What to include in a zip file, and what to leave out

A collection of noteworthy items selected by our moderators from discussions about making and using models with NEURON.

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ted
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What to include in a zip file, and what to leave out

Post by ted »

If you need to send program files to someone else, the best thing to do is put them in a directory and zip up that directory. It is best to avoid other archive formats, e.g. sit or bzip or rar, because you can't count on everyone being able to extract the files.

What files to include? Any source code that your program needs, like hoc, mod, ses, and py files. If some of the necessary files have strange extensions like oc or tem, please include those too. And of course include any data files that your program needs to read.

Please avoid anything that is specific to a particular OS or version of NEURON. Mostly this means don't include anything that was generated by compiling mod files.
MSWin users: please do not include .o, .c, .dll, or .bak files.
UNIX/Linux users: please do not include .i686 or .x86_64 subdirectories.
OS X users: no .dlls please or .x86_64 subdirectories. Also, no __MACOSX directories.

It may be appropriate to include a plain (ASCII) text file that contains usage instructions or a problem description. PDFs are only rarely useful. Never include MicroSoft Word files.

In general it is not necessary to include screenshots or other graphics files. In unusual cases, a gif may be OK, but do not include space-hogging .bmp or .jpg files.

Updated 20150227 NTC
ted
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Re: What to include in a zip file, and what to leave out

Post by ted »

Also do not include any other "hidden" directories, such as .hg
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