Download the current stable version

Introduction

The skinny on downloading the current stable version. You can download a complete copy of the current stable version from the DownloadLinks page. You can then go on to the next step, EditPath.

Many versions of Cloudy exist on this site. Only the current stable version should be used in publications.

This page describes several ways to download the code and its documentation. A complete download will include the source, a large set of atomic data files, the test suite that is used to validate the code's behavior on your system, the test suite output, and the code's documentation Hazy. Each will be in its own directory and each directory has a readme.htm file that describes the contents of that directory in greater detail.

IMPORTANT: Do not install the Cloudy files in a directory that already contains an earlier version of Cloudy (or any other code). Clean out the old installation first, or use a completely new empty directory. If you don't start with an empty directory, the compilation process may get confused by source files from the old distribution leading to strange errors. Also the test suite may produce spurious errors if left-over scripts are executed from the old Cloudy distribution.

The files that you download will have version numbers included in their file names. An example might be cloudy_v07_02_00.tar.gz, containing the full distribution for version 07.02.00. The page on VersionNumbers describes how the version numbering scheme has changed in recent years. Starting with the C08 release series the version number contains the year in the form yy.xx where yy is the last two digits of the year. The last two numbers xx are 00 for the initial release and increase as bug-fix roll-up releases are posted. When new versions of the code are released they will simply be placed in the appropriate directories and an announcement posted on the Cloudy discussion board.

The download will come as a tar'd and gzip'd archive that should be opened keeping the directory structure intact. Explode the archive with "tar -xfz name.tar.gz". This will retain the directory structure within the archive. On Windows you will need winzip or a compatible program.

As mentioned before, these files should not be exploded into directories that contain an old copy of the code since you will get a mix of new files and old files that were not overwritten. Clean out the old installation first, or use an empty new directory.

After the download is exploded you will have the following directory structure:

There are several ways to obtain this download.

Option 1 - ViewVC web-based access

This is the preferred method. The ViewVC link is given on the DownloadLinks page. You will see an option to create and download a tarball of the directory and its subdirectories near the top of the page. Grab this tarball and explode it, keeping the directory structure intact. If you cannot download a file this large at one time you can browse into the subdirectories and grab tarballs there.

Option 2 - ftp a single large download

If you can download a ~30 MB file then you can get a single archive that contains all the files. The file is in the root directory of the ftp site with the version number embedded in the name. The highest number indicates the most recent release.

Option 3 - ftp lots of smaller downloads

If you have trouble with a single large download you can obtain a group of smaller files. They are located in directories below this ftp site. There is no directory structure within these download files. Create subdirectories named 'data', 'source', and 'tsuite'. This is done by "mkdir xxx" where xxx is the name of the directory. Then explode each file in the correct directory.

Option 4 - the subversion archive

You can get the files directly from its svn repository. The code lives in a subversion repository.

For the bravest users, the svn command-line client can be used to download the source code from the subversion repository. To find out all the available releases, type the following command 

svn list http://svn.nublado.org/cloudy/tags/release

The highest number will be the most recent release. You can also find the name of the current stable version from the NewOnThisSite page. Next you obtain the release of your choice by issuing the command. 

svn checkout http://svn.nublado.org/cloudy/tags/release/c<name of version>

where "c<name of version>" should be the appropriate release you picked from the "svn list" output.

See the Subversion book for more details on how to use the svn command.

Test suite output on many platforms

We have run the test suite on all the platforms we can access. The output is available on this ftp site.

Old versions of the code

Every version of Cloudy that ever has been the current stable version is still on the web site. Old versions of the code are located on the same ftp server below this directory.

Next step: EditPath - edit the file path.cpp to point to the data files.

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