73.3 Loading a Share Package

loads the share package name. If the optional version string version is given, the package will only be loaded in a version number at least as large as version (see Version Numbers in ``Extending GAP''). RequirePackage will return true if the package has been successfully loaded and will return fail if the package could not be loaded. The latter may be the case if the package is not installed, if necessary binaries have not been compiled or if the available version is too small. If the package name has already been loaded in a version number at least version, RequirePackage returns true without doing anything.

After a package has been loaded its code and documentation are available as other parts of the GAP library are.

The documentation of each share package will tell if the package loads automatically or not. If share packages have been loaded automatically, GAP prints a list of the names of all share packages which have been loaded at the end of the initialization process.

A share package may also install only its documentation automatically but still need loading by RequirePackage. In this situation the online help displays (not loaded) in the header lines of the manual pages belonging to this share package.

(At the moment automatic loading is only possible for the packages listed in the file pkg/ALLPKG. (This is due to the fact that there is no standard C-Function that will list the contents of a subdirectory.) This file must list each package name on a line of its own without any heading or trailing extra characters. Under UNIX you can create such a file easily by issuing the command

find * -type d -maxdepth 0 -print > ALLPKG

If the GAP installation you are using loads share packages automatically which (for example for reasons of memory usage) you do not want to load automatically, you can disable the automatic loading of share packages by putting a line

RemoveSet(AUTOLOAD_PACKAGES,"name");

You can disable automatic loading globally, by listing the name of the share package in a file NOAUTO in the pkg directory.

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