The GUAVA Coding Theory Package

GUAVA is a package that implements coding theory algorithms in GAP. With GUAVA, codes can be created and manipulated and information about these codes can be calculated.

GUAVA consists of various files written in the GAP language, and an external program from J.S. Leon for dealing with automorphism groups of codes and isomorphism testing functions. Several algorithms that need the speed are integrated in the GAP kernel. Please send your bug reports and feature requests to the issue tracker at the GUAVA Github repository. For details, see the section "Bug reports" below.

For an overview of the history of the GUAVA project see the file HISTORY in the main GUAVA package directory.

Installing GUAVA

A fresh installation of GAP 4.7 or higher will include Guava automatically in the system pkg directory (typically something like /usr/lib/gap4r7/pkg on unix machines.) The backtrack programs which compute code automorphism groups may need to be compiled (see below).

If GUAVA is not present (a call to LoadPackage("guava") fails at a GAP prompt.) You may need to install GUAVA (as a GAP4 Package) as a separate step. Unpack the archive file in a directory in the pkg hierarchy of your version of GAP4. (This might be the pkg directory of the GAP4 home directory; it is however also possible to keep an additional pkg directory in your private directories, see section "Installing GAP Packages" of the GAP4 reference manual for details on how to do this.)

After unpacking GUAVA the GAP-only part of GUAVA is installed. The parts of GUAVA depending on J. S. Leon's backtrack programs package (for computing automorphism groups and code equivalence) need to be compiled separately. For Windows machines it will probably be necessary to install additional software -- instructions are available at the Guava website.

In a UNIX or MacOS environment. You should proceed as follows:

Go to the newly created guava directory and call ./configure <path> where is the path to the GAP home directory. So for example, if you install the package in the main pkg directory call

./configure ../..

This will fetch the architecture type for which GAP has been compiled last and create a Makefile. Now call

make

to compile the binaries and to install them in the appropriate place.

This completes the installation of GUAVA for a single architecture. If you use this installation of GUAVA on different hardware platforms you will have to compile the binaries for each platform separately. This is done by calling configure and make for the package anew immediately after compiling GAP itself for the respective architecture. If your version of GAP is already compiled (and has last been compiled on the same architecture) you do not need to compile GAP again; it is sufficient to call the configure script in the GAP home directory.

Loading GUAVA

After starting up GAP, the GUAVA package needs to be loaded. Load GUAVA by typing at the GAP prompt:

gap> LoadPackage( "guava" );

If GUAVA isn't already in memory, it is loaded and its beautiful banner is displayed.

If you are a frequent user of GUAVA, you might consider putting this line in your gaprc file, or add GUAVA to the "PackagesToLoad" preference in your gap.ini file (the location of the ini file can be determined by typing

gap> GAPInfo.UserGapRoot;

at the gap prompt.

Additionally, you may wish to test the installation by reading in the Guava test file:

gap> Test(Filename(DirectoriesPackageLibrary("guava", "tst"), "guava.tst"));

Bug reports

The preferred method for bug reports and feature requests is to raise an issue at the GUAVA GitHub repository:

https://github.com/gap-packages/guava/issues

Alternatively, you are welcome to send bug reports and other requests via email to support@gap-system.org. Remember we will need to be able to reproduce the problem; so please include:

• The version of GAP you are using; either look at the header when you start up GAP, or at the gap> prompt type: GAPInfo.Version;
• The operating system you are using e.g. Linux, macOS, Windows, ...
• The compiler (if any) you used to compile the binaries and the options you used. Type: gcc -v or: cc -version.
• A script that demonstrates the bug, along with a description of why it's a bug (e.g. by adding comments to the script - recall comments in GAP begin with a #).

• Joe Fields (fieldsj1@southernct.edu) April, 2022