The GNU "make" program and Python are used to build the NeXus documentation. The default build assembles the HTML version. You have the choice to build the documentation in two places:
- in the source tree
- out of the source tree
To build the NeXus documentation within the source tree, go to the root directory (the directory where this README file is located), and type:
make clean make
The HTML documentation is located in this folder:
./manual/build/html/
There are two ways to build out-of-source.
To build the NeXus documentation outside the source tree,
create the target directory for the documentation to be built:
mkdir /some/where/else
note the definitions source directory (the directory where this README file is located):
export SOURCE_DIR=/path/to/nexus/definitions
copy the source to the target using this NeXus Python tool:
cd /some/where/else python $(SOURCE_DIR)/utils/build_preparation.py $(SOURCE_DIR)
build the documentation:
make clean make
The HTML documentation is located in this folder:
/some/where/else/manual/build/html/
Alternatively, as is a common practice with cmake,
you can build out-of-source (sort of) in a temporary
$(SOURCE_DIR)/build
directory. For this, the Makefile
has the builddir rule:
export SOURCE_DIR=/path/to/nexus/definitions cd $(SOURCE_DIR) make builddir cd build make clean make
This is all done with one make command:
export SOURCE_DIR=/path/to/nexus/definitions cd $(SOURCE_DIR) make makebuilddir
The HTML documentation is located in this folder:
$(SOURCE_DIR)/build/manual/build/html/
Windows development needs more instructions. Use the cmd.exe shell to build the documentation, not the Windows powershell or there will be Python problems.
On Windows, if the following error is output to the console
after typing make html
in the $(SOURCE_DIR)/manual
directory:
'python' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
it may be necessary to add Python to the PATH
environment
variable, such as one of these lines:
set PATH=C:\Python27;%PATH% set PATH=D:\Apps\Anaconda;%PATH%
Try to avoid installing Python on a directory path that has embedded spaces. Long series of tedious problems with that.