1This directory has a Makefile.lammps file with settings that allows
2LAMMPS to dynamically link to the VMD molfile library.  This is
3required to use the MOLFILE package and its interface to the dump
4and write_dump commands in a LAMMPS input script.
5
6More information about the VMD molfile plugins can be found at
7http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/plugins/molfile.
8
9NOTE: while the programming interface (API) of the VMD molfile plugins
10is backward compatible (i.e. you can expect to be able to compile this
11package for plugins from newer VMD packages), the binary interface
12(ABI) is not.  So it is necessary to compile this package with the
13VMD molfile plugin header files (vmdplugin.h and molfile_plugin.h)
14matching VMD installation that the (binary) plugin files are taken from.
15These header files can be found inside the VMD installation tree under
16"plugins/include". For convenience, this package includes a set of
17header files that is compatible with VMD 1.9.3 (the current version
18in April 2017). You need to adjust the molfile_SYSINC variable in the
19Makefile.lammps file in this directory, in case you want to use VMD
20molfile plugins from a different version. The interface is compatible
21with plugins starting from VMD version 1.8.4.
22
23In order to be able to dynamically load and execute the plugins from
24inside LAMMPS, you need to link with a system library containing functions
25like dlopen(), dlsym() and so on for dynamic linking of executable code
26into an executable.  This library is defined by setting the molfile_SYSLIB
27variable in the Makefile.lammps file in this dir.
28
29For Linux and most current unix-like operating systems, this can be
30kept at the default setting of "-ldl" (on some platforms this library
31is called "-ldld").  For compilation on Windows, a slightly different
32mechanism is used that is part of the Windows programming environment
33and this kind of library is not needed.
34
35See the header of Makefile.lammps for more info.
36