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William Henney edited this page Oct 17, 2019 · 2 revisions

This page contains step by step instructions for installing the current stable version of Cloudy. Hazy, the code's documentation, is included in the download.

Each version of the code has a set of pages giving updates. The HotFixes page lists corrections that need to be made to the downloaded source. These are bug fixes that were not included in the version of the code available for download and used to generate the output from the test suite. So the hot fixes should be applied after the test suite has been run and your system validated. A KnownProblems page lists known problems with that version of the code. The RevisionHistory page lists improvements.

Cite the code by giving the version number and a reference to the last major review of Cloudy, Ferland et al. (2017) . An example would be “We used version 17.00 of Cloudy, last described by Ferland et al. (2017)”. Then, years from now, when someone wants to know how an answer was obtained, the version used to obtain it can be retrieved from the old versions part of this web site. The print citation command will print the correct citation for the version you are using.

Setting up this version

  1. DownLoad the code, data, and documentation. This creates several directories, Each contains a readme.htm file describing the contents of that directory.

  2. EditPath - instructions for how to specify where the data files are located. **Important! ** The code will not run if it cannot find the data files.

  3. CompileCode - how to compile the code using a variety of compilers.

  4. RunSmokeTest - check that the code works.

  5. RunCode - This explains how to execute the code.

  6. MpiParallel describes how to use the optimize and grid commands on a parallel cluster, using either MPI or a makefile.

  7. CompileStars - You must compile some stellar data files if you want to use the some of the table star command to include realistic stellar continua.

  8. TestSuite is a large number of test cases that you should run to confirm that all is well. This is a critical step since it will check for bugs in your compiler. That directory also contains a group of programs that show how to call the code as a subroutine.

  9. HotFixes are a set of corrections to the source. These will be incorporated in the next incremental upgrade, are listed in the HotFixes page. It is _very important_ that you edit the source to incorporate these hot fixes since they correct known problems. The source you obtain here _does not have any_ of these these fixes included. (Reason: this is the source that created the output files that are downloaded with the test suite. You can validate your system/compiler by confirming that this source reproduces that output. This source and output constitute a reference for where the code was at a particular time.)

  10. KnownProblems are described on this page. The RevisionHistory page lists major changes to the code.

A diversion

While doing all that downloading/compiling/testing you might be interested in hearing Cloudy's favorite song (from Simon & Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme).

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