# Installing the LDPC Software

The LDPC software is written in C, and may well work with any C compiler, though it has been tested only in a Unix/Linux environment, and in the cygwin Unix environment that runs under Microsoft Windows. The installation instructions below assume that you are using a Unix-like system.

All the software, including the documentation you are viewing here, is contained in a Unix tar file, which you can download by clicking one of the options below:

> Tar file of LDPC software (0.9 Megabytes)
> Gzipped tar file of LDPC software (0.4 Megabytes)

Once you obtain the tar file (and uncompress it with gunzip if necessary), you should extract the files with the following Unix command:

>     tar xf LDPC-2006-02-08.tar

This will create a directory called `LDPC-2006-02-08`, and place all the source, documentation, and other files in this directory.

If you prefer for this directory to be called something else, rename it now, before compiling the programs, since the file `randfile` in this directory, containing natural random numbers, is accessed according to its path when the programs were compiled.

Once the tar command above has finished, you should change into the newly-created directory, and type

>     make

If all goes well, this should compile all the programs (except for some test programs).

The sub-directory `bin` contains symbolic links to all these programs. You might want to place it in the PATH variable used by your shell to find programs.

The LDPC directory contains a copy of all the HTML files documenting the software, such as the one you are reading now, with the file `index.html` being the starting point. I recommended that you use this local copy when referring to the documentation, rather than get it from my web page. Just tell your browser to open the URL

>     file:path-to-software/index.html

where `path-to-software` is the full path (starting with "/") to the directory where you've put the software.

The command

>     make clean

will remove all the compiled programs, as well as the files created when the examples are run, and `core`, if it exists.

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