GDL on Windows

Download the GDL Installer

It will install GDL on your machine automatically. For 64 bit builds, you can also choose whether to install GDL Workbench, an Eclipse-based IDE for GDL (for more information, visit https://github.com/gnudatalanguage/gdlde).

Do not panic, if the weekly relase has no windows installer, you can still get one using the compilation method below.

Using the Windows Installer is almost the only way today to insure modified drivers for the plplot library to be found by the executable. Other installations (such as decribed below) may or not, depending on the history, deliver the correct driver at the correct location, making GDL unstable. As using an installer is normal for normal users, we feel this complex situation is correctly handled for now.

Currently, there are three different types of builds:

  • mini: only includes mandatory libraries to run a very minimal and barely useable GDL.

  • full: includes all optional libraries except MPI. This is the one you should use.

  • full-msmpi: includes all optional libraries + MPI. This requires Microsoft MPI pre-installed (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/message-passing-interface/microsoft-mpi). This version of GDL is slightly slow at startup due to the initialization of MPI.

Automatic CI builds

In addition to the weekly builds, automatic CI builds of GDL from the master branch of GitHub repository are also available (both 64-bit and 32-bit builds, both Debug and Release configurations) on the Github Actions page, at https://github.com/gnudatalanguage/gdl/actions.

Compilation

To compile GDL locally, follow the below steps:

  1. Download and install MSYS2. When complete, run “MSYS MinGW 64-bit” from Start menu.

  2. Set environment variables.

$ export ROOT_DIR=/path/to/store/everything
$ export Platform=x86_64 # or 'i686' for 32 bit build
$ export DEPS=standard # or 'debug' or 'headless'
$ export Configuration=Release # or 'Debug'. linking of GDL in 'Debug' is *extremely slow*

  1. Install packages to compile GDL.

$ pacman -S mingw-w64-${Platform}-toolchain mingw-w64-${Platform}-cmake mingw-w64-${Platform}-nsis zip unzip tar zstd git base-devel

  1. cd to ROOT_DIR and clone GDL.

$ cd $ROOT_DIR
$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/gnudatalanguage/gdl

  1. Build GDL:

$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh prep # download external libararies
$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh configure # run CMake to prepare the make file
$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh build # build GDL
$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh install # install GDL
$ ls install # compiled results will be here

  1. (Optional) run tests:

$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh check

  1. IMPORTANT: package GDL into zip and NSIS installer:

$ export GDLDE_VERSION=v1.0.0 # replace this with any newer release
$ gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh pack
$ ls package # packages will be here

It is recommended to use gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh build (instead of just “make”) anytime you download a new version of GDL sources, as the script adds magic of its own.

IMPORTANT: You can probably use the ‘installed’ gdl but it is recommended to use the installer just made above (gdl/scripts/build_gdl.sh pack) to install the new GDL, this will solve the problem of correct plplot graphics driver.