Installation Guide

The preferred method to install is through the Python Package Index.

It is anyways possible for developers to install from source cloning the repository from GitHub or by downloading a specific version tarball.

Note

Windows installation is not supported yet, neither with pip nor from source. We accept the contribution of resourceful developers who might want to try to implement this extension.

From the Python Package Index (PyPI)

GalaPy is available on PyPI for Linux and MacOS. With an internet connection, install the library by calling

$ pip install galapy-fit

or

$ python -m pip install galapy-fit

PyPI will automatically install all the necessary pre-requisites.

After Install

GalaPy, in some of its components (e.g. SSP tables, PAH template), makes use of pre-computed functions that are available in the official database (galapy_database). When one of the files in the database is accessed for the first time it will authomatically be downloaded into the user’s filesystem (in the default location $HOME/.galapy/galapy_database). This will of course require an internet connection and can partially slow down the computations. We therefore strongly recommend, prior to first run, to download all the database by running

$ galapy-download-database

This operation has to be run only once.

From source

Installation from source can be done either by cloning the GitHub repository of the project or by downloading the specified release (this allows a higher control on the version to install).

• Clone the repository and enter in the directory

  $ git clone git@github.com:TommasoRonconi/galapy.git
  $ cd galapy
  

• Download the tarball for version vX.Y.Z (substitute the X.Y.Z string with the version chosen), enter in the directory

  $ curl -L https://github.com/TommasoRonconi/galapy/archive/refs/tags/vX.Y.Z.tar.gz -o vX.Y.Z.tar.gz
  $ tar -xzvf vX.Y.Z.tar.gz
  $ cd galapy-X.X.X
  

Installation in both cases can be done using pip locally, from inside the directory containing the source of the project (i.e. the directory where the setup.py and pyproject.toml files are located), call

$ pip install .

or

$ python -m pip install .

By using pip instead of the classic (and shortly deprecated) python setup.py install the correct installation of the library prerequisites is also guaranteed.

Note

Even when installed from source, GalaPy still requires downloading the database (see previous section).

Tip

To test the installation, run

$ pytest tests/*.py

and check that all the tests have passed.

Pre-requisites

A table with the dependencies of the library follows. We also provide a short description of the package and the relevant link for download.

NumPy	Fundamental package for array computing in Python
SciPy	Fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python
emcee	The Python ensemble sampling toolkit for MCMC
dynesty	A dynamic nested sampling package for computing Bayesian posteriors and evidences.
setuptools	Easily download, build, install, upgrade, and uninstall Python packages
matplotlib	Python plotting package
requests	Python HTTP for Humans.
pytest	simple powerful testing with Python

Windows Users

Even though a specific installation for Windows systems is not supported yet, Windows>=11 users can easily work this around by exploiting the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The WSL can be activated from the control panel or from the Powershell App with the following

wsl --install

After enabling the WSL it is possible to download Linux distributions to run on a Windows machine from the Windows store (some of them, e.g. Ubuntu, are free of charge). These apps provide users with a Linux shell (e.g. BASH) running on a Linux sub-system, without the need of a separate virtual-machine (therefore bypassing the typical over-head of VMs).

Once the above actions have been performed, from the newly installed Linux shell it is possible to set up a work environment by installing python3 and pip with the user’s preferred method.

With this minimal set-up is now possible to follow the instructions presented previously in this guide to get a working installation of GalaPy.