Installing WAX

Author:

Serge Monkewitz

Supported Systems

WAX has been run soley on SPARC Solaris machines, and functions only in conjunction with the Informix RDBMS. However, since the cross-platform GNU C and C++ compilers are used, porting the application to another UNIX platform with Informix support should not be an overly difficult task.

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Unpacking the distribution

• First of all, create a directory to install WAX in, /my_wax_install for example.
• Copy the WAX tar file to this directory, and un-tar it :

  
  % cp wax_v21.tar /my_wax_install
  % cd /my_wax_install
  % tar xvf wax_v21.tar
  % rm wax_v21.tar
  

The following sub-directories of /my_wax_install will be created :

• /my_wax_install/bin
  

  Contains WAX helper application executables

• /my_wax_install/bsp_example
  

  Contains an example sky coverage file and BSP file creation script (used by the example source code for scan coverage computation)

• /my_wax_install/docs
  

  Contains full HTML documentation of the WAX source code and algorithms employed.

• /my_wax_install/htm
  

  Contains source code for the IRSA HTM library.

• /my_wax_install/lib
  

  Contains object files and libraries needed to link WAX executables.

• /my_wax_install/src
  

  Contains the WAX source code

• /my_wax_install/template
  

  Contains customizable template files useful for generation of a WAX executable.

• /my_wax_install/wax_example
  

  Contains full source code for an example WAX executable which uses the WAX plug in interface to compute an average position, scan coverage, and HTM index for each generated group.

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Compiling the libraries and helper applications

• First of all, make sure that the GNU_BIN_DIR environment variable is set to the directory containing the gcc and g++ executables (these are the GNU C and C++ compilers).

• Next, make sure that the INFORMIXDIR environment variable is set to the Informix installation directory (typically /usr/local/informix).

• Finally, compile the WAX source code and libraries using the provided installation shell script :

  
  % cd /my_wax_install
  % install.sh
  

  This will compile the IRSA HTM library and create executables for the WAX helper applications (described in detail here).

At this point, a WAX executable can be created - for help on how to do this, continue with the Compiling and Running WAX page.

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