How to Use map programs.

What is Map?

Map is the 'Materials Algorithms Project', a collection of algorithms used for modelling of materials in materials science and metallurgy. Read more here: http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/map/.

How are the programs distributed?

Programs are usually contributed in source code, usually in Fortran, usually they have documentatation which may be in the form of the webpage describing the model, or there may also be a postscript or text file describing the model.

The program description should include the mathematics behind the code, a description of the inputs and ouputs of the program, and example of input and output data.

How to use programs from map?

Many of the neural network models have been added to Map Online, so you might want to try there first.

If the program is distributed in binary form suitable to be run the computer architecture you use, you might want to download and execute that program, in most cases to use a model you will have to download and compile the source code, so it is more useful to describe this case. Please note I use a unix style operating system so I might forget something important for windows users, please let me know about any errors and I will correct them.

Using unix style OS, OSX, linux, etc.

  1. Create a directory to work in
  2. Using your browser download the program to that directory using the link at the bottom of the description page
  3. If the file has a *.tar extension or *.tar.gz, this is a 'tape archive' format file, or a tape arhive file that has been compressed with gzip. You need to unarchive the file, you can do this using the 'tar' command on unix systems, or using win-rar or winzip on windows systems. On unix systems use the command 'tar -xf file.tar', or 'tar -xzf file.tar.gz' depending on the extension of the package 'file'.
  4. You should know have a program and possibly documentation, read the documentation files.
  5. If you have source code you have to compile before you can execute the program, you can do this using the gnu-cross-compiler gcc which usually is available in most unix systems, use the command 'g77 program.f -o executable_name' for fortran programs, 'gcc program.c -o name' for c programs. The file extension may be different for different versions of fortran or the c language, the compiler will act differently depending upon the file extension, or command line options you give.
  6. Hopefully you will now have compiled the program, execute it from within the same directory using the command './executable_name'