Installation

Prerequisites

Graphical Curve Fit for Python requires Python 3.10 or higher. The following Python packages are needed for the core functionality:

Package	Version (min)	Purpose
`numpy`	1.20	Array handling
`pandas`	1.3	Dataframes and CSV management
`matplotlib`	3.5	Plotting
`PyQt5`	5.15	Graphical interface
`lmfit`	1.1	Non-linear least-squares fitting
`emcee`	—	Bayesian inference via MCMC
`scipy`	1.8	ODR fitting method
`sympy`	—	Symbolic formulas
`corner`	—	MCMC corner plots
`tqdm`	—	Progress bars
`sip`, `pyqt5-sip`	—	Required for PyQt bindings
`numdifftools`	—	(optional) Numerical derivatives

These packages are all available on PyPI and will be installed automatically with pip if you use the instructions below.

To install the stable version from source:

git clone https://github.com/gcfpy/gcfpy
cd gcfpy
pip install -e .

This installs all required dependencies and enables you to run the application. To start it, run the following command in your terminal:

gcfpy

To install Graphical Curve Fit for Python in editable mode with development dependencies (formatting, tests, documentation):

pip install -e .[dev,test,doc]

This will include:

black, ruff, isort, flake8: Code formatting and linting
pytest, pytest-qt, coverage: Unit and GUI testing
mkdocs, mkdocs-material, mkdocstrings[python],mkdocs-mermaid2-plugin,pymdown-extensions: Documentation generation

You can also install subsets:

pip install -e .[dev]      # Dev tools only
pip install -e .[test]     # Testing tools only
pip install -e .[doc]      # Documentation tools only