libxdrfile
==========

This library allows to read GROMACS trr and xtc files and also to
convert from one format to another. The actual `libxdr library`_ was
written by the Gromacs developers. For MDAnalysis we added Python
bindings (generated with SWIG_).


.. _`libxdr library`: 
   http://www.gromacs.org/Developer_Zone/Programming_Guide/XTC_Library
.. _SWIG: 
   http://www.swig.org/

Python bindings
===============

Although the whole ``xdrfile`` package is distributed together with
`MDAnalysis <http://mdanalysis.googlecode.com>` it is also possible to
use it as a stand-alone library. Build the library from the src
directory::

  mv xdrfile/setup_py setup.py
  mv xdrfile/__init___py xdrfile/__init__.py 
  swig -python xdrfile/libxdrfile.i   # or copy libxdrfile.py to xdrfile/
  python setup.py build --build-lib=.

(This does an in-place build but you can also do a normal ``python
setup.py install``.)

Note that in order to import the module you will have to do::

  from xdrfile import libxdrfile



