2.1 Installation Requirements
Depending on the platform, you may need up to 25 Mbytes of free space
to unpack, build, and run the tests. You will also need a Standard C
compiler. If you have compilers for FORTRAN 77, FORTRAN 90, or C++,
the corresponding netCDF language interfaces may also be built and
tested. Compilers and associated tools will only be found if they are
in your path.
If you want to run the large file tests, you will need about 13 GB of
free disk space, as some very large files are created. The created
files are immediately deleted after the tests complete. These large
file tests are not run as part of the make test step; they are only
run for make extra_test.
If you wish to build from source on a Windows (Win32) platform,
different instructions apply. See Building and Installing NetCDF on Windows.
To fully work with the netCDF source code, several extra utilities are
required to fully build everything from source. If you are going to
modify the netCDF source code, you will need some or all of the
following tools. All are freeware.
m4- Macro processing language used heavily in libsrc, nc_test. Generates
(in these cases) C code from m4 source. Version 1.4 works fine with
release 3.5.1 and 3.6.0.
nm- Lists contents of an “object” file. GNU nm does not mix well with
vendor compilers in the 64-bit world, so make sure that you are using
GNU nm with GNU compilers, or a vendor nm with your vendor
compiler.
ar- Creates libraries. GNU ar does not mix well with vendor compilers in
the 64-bit world, so make sure that you are using GNU ar with GNU
compilers, or a vendor ar with your vendor compiler.
The following tools are not required to build netCDF. They may be
needed if you intend to work with the netCDF source code as a
developer.
flex and yacc- Used in ncgen directory to parse CDL files. Generates C files from .y
and .l files. You only need to use this to modify ncgen's understanding of
CDL grammar.
makeinfo- Generates all documentation formats (except man pages) from texinfo
source. I'm using makeinfo version 4.2, as of release 3.6.0. If you
have trouble with makeinfo, upgrade to at least 4.2 and try again. You
only need makeinfo if you want to modify the documentation.
autoconf- Generates the configure script. Autoconf is only needed to modify the
configure script. Version 2.59 or later is required. Automake is not
used with netCDF version 3.6.
The most recent version of all netCDF documents can always be found at
the netCDF website. http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/.
