pynest folder

This directory contains the source code of PyNEST, the Python bindings to the NEST kernel. A detailed explanation of PyNEST can be found in Zaytsev and Morrison (2014) 1 and Eppler et al. (2009) 2.

PyNEST will be compiled together with NEST by default. If you want to disable it, pass

-Dwith-python=OFF

as an argument to cmake. By default, make install will install PyNEST to $(pyexecdir), which is often expanded as follows:

$(prefix)/lib{,64}/pythonX.Y/site-packages/nest

Note

Since NEST 3.0, support for Python 2 has been dropped. Please use Python 3 instead.

To make the PyNEST module available to the Python interpreter, source nest_vars.sh from the NEST installation directory (source <nest_install_dir>/bin/nest_vars.sh). This will add the PyNEST installation path to the PYTHONPATH environment variable.

For help on a NEST object OBJ in PyNEST, type nest.help(OBJ). To find out more about NEST, type nest.helpdesk().

References

1

Zaytsev YV and Morrison A (2014) CyNEST: a maintainable Cython-based interface for the NEST simulator. Front. Neuroinform. 8:23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2014.00023

2

Eppler JM, Helias M, Muller E, Diesmann M and Gewaltig M-O PyNEST (2009) A convenient interface to the NEST simulator. Front. Neuroinform. 2:12. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/neuro.11.012.2008