gettingstarted.rst

Getting Started

GPkit is a Python package. We assume basic familiarity with Python. If you are new to Python take a look at Learn Python.

GPkit is also a command line tool. This means that you need to be in the terminal (OS X/Linux) or command prompt (Windows) to use it. If you are not familiar with working in the command line, check out this Learn Code the Hard Way tutorial.

The first thing to do is install GPkit . Once you have done this, you can start using GPkit in 3 easy steps:

1. Open your command line interface (terminal/Command Prompt)
2. Open a Python interpreter. This can be done by typing either python (or ipython if you have Anaconda and like colorful error messages).
3. Type import gpkit

In your command line, this will look something like this:

$ python
>>> import gpkit

$ ipython
In [1]: import gpkit

From here, you can use GPkit commands to formulate and solve geometric programs. To learn how to do this take a look at the Basic Commands.

Writing GPkit scripts

Another way to write and solve GPs is to write a scipt and save it as a .py file. To run this file (e.g. myscript.py), type the following in your command line:

$ python myscript.py

Again, ipython will also work here.

Basic Commands