Notes from interacting with Andreas Beckmann to install STXXL in 
March, 2008.  Andreas is one of the authors and maintainers of the
STXXL I/O efficient library written to integrate directly with the the C++ 
standard template library (STL).   STXXL has very good I/O efficient 
implementations for STL containers like vector, stack, set, priority queue, 
map and algorithms for sorting and merging.  STXXL also has a very good 
implementation of parallel disk versions of I/O efficient algorithms, and can 
handle datasets up to dozens of terrabytes in size with the optimal (minimum) 
number of I/Os.
 
  The STXXL library is available at
    http://stxxl.sourceforge.net/
  
I installed stxxl in a subdirectory structure at 
    mahone2.ace-net.ca
Here are the steps I followed:

  1.    % create a subdirectory in your home directory e.g.
      > mkdir stxxl
  2. > cd stxxl
  3. > svn checkout https://stxxl.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/stxxl/trunk
        % this checks out the main source code as explained at Links/Download on
        %     http://stxxl.sourceforge.net/
  4. > cd trunk
  5. > doxygen
        % this installs the doxygen documentation for stxxl; generated from the
        % doxygen comments in the source code
  6.   % open a browser on the machine where stxxl is installed; for example, from
        % my connection at daimi.au.dk, I started an X-windows terminal (on MacOS X),
        % then typed
      > firefox
        % This started firefox.  In the URL entry, I typed
      > file:///home/bnickers/stxxl/trunk/doc/doxy/html/index.html
        % This brings up the main documentation page.  Then, I scrolled down to
        % Installation (Linux/g++)
        % and clicked on it.  This leads to the description of how to change your
        % make.settings.gnu file.
  7.   % Change the make.settings.gnu file (will be in subdirectory .../trunk )
        % to give the location of the STXXL_ROOT; e.g.
        % STXXL_ROOT         ?= $(HOME)/stxxl/trunk
        % where I changed only the "stxxl/trunk" characters, which is where stxxl is installed
  8.   % Follow the instructions on the Linux installation page; i.e. type
      > make library_g++
      > make tests_g++
         % The above commands will take a while, but will compile all the code into executables
         % on the computer where stxxl is installed.  The second command compiles test
         % programs.  This takes quite a while.
  9.    % Run a test program.  For example,
      > cd algo
      > ./test_sort1_stxxl.bin
         % This runs a test program for the I/O efficient version of the vector standard template
         % class, and I/O efficiently sorts a vector of size 50,000,000.
         % Many other test programs are available.   To take advantage of the
         % "MCSTL" or MultiCore STL, the compiler version must support instructions for it.

Notes prepared by Brad Nickerson, March, 2008