NIPY uses github for our code hosting. For immediate access to the source code, see the nipy github site.
To check out the latest version of nipy you need git:
git clone git://github.com/nipy/nipy.git
There are two methods to install a development version of nipy. For both methods, build the extensions in place:
python setup.py build_ext --inplace
Then you can either:
With either method, all of the modifications made to your source tree will be picked up when nipy is imported.
The source code has some very small data files to run the tests with, but it doesn’t include larger example data files, or the all-important brain templates we all use. You can find packages for the optional data and template files at http://nipy.sourceforge.net/data-packages.
If you don’t have these packages, then, when you run nipy installation, you will probably see messages pointing you to the packages you need.
The installation procedure, for now, is very basic. For example, let us say that you need the ‘nipy-templates’ package at http://nipy.sourceforge.net/data-packages/nipy-templates-0.2.tar.gz . You simply download this archive, unpack it, and then run the standard python setup.py install on it. On a unix system this might look like:
curl -O http://nipy.sourceforge.net/data-packages/nipy-templates-0.2.tar.gz
tar zxvf nipy-templates-0.2.tar.gz
cd nipy-templates-0.2
sudo python setup.py install
On windows, download the file, extract the archive to a folder using the GUI, and then, using the windows shell or similar:
cd c:\path\to\extracted\files
python setup.py install
The commands above assume you are installing into the default system directories. If you want to install into a custom directory, then (in python, or ipython, or a text editor) look at the help for nipy.utils.data.get_data_path() . There are instructions there for pointing your nipy installation to the installed data.
For example, say you installed with:
cd nipy-templates-0.2
python setup.py install --prefix=/home/my-user/some-dir
Then you may want to do make a file ~/.nipy/config.ini with the following contents:
[DATA]
/home/my-user/some-dir/share/nipy
Say you installed with (windows shell):
cd nipy-templates-0.2
python setup.py install --prefix=c:\some\path
Then first, find out your home directory:
python -c "import os; print os.path.expanduser('~')"
Let’s say that was c:\Documents and Settings\My User. Then, make a new file called c:\Documents and Settings\My User\_nipy\config.ini with contents:
[DATA]
c:\some\path\share\nipy
We have adopted many developer guidelines in an effort to make development easy, and the source code readable, consistent and robust. Many of our guidelines are adopted from the scipy / numpy community. We welcome new developers to the effort, if you’re interested in developing code or documentation please join the nipy mailing list and introduce yourself. If you plan to do any code development, we ask that you take a look at the following guidelines. We do our best to follow these guidelines ourselves:
The preferred method to submit a patch is to create a branch of nipy on your machine, modify the code and make a patch or patches. Then email the nipy mailing list and we will review your code and hopefully apply (merge) your patch. See the instructions for Making patches.
If you do not wish to use git and github, please feel free to file a bug report and submit a patch or email the nipy mailing list.