INSTALL.md

Installation

There is a quick way to get started, but we advise setting up a virtual environment and guide through the process in the section Proper Python setup with virtual environment .

Quick setup (not recommended)

If you just want to use the software, the easiest way is to run from your system's command line

pip install --user PyDynamic

This will download the latest version from the Python package repository and copy it into your local folder of third-party libraries. Note that PyDynamic runs with Python versions 3.8 to 3.11. Usage in any Python environment on your computer is then possible by

import PyDynamic

or, for example, for the module containing the Fourier domain uncertainty methods:

from PyDynamic.uncertainty import propagate_DFT

Updating to the newest version

Updates can then be installed via

pip install --user --upgrade PyDynamic

Proper Python setup with virtual environment (recommended)

The setup described above allows the quick and easy use of PyDynamic, but it also has its downsides. When working with Python we should rather always work in so-called virtual environments, in which our project specific dependencies are satisfied without polluting or breaking other projects' dependencies and to avoid breaking all our dependencies in case of an update of our Python distribution.

Set up a virtual environment

If you are not familiar with Python virtual environments you can get the motivation and an insight into the mechanism in the official docs.

You have the option to set up PyDynamic using Anaconda, if you already have it installed, or use the Python built-in tool venv. The commands differ slightly between Windows and Mac/Linux or if you use Anaconda .

Create a venv Python environment on Windows

In your Windows PowerShell execute the following to set up a virtual environment in a folder of your choice.

PS C:> cd C:\LOCAL\PATH\TO\ENVS
PS C:\LOCAL\PATH\TO\ENVS> py -3 -m venv PyDynamic_venv
PS C:\LOCAL\PATH\TO\ENVS> PyDynamic_venv\Scripts\activate

Proceed to the next step.

Create a venv Python environment on Mac or Linux

In your terminal execute the following to set up a virtual environment in a folder of your choice.

$ cd /LOCAL/PATH/TO/ENVS
$ python3 -m venv PyDynamic_venv
$ source PyDynamic_venv/bin/activate

Proceed to the next step.

Create an Anaconda Python environment

To get started with your present Anaconda installation just go to Anaconda prompt and execute

$ cd /LOCAL/PATH/TO/ENVS
$ conda env create --file /LOCAL/PATH/TO/PyDynamic/requirements/environment.yml 

That's it!

Install PyDynamic via pip

Once you activated your virtual environment, you can install PyDynamic via:

pip install PyDynamic

Collecting PyDynamic
[...]
Successfully installed PyDynamic-[...] [...]

That's it!

Optional Jupyter Notebook dependencies

If you are familiar with Jupyter Notebooks, you find some examples in the examples subfolder of the source code repository. To execute these you need additional dependencies which you get by appending [examples] to PyDynamic in all the above, e.g.

(PyDynamic_venv) $ pip install PyDynamic[examples]

Install known to work dependencies' versions

In case errors arise within PyDynamic, the first thing you can try is installing the known to work configuration of dependencies against which we run our test suite. This you can easily achieve with our version specific requirements files. First you need to install our dependency management package pip-tools, then find the Python version you are using with PyDynamic. Finally, you install the provided dependency versions for your specific Python version. This is all done with the following sequence of commands after activating. Change the suffix -py38 according to the Python version you find after executing (PyDynamic_venv) $ python --version:

(PyDynamic_venv) $ pip install --upgrade pip-tools
Collecting pip-tools
[...]
Successfully installed pip-tools-5.2.1
(PyDynamic_venv) $ python --version
Python 3.8.8
(PyDynamic_venv) $ pip-sync requirements/dev-requirements-py38.txt requirements/requirements-py38.txt
Collecting [...]
[...]
Successfully installed [...]
(PyDynamic_venv) $