Some folder locations in macOS are not accessible by traversing one level at a time from outside or above that location. In general, it can be convenient to open a terminal window at a specific folder location. The folder may be opened directly by right-clicking on the folder in Finder and selecting “New Terminal at Folder”.
By default, listing the contents of a directory with
PowerShell
shows file metadata along with the path names within the directory.
Other shells typically show only the path names by default, which is convenient for copy-pasting lists of files or directories into other commands or scripts.
To list only the path names when listing a directory in PowerShell, use the -Name option:
Get-ChildItem -Name
# or
ls -NameOpenMP and OpenACC are open standards for parallel programming on CPU and GPU shared memory platforms. While OpenMP has wider compiler support, OpenACC also aims to be platform-independent. OpenMP standard syntax for C, C++, Fortran, and CUDA can work seamlessly with non-OpenMP systems if code is properly written. While OpenMP is typically built in from the factory in contemporary compilers, the compilers may need flag(s) to enable OpenMP. Build systems like CMake and Meson can manage the OpenMP compiler flags.
OpenMP is well-supported in commercial computation performance-oriented Fortran compilers like:
OpenMP support in open-source Fortran compilers includes LLVM and GCC.
Open-source compilers such as LLVM Flang need to have the proper OpenMP-enabling flags set when building the compiler by the distribution maintainers. For example, Homebrew LLVM Flang was missing Fortran libomp.mod support due to misconfiguration in the Homebrew flang formula.
Examples of Fortran OpenMP code:
“git clone” clones the default branch of the remote repository as determined by the Git server. The default Git branch is typically “main”, but the repository owner can change it to any other branch. To Git clone a specific branch, use the –branch option:
git clone --branch <branch-name> <repository-url>This can help workaround problems like a default branch that is very large or is broken in some way.
The Windows error code lookup tool is a useful resource for finding error codes and messages to incorporate into code that needs to handle Windows return codes. The tool allow searching by code or exact message match.
Unit test frameworks should be lightweight to setup and maintain. End users should be able to easily run the unit and integration tests themselves as part of a typical end-user install.
The simplest approach is to write several small test programs and execute them using CMake or Meson. This method can also be an appropriate choice where the program uses complex library interactions that may not mix well with a generic test framework.
The Veggies Fortran test framework is an example of a Fortran unit testing framework. Check the Fortran-lang group for a contemporary discussion on Fortran test frameworks.
Git commands can be lengthy, but Git autocorrect can help with command typos.
git config --global help.autocorrect promptThis prompts with a suggestion for a mistyped Git command.
Matlab cross-platform capabilities involve cross-platform factors dealing with filesystem and system calls. The standard library for Matlab matlab-stdlib provides several features on top of factory Matlab. Filesystem functions including canonicalized paths, finding executable programs, and retrieving filesystem type are among key capabilities of Matlab-stdlib.
Matlab R2025a makes public the internal functionality introduced in Matlab R2024b. The filePermissions function returns an object like matlab.io.UnixPermissions according to the operating platform.
Needless use of administrator “sudo” privileges during install of a library or program is generally undesirable. Admin / superuser privileges are typically invoked for a single command by sudo, including on Windows. Casual use of “sudo” can goof up the operating system itself, create cybersecurity risks, and mess up the desired program installation. The install might do undesirable things like put itself under “/root” directory or make paths non-readable by the non-privileged user.
In general we write procedures without invoking sudo, to avoid careless sudo invocation. We assume the user knows when it’s appropriate to invoke sudo. sudo is commonly used with commands installing from repositories like “apt install”.
Python “pip install”
defaults
to
PEP 370
--user
if needed.
In general, don’t install with sudo pip or sudo conda to avoid wrecking the system configuration.
Dropbox shared link URLs can be readily used in scripts and programs including curl, Wget, Matlab, Python, CMake, …. Dropbox treats non-web browser user agents distinctively. It may be necessary to set the URL options manually. Dropbox share URLs commonly end in “dl=0”, which will result in a webpage download instead of the intended file. We suggest changing the link to end in “dl=1”.