This is the README file for the package CamlFloat.

CamlFloat is a stylized interface to the Fortran libraries Lapack and
Blas for OCaml (http://www.ocaml.org).

The authors are Shivkumar Chandrasekaran (shiv@ece.ucsb.edu) and
Bill Lyons (lyons@math.ucsb.edu).

There is a tutorial and reference documentation for the interface. These
will be installed as part of the package.

INSTALLATION
============

This package has been installed and tested on Mac OS X (10.2.6),
Linux (Gentoo), and Windows XP machines. It should pretty much install
on any Unix (including Cygwin) environment that is friendly to an
OCaml (>= 3.07) implementation. OCaml 3.06 has a bug that makes
CamlFloat crash in single precision in Mac OS X.

1. First install Atlas BLAS on your machine. Both Debian and Gentoo
linux users should be able to use their packages managers to install
this. However, remember that it is worth compiling from source rather
than installing a binary. Mac OS X users can use fink or they can
adapt the Makefile to use the built-in vecLib framework. For others,
Atlas' homepage is http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net. In my Windows XP
test I used Cygwin.

2. Next install Lapack 3.0. You can get it at
http://www.netlib.org/lapack. Follow the instructions, making sure you
make BLASLIB point to the Atlas libraries. You should produce a file
called lapack_linux.a, or somesuch, depending on your platform. Rename
this to the more conventional name "liblapack.a" and stick it in
/usr/local/lib or /usr/lib, or someplace else. Remember where you put
it. In my Windows XP test I used mingw.
Note: Mac OS X users using vecLib framework can skip this
step. If you do this alter the makefile changes in the next step to reflect 
the different configuration. 

3. Next edit the Makefile. Make sure that the string
/usr/local/lib/ocaml is changed to point to the right place for your
OCaml installation. Next modify the variable LAPACKLIB to point to the
position where you installed liblapack.a. There are multiple options
in the Makefile for each variable. Choose the right one for your
system.

4. Do "make testNla". If everything goes right you should get an
executable called testNla. Executing it will run a bunch of tests.

5. Do "make testNlaX". It should produce a native-code executable
called testNlaX. Run it and make sure all tests are passed.

6. Do "make doc.html". This will produce html documentation in the
directory Doc. Check out Doc/index.html for the reference
documentation.

7. Do "make camlFloat". This will produce the camlFloat toplevel and
allow you to work through the tutorial and experiment with code fragments.

8. Do "make tutorial.pdf". This should produce the tutorial in
tutorial.pdf. Read it for a quick introduction to the library. This
requires that the ConTeXt macro package be present. I have not tested 
this part in Windows XP.

9. To use the library in your own byte-code programs, you will need to
link against nla.cmo and mylibs.cma. For your native-code programs you
will need to link with nla.cmx and mylibs.cmxa. Check the target
testNla and testNlaX in the provided Makefile.

10. I have not yet figured out how to "install" an OCaml library in
some standard way. Any advice will be welcome. Also, currently the
-pack option is not being used.