Creating Your Own Driver Code

Driver code means code containing a "main" function that will be compiled into an executable you can run. Typically for a program called "myappname" the main function appears in a file called "myappname.cc". (ITensor uses the convention that C++ source code files have the extension .cc, but other common conventions include .cpp or .C.)

For convenience, ITensor includes a project template folder ready for you to use. To use it, follow these steps:

1. Assuming the ITensor source code is located in /home/username/itensor (where username is your actual username), and assuming you want to create your new project under /home/username/software, issue the commands:

   mkdir -p /home/username/software 
   cp -r /home/username/itensor/tutorial/project_template \
         /home/username/software/myproject
   

   Here you will want to choose myproject to be the actual name of your program.

2. Go to the /home/username/software/myappname folder. Edit the Makefile there. Make sure LIBRARY_DIR is set to the actual location of the ITensor source code on your computer.

3. Test your configuration by issuing the command make. This should build the myappname sample program, which you can run by typing ./myappname.

4. Finally, when changing myappname.cc to some other program name, make sure to also update the APP variable in the file Makefile used by the make program. The myclass.h and myclass.cc files are included to show how to create helper classes for your program to use. If you rename or remove these, make sure to edit the Makefile appropriately. Also you will need to modify or remove the line #include "myclass.h" inside of myappname.cc.