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2.2 Installation
To install NOVAS-C on your local system, follow the simple instructions given
below. These instructions assume that you know how to compile and link C source code
on your computer system. Details of the process are dependent on your particular
computer system. NOVAS-C has been successfully implemented on PCs running
Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh systems, and several systems running different
flavors of Unix.
1. Copy all NOVAS-C files to a directory on your local system.
2. Compile and link files checkout-st.c, novas.c, novascon.c, solsys3.c, and
readeph0.c. Name the resulting application "checkout".
3. Run the checkout application. Compare the results that you get from "checkout"
with the data in file checkout-st.no. If the results agree, the installation has
probably been successful, but see the important note below.
4. If you plan to use the USNO minor planet ephemerides with NOVAS-C, another
checkout program, checkout-mp.c, has been supplied. To check the installation of
NOVAS-C with the minor planet ephemerides software, repeat step 2, replacing
readeph0.c provided with NOVAS-C, with readeph.c, allocate.c, and chby.c
from the minor planet ephemeris software. Run the resulting application, and
compare your results with the contents of checkout-mp.no. The ephemeris file for
minor planet 2 Pallas (not supplied with NOVAS-C) is required to run this test.
Note that the checkout programs also provide examples of how the NOVAS-C
functions are called from an application program.
Important Note
The checkout applications exercise one supervisory function and most, but not all, of the
low-level functions in novas.c. Also, the checkout applications do not use solsys2.c;
hence, planetary positions (other than those of the Earth) are not tested. Thus, use of the
checkout applications is not a complete test of NOVAS-C. Comparing the results from
the NOVAS-C supervisory functions with results from the analogous NOVAS Fortran
supervisory functions will constitute a more complete check of your NOVAS-C
implementation.
