This page gives information about how to install and run Delila programs on the Cygwin/Windows platform. See the Delila software page for general information about compiling. The information on this page was kindly provided by

Dr. Antonio Rodríguez García
Instituto de Biotecnología de León, INBIOTEC
Parque Científico de León,
Avda. Real n° 1
24006 León
España-Spain
Tfno./phone: 0034987210308
Fax: 0034987210388
Correo-e/e-mail: degaro@unileon.es

1 - Cygwin (it's free) can be installed from http://cygwin.com

Please, follow the instructions, using defaults options. However, when prompted to add more packages not selected by default, you need to mark programs under the "devel" folder. These include the gpc Pascal compiler and the gcc programs that are required by gpc. I'm just an user without much knowledge about informatics. So, I don't know the minimum number of programs needed. You can select all the programs for sure.

2 - Once properly installed cygwin, you need to compile the Pascal source code from Tom's website. Just use the "save as" function of your navigator. This will save a file named, e.g., "makelogo.p".

Do not copy and paste in the notepad, because of Windows use a different character to indicate the carriage return. This problem need to be remembered when editing the input files for the programs. They must contain a little rectangle when open in notepad (notepad doesn't interpret this character as a carriage return and just display it). If not, the Delila programs halt (there is one known exception to this rule: makelogo seems to understand the Windows/notepad character for carriage return...).

To compile, e.g., makelogo.p:

- open the Cygwin environment
- change the "working" folder, using this command:
cd /home
- enter this instruction:
gpc makelogo.p -o makelogo.exe

This will create an executable file. The makelogo.p file need to be in the folder C:\cygwin\...\home. You can move it there just using the Windows Explorer.

To execute the new program just enter
makelogo
and type the name of the input files when prompted to.

3 - How to build proper input files.
You can use the Windows notepad to modify or create the input files. However, exception made of "makelogop" (the parameter file for makelogo), they need to contain the proper carriage return character. I don't know how to type it, so what I do is just to copy and paste it from a previous file that contains it, e.g., makelogo.p. Another trick: I edit a list of pieces for the makebkp file in Word, separated by an odd character, e.g., "#". Then, I replace "#" by "the little rectangle" in notepad (yes, yes, this is not very technical, but it is easy...).

4 - a little trouble with the ri program
The executable file need to be different from "ri.exe", because of there is a command "ri" in Cygwin. Just simply name it as "rix.exe" (or whatever), and execute it just entering "rix".

5 - Another problem when using this environment is that you cannot make mistakes when entering the input/output files in the command shell. Example: you execute makelogo and, when prompted for the parameter file, you type "makelogp" by mistake; if you try to correct it ("makelogop"), then the program halts. So, be careful. Alternatively, you can change the file name using the Explorer to the wrong name "makelogp", and then press enter to continue the execution.

Hope this is enough to run the Delila software.

Good luck!

Schneider Lab
origin: 2005 May 11
updated: 2005 May 11