LIGOtools Package: lal

This package contains the complete LIGO/LSC Algorithm Library.

LAL Software Librarian: Jolien Creighton
LAL Software Coordinator: Alan Wiseman
LIGOtools packager: Peter Shawhan

Version 3.0

Release date (as a LIGOtools package): October 14, 2003

Notes

This is a very old release of lal. Therefore, as of October 2005, this package is not distributed via 'ligotools_update'. If for some reason you want to install this package, you can do so manually using the distribution files at the bottom of this page.
The precompiled binary distribution files for this version (3.0) of the lal package were built as follows:
- For Solaris, the build was done on a machine running Solaris 9 using gcc 2.95.2 .
- For Linux, the build was done on a machine running Red Hat 7.3 using gcc 2.96 . If the binary distribution is installed on a machine running Red Hat 9, there might be problems linking against the LAL library, depending on what LAL functions are called.
To compile a simple program and link it to the LAL libraries, you should be able to do something like this:
```
gcc LALHelloTest.c -I$LIGOTOOLS/include -L$LIGOTOOLS/lib -llal -o LALHelloTest
```
For a more complex program, you may need to link to additional libraries. For instance, to do Fourier transforms, you will need to do something like:
```
gcc RealFFTTest.c -I$LIGOTOOLS/include -L$LIGOTOOLS/lib \
    -llal -lsrfftw -lsfftw -lm -o RealFFTTest
```
The binary distributions include the source code, so you can look "under the hood". However, because the directory path to the source code most likely differs from what it was on the system on which the library was built, debugging programs will not be able to locate the source code (without explicitly being told where it is). If you need to be able to see the LAL source code from within a debugger, you may want to install the "source distribution", which will cause the LAL library to be built on your system.
The binary distributions contain a static library (liblal.a), but not a shared-object library. The Makefile in the source distribution builds only the static library by default; if you want a shared-object library as well, you can add the "--enable_shared" option to the configure command in the Makefile.
New since version 0.9 is the liblalsupport.a library, which contains code which does not conform to the LAL specification but may be useful for standalone programs.
New since version 1.0 is the liblalframe.a library, which separates file i/o functions.
There is a "share" directory of test frames, ephemeris data, etc. included in the package. When the package is installed, this directory is: $LIGOTOOLS/packages/lal/active/share/lal .

Documentation

LAL Home Page
LAL Software Documentation (pdf)
Detailed information about individual LAL packages is contained in $LIGOTOOLS/packages/lal/active/doc and its subdirectories. (The "binary" distributions do include this doc directory.)
LAL Coding Specification, version 8 (pdf)

Distribution files

Normally, you should use the ligotools_update utility to download and install new packages or new versions of existing packages, since it automatically figures out what packages need to be updated. However, if you wish to do so manually, then click on the name of the appropriate distribution file (below) with the right mouse button and choose "Save Link As..." from the popup menu. Note that you must save it on your disk with exactly the same name as it has on this web site. After the file has been downloaded, do:
ligotools_install <file>
where <file> is the file which was downloaded. This procedure will be quicker if the environment variable LIGOTOOLS is set to the main LIGOtools directory.

Binary distribution for Solaris: lal_3.0_SunOS.tar.gz (43633 kb)
Binary distribution for Intel Linux: lal_3.0_Linux.tar.gz (86827 kb)
Source distribution: lal_3.0_SOURCE.tar.gz (10344 kb)
This should build properly on any Unix system, as long as the LIGOtools packages Fr and fftw are already installed and active. It takes a long time to build.