>Psychtoolbox>PsychDocumentation

UseTheSource - How to access the Psychtoolbox source code.

If you are interested in the source code for the C language
modules of Psychtoolbox (i.e., the MEX file extensions
like Screen, WaitSecs, GetSecs, PsychHID, …) then use the
following procedure.

The Psychtoolbox source code is stored in a Git code repository at
GitHub.

To download the source code:

1. Open a Unix terminal window on OS-X or Linux or a NT command
   shell on M$-Windows.

2. Use the “svn” commandline tool to download source code. On
   OS-X or Linux, the svn tool is usually stored in the
   /usr/local/bin directory, you may want to add this to your
   PATH. On Windows, the svn client should be already in your
   %PATH%

3. The following command would download the current development branch of
   the full PTB distribution into the subdirectory /Users/kleinerm/MyPTB :

   svn checkout https://github.com/Psychtoolbox-3/Psychtoolbox-3/ /Users/kleinerm/MyPTB/

   This command would download the full ‘beta’ distribution instead,
   which corresponds to the most recent official, tested, production release:

   svn checkout https://github.com/Psychtoolbox-3/Psychtoolbox-3/branches/beta/ /Users/kleinerm/MyPTB/

   Inside the /Users/kleinerm/MyPTB folder you would see the following
   subfolders:

   Psychtoolbox/ – The regular Psychtoolbox folder.
   PsychPython/ – Code for using some parts of Psychtoolbox in Python.
   managementools/ – Miscellaneous scripts for managing PTB releases.
   PsychSourceGL/ – The C source code for Psychtoolbox.

   Inside PsychSourceGL you will find everything you need to understand
   or to modify Psychtoolbox inner working if you are brave and patient
   enough ;-)

As already mentioned, the toolbox itself is split into multiple branches:

trunk - The code that is currently under development. May or may not
compile and work at any given point in time, may or may not
be consistent. For developers and early testers only! This is
a view onto the GitHub Git “master” branch.

beta - Source code corresponding to the current ‘beta’ release, derived
from ‘trunk’. This is what normal users should use, because
it is somewhat tested.

If you type the command “PsychtoolboxVersion” in Matlab or Octave, it
will tell you the flavor (trunk or beta) and SVN revision number of
your currently installed PTB distribution. This allows you to locate
the corresponding code in the GIT/SVN repository.

Be aware that you can only download code from the repository. If you
want to participate in PTB’s development contact Mario Kleiner or
David Brainard for instructions. Make yourself familiar with Git if
you want to do serious work.

An even more recent view of current development can be found on
GitHub, where our master and experimental branches are hosted. If you
intend to contribute to C code development or other complex parts of
the software, we will require you to use git instead of Subversion and
you will work with the git repository at GitHub.

For much of the source code the MIT license applies. However, we also include
other 3rd party source code, libraries, SDKs or tools, which are sometimes of
different licenses. See the file License.txt in the Psychtoolbox root folder
for more details. Some files contain their own license info, especially the
ones in the Psychtoolbox/PsychContributed folder and PsychSourceGL/Cohorts/
folder. If a file doesn’t contain a specific license, its license may be found
in the Psychtoolbox/License.txt file. Otherwise it will likely be MIT licensed.

Good luck and “Use the source” (Master Yoda).