Development

Coding conventions

Pure Python assert statements should only be used for internal consistency checks and should not be used on user dependent input in production code. They are not guaranteed to be executed by Python and can be turned off by the user (python -O in cPython). As an alternative use ift.myassert.

Installation for developers

In the following, we assume a Debian-based Linux distribution. For other distributions, the “apt” lines will need slight changes.

NIFTy8 and its mandatory dependencies can be installed via:

sudo apt-get install git python3 python3-pip python3-dev
git clone -b NIFTy_8 https://gitlab.mpcdf.mpg.de/ift/nifty.git
cd nifty
pip3 install --user .

For a installation in editable mode add a -e to the last command. Information for requirements and the installation of optional dependecies you can find here.

Build the documentation

NIFTy documentation is provided by Sphinx.

To build the documentation:

sudo apt-get install dvipng jupyter-nbconvert texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-extra
pip3 install --user sphinx pydata-sphinx-theme
cd <nifty_directory>
sh docs/generate.sh

To view the documentation in firefox:

firefox docs/build/index.html

(Note: Make sure that you reinstall nifty after each change since sphinx imports nifty from the Python path.)