking, make sure that a Package Directory has been created.

After successfull unpacking of the archive, you no longer need the compressed archive you downloaded.

3. Verify the install

Start Mathematica and enter the following input in a notebook 
<<PackageName`Test`
where PackageName is the abbreviated name of your package; this is the name of the Package Directory inside the Application directory that was created when you unpacked the archive, such as QRStreams for the QR Streams package, Parallel for the Parallel Computing Toolkit.
If all is well, you should see the following output from Mathematica: 
Your Application Package is correctly installed in
Package Directory
where Package Directory is the full pathname of the directory where you installed the package.

If Mathematica's output is 

Get::noopen: Cannot open PackageName`Test`
then the directory where you installed to package (if any) was not found by Mathematica. Please compare the full pathname of the installation directory with the value of Mathematica's $Path variable. One of the directories given in the list should contain your Package Directory. Please double check filenames and move the Package Directory to the correct place, if necessary.

4. Finish up

You should now rebuild Mathematica's help index so that the on-line help for the newly installed package will become available in Mathematica's Help Browser. Choose the menu item Help>Rebuild Help Index. Rebuilding the help index may take some time. After it is complete, the help browser should open and you can choose the Add-ons category. Your new package should be listed in the leftmost scrolling list.

The Tutorial is a good starting point for your reading.

Installation Support

Registered customers can obtain installation support through our Web-based support tool.

© 1998 MathConsult Dr. R. Mäder
http://www.mathdirect.com/help/install.html
Last update: 13.01.1999