creating a package

There are four parts to a Macaulay 2 package: a preamble which is initiated by the newPackage function, a section where one defines which variables will be exported to global variables, a section containing the actual coding that constitutes the package, and a section containing documentation and tests for the new package.

A basic template for new packages:

newPackage( ... )
        
  export{ ... }
  exportMutable{ ... }
        
  -- Macaulay 2 code goes here
        
  beginDocumentation()
  document { ... }  -- several document's and TEST's, interspersed
  TEST " ... "

The name of the package must be the name of the file, without the '.m2' suffix. Thus a package 'PACKAGENAME' will be in a file named 'PACKAGENAME.m2'. If the package were more complex, then by convention, there should be a directory named 'PACKAGENAME' on the load path, and the file 'PACKAGENAME.m2' in this directory would load the necessary files.

newPackage, see newPackage(String) -- package item: start a new package
export -- package item: export functions
exportMutable -- package item: export writable variables
beginDocumentation -- package item: start documentation section
document -- package item: documentation node
TEST -- package item: register a test of the package

creating a package

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Parts of a package

Documenting, testing, and distributing a package