nrnivmodl(1)

💖 nrnivmodl — the "build ur own NEURON" girlie 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the General Commands Manual (section 1, we love a classic) and it's all about nrnivmodl, which is genuinely one of the most iconic little tools in the NEURON simulation environment. sit down, grab a strawberry, we're doing this 💅

✨ NAME ✨

nrnivmodl — compile a special version of NEURON with custom mechanisms 🧚

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

nrnivmodl [FILES]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. <purple>FILES</purple> is optional, iykyk 👑

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

okay so this manual page documents the nrnivmodl command, and honestly? it's giving builder energy.

nrnivmodl is part of the NEURON simulation environment for computational models of physiological neurons. its whole purpose in life is to compile membrane mechanisms with user-defined properties. that's the job. that's the assignment. and it ate. 🔥

here's the tea: if you supply .mod files as <purple>FILES</purple>, then nrnivmodl will compile them into a dedicated version of NEURON called special, with your new mechanisms included in it. so cute. so bespoke. the new NEURON version gets dropped into a subdirectory that's named after the current CPU architecture — yes, it really said "know ur machine, respect ur machine" 🫶

but bestie, if there are no file arguments at all? no worries. nrnivmodl will just add all the files in the current working directory that have the suffix .mod to special. lowkey generous of it ngl. and listen — to actually construct an executable, the model descriptions first have to be translated into C code, and then that gets compiled using the default C compiler. two-step process, both steps slay. ✨

and now the part that matters, the rules of the game:

such models must contain a NEURON block. no NEURON block, no deal, sorry. that block is the main character and it specifies:

• the type of model — either a density mechanism or a point process 👑
• the names of the ions it uses ⚡
• which variables are to be treated as range variables in the interface to OC 🌈

periodt. that's the whole thing. don't skip the NEURON block, bestie, it's not a suggestion, it's a requirement 💀

🌟 MORE INFORMATION 🌟

go check out the NEURON website at www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/ because it's literally right there and it's full of lore 🦋

and there's also the documentation section at www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/static/py_doc/modelspec/programmatic.html — yes, it's a long one, yes, you should still read it, it's giving programmatic model spec and it's genuinely useful fr fr 📚

👑 AUTHOR 👑

NEURON was written by Michael Hines, John W. Moore, Ted Carnevale and others. absolute legends, the founding mothers and fathers of the vibe, we stan 🎀

this manual page was written by Matthias Klumpp <mak@debian.org>, for the Debian project (and it may be used by others). iconic of him, honestly 💅

and that's a wrap, bestie!! 🎀 this page came from the General Commands Manual, dated January 28, 2018 — and the source/version line is just nrnivmodl(1) again at the bottom, because the manpage format loves a little symmetry. go compile something beautiful. no cap. 💖✨🦋