.. index:: GSL
.. _GSL:

GSL
===

Description
-----------

The GNU Scientific Library (GSL) is a numerical library for C and C++ programmers. It is free software under the GNU General Public License.

The library provides a wide range of mathematical routines such as random number generators, special functions and least-squares fitting. There are over 1000 functions in total with an extensive test suite.

User instructions
-----------------

GSL is installed locally on all workstations and is included in the standard search paths by default.  In order to link in the library, '-lgsl -lgslcblas -lm' must be specified at link time:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ gcc test.c -o test.x -lgsl -lgslcblas -lm

Documentation is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/ and in Texinfo format on the workstations, which can be accessed using:

.. code-block:: bash

    $ info gsl-ref

Source
------

Debian repositories.  The project website is http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/.

License
-------

GNU General Public License.

Admin notes
-----------

Installed from the Debian repositories.  Both gsl-bin and libgsl0-dev packages must be installed in order to develop code which uses GSL.  Documentation is in the gsl-doc-\* packages.