=========================================================
      README file for the `IO' GAP4 package (Max Neunhoeffer)
     =========================================================
        
To get the newest version of this GAP 4 package download one of the
archive files
    io-x.x.tar.gz
    io-x.x.zoo
    io-x.x.tar.bz2
    io-x.x.zip
and unpack it using 
    gunzip io-x.x.tar.gz; tar xvf io-x.x.tar
respectively
    unzoo -x io-x.x.zoo
and so on.

Do this in a directory called 'pkg', preferably (but not necessarily)
in the 'pkg' subdirectory of your GAP 4 installation. It creates a
subdirectory called 'io'.

To install this package do

    cd io
    ./configure [path]

where 'path' is a path to the main GAP root directory (if not given the
default '../..' is assumed).

Afterwards call 'make' to compile a binary file.

If you installed GAP on several architectures, you must execute this
configure/make step on each of the architectures immediately after
configuring GAP itself on this architecture.

The package  will not work without  this  step.

If you installed the package in another 'pkg' directory than the standard
'pkg' directory in your GAP 4 installation, then you have to add the path
to the directory containing your 'pkg' directory to GAP's list of directories.
This can be done by starting GAP with the '-l' command line option
followed by the name of the directory and a semicolon. Then your directory
is prepended to the list of directories searched. Otherwise the package 
is not found by GAP. Of course, you can add this option to your GAP
startup script.

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STATIC LINKING: This might be interesting for M$ Windows users, as
dynamic loading of binary modules does not work there.

You can also create a new statically linked 'gap' binary as follows:
Go into the main GAP directory and then into 'bin/BINDIR'. Here
BINDIR means the directory containing the 'gap' executable after
compiling 'gap'. This directory also contains the GAP compiler script
'gac'. Assuming IO in the standard location you can then say

   ./gac -o gap-static -p "-DIOSTATIC" -P "-static" ../../pkg/io/src/io.c

Then copy your `gap' start script to, say, `gapbig' and change the
references to the GAP binary to `gap-static'.

If you want to install more than one package with a C-part like this
package, you can still create a statically linked GAP executable by
combining all the compile and link options and all the .c files as
in the ./gac command above. For the IO package, you have to add
  -DIOSTATIC
to the string of the -p option and the file
  ../../pkg/io/src/io.c
somewhere on the command line.

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Recompiling the documentation is possible by the command `gap makedoc.g'
in the IO directory. But this should not be necessary.

E-mail me if there are any questions, remarks, suggestions. Also, I
would like to hear about applications of this package.


Max Neunhoeffer, e-mail: max.neunhoeffer@math.rwth-aachen.de