Getting Help¶
Have a specific question or problem with NEST?¶
Check out the FAQs for common issues.
If your question is not on there, ask our Mailing List.
Getting help on the command line interface¶
The
helpdesk()
command will launch the documentation pages on your browser. See Set up the integrated helpdesk to specify the browser of your choice.To access the High-level Python API reference material you can use the commands:
# list all functions and attributes dir(nest) # Get docstring for function in python help('nest.FunctionName') # or in ipython nest.FunctionName?
To access a specific C++ or SLI reference page for an object, command or parameter you can use the command:
nest.help('name')
Model Information¶
To get a complete list of the models available in NEST type:
nest.Models()
To get a list of only neuron models use:
nest.Models(mtype='nodes', sel=None)
To get a list of only synapse models use:
nest.Models(mtype='synapses', sel=None)
To get details on model parameters and usage use:
nest.help('model_name')
Set up the integrated helpdesk¶
The command helpdesk
needs to know which browser to launch in order
to display the help pages. The browser is set as an option of
helpdesk
. Please see the file ~/.nestrc
for an example setting
firefox
as browser. Please note that the command helpdesk
does
not work if you have compiled NEST with MPI support, but you have to
enter the address of the helpdesk (file://$PREFIX/share/doc/nest(
)
manually into the browser. Please replace $PREFIX
with the prefix
you chose during the configuration of NEST. If you did not explicitly
specify one, it is most likely set to /usr
or /usr/local
depending on what system you use.