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3.1.2 Optional dependencies ¶

The libraries listed here are only used for very specific applications, therefore they are optional and Gnuastro can be built without them (with only those specific features disabled). Since these are pretty low-level tools, they are not too hard to install from source, but you can also use your operating system’s package manager to easily install all of them. For more, see Dependencies from package managers.

If the ./configure script cannot find any of these optional dependencies, it will notify you of the operation(s) you cannot do due to not having them. If you continue the build and request an operation that uses a missing library, Gnuastro’s programs will warn that the optional library was missing at build-time and abort. Since Gnuastro was built without that library, installing the library afterwards will not help. The only way is to rebuild Gnuastro from scratch (after the library has been installed). However, for program dependencies (like cURL or Ghostscript) things are easier: you can install them after building Gnuastro also. This is because libraries are used to build the internal structure of Gnuastro’s executables. However, a program dependency is called by Gnuastro’s programs at run-time and has no effect on their internal structure. So if a dependency program becomes available later, it will be used next time it is requested.

GNU Libtool ¶

Libtool is a program to simplify managing of the libraries to build an executable (a program). GNU Libtool has some added functionality compared to other implementations. If GNU Libtool is not present on your system at configuration time, a warning will be printed and BuildProgram will not be built or installed. The configure script will look into your search path (PATH) for GNU Libtool through the following executable names: libtool (acceptable only if it is the GNU implementation) or glibtool. See Installation directory for more on PATH.

GNU Libtool (the binary/executable file) is a low-level program that is probably already present on your system, and if not, is available in your operating system package manager⁸⁵. If you want to install GNU Libtool’s latest version from source, please visit its web page.

Gnuastro’s tarball is shipped with an internal implementation of GNU Libtool. Even if you have GNU Libtool, Gnuastro’s internal implementation is used for the building and installation of Gnuastro. As a result, you can still build, install and use Gnuastro even if you do not have GNU Libtool installed on your system. However, this internal Libtool does not get installed. Therefore, after Gnuastro’s installation, if you want to use BuildProgram to compile and link your own C source code which uses the Gnuastro library, you need to have GNU Libtool available on your system (independent of Gnuastro). See Review of library fundamentals to learn more about libraries.

GNU Make extension headers ¶

GNU Make is a workflow management system that can be used to run a series of commands in a specific order, and in parallel if you want. GNU Make offers special features to extend it with custom functions within a dynamic library. They are defined in the gnumake.h header. If gnumake.h can be found on your system at configuration time, Gnuastro will build a custom library that GNU Make can use for extended functionality in (astronomical) data analysis scenarios.

libgit2 ¶

Git is one of the most common version control systems (see Version controlled source). When libgit2 is present, and Gnuastro’s programs are run within a version controlled directory, outputs will contain the version number of the working directory’s repository for future reproducibility. See the COMMIT keyword header in Output FITS files for a discussion.

libjpeg ¶

libjpeg is only used by ConvertType to read from and write to JPEG images, see Recognized file formats. libjpeg is a very basic library that provides tools to read and write JPEG images, most Unix-like graphic programs and libraries use it. Therefore you most probably already have it installed. libjpeg-turbo is an alternative to libjpeg. It uses Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instructions for ARM based systems that significantly decreases the processing time of JPEG compression and decompression algorithms.

libtiff ¶

libtiff is used by ConvertType and the libraries to read TIFF images, see Recognized file formats. libtiff is a very basic library that provides tools to read and write TIFF images, most Unix-like operating system graphic programs and libraries use it. Therefore even if you do not have it installed, it must be easily available in your package manager.

cURL ¶

cURL’s executable (curl) is called by Query for submitting queries to remote datasets and retrieving the results. It is not necessary for the build of Gnuastro from source (only a warning will be printed if it cannot be found at configure time), so if you do not have it at build-time there is no problem. Just be sure to have it when you run astquery, otherwise you’ll get an error about not finding curl.

GPL Ghostscript ¶

GPL Ghostscript’s executable (gs) is called by ConvertType to compile a PDF file from a source PostScript file, see ConvertType. Therefore its headers (and libraries) are not needed.

Python3 with Numpy ¶

Python is a high-level programming language and Numpy is the most commonly used library within Python to add multi-dimensional arrays and matrices. If you configure Gnuastro with --with-python and version 3 of Python is available with a corresponding Numpy Library, Gnuastro’s library will be built with some Python-related helper functions. Python wrappers for Gnuastro’s library (for example, ‘pyGnuastro’) can use these functions when being built from source. For more on Gnuastro’s Python helper functions, see Python interface (python.h).

This Python interface is only relevant if you want to build the Python wrappers (like ‘pyGnuastro’) from source. If you install the Gnuastro Python wrapper from a pre-built repository like PyPI, this feature of your Gnuastro library won’t be used. Pre-built libraries contain the full Gnuastro library that they need within them (you don’t even need to have Gnuastro at all!).

Can’t find the Python3 and Numpy of a virtual environment: make sure to set the $PYTHON variable to point to the python3 command of the virtual environment before running ./configure. Note that you don’t need to activate the virtual env, just point PYTHON to its Python3 executable, like the example below: $ python3 -m venv test-env # Setting up the virtual env. $ export PYTHON="$(pwd)/test-env/bin/python3" $ ./configure # Gnuastro's configure script.

SAO DS9

SAO DS9 (ds9) is a visualization tool for FITS images. Gnuastro’s astscript-fits-view program calls DS9 to visualize FITS images. We have a full appendix on it and how to install it in SAO DS9. Since it is a run-time dependency, it can be installed at any later time (after building and installing Gnuastro).

TOPCAT

TOPCAT (topcat) is a visualization tool for astronomical tables (most commonly: plotting). Gnuastro’s astscript-fits-view program calls TOPCAT it to visualize tables. We have a full appendix on it and how to install it in TOPCAT. Since it is a run-time dependency, it can be installed at any later time (after building and installing Gnuastro).