The variational Mermin principle leads to an equation for the equilibrium density and system properties are calculated from the solution for the density. The equation is a non-linear integro-differential equation and finding a solution is not trivial, requiring numerical methods, except for the simplest models. Classical DFT is supported by standard software packages, and specific software is currently under development. Assumptions can be made to propose trial functions as solutions, and the free energy is expressed in the trial functions and optimized with respect to parameters of the trial functions. Examples are a localized Gaussian function centered on crystal lattice points for the density in a solid, the hyperbolic function tanh ⁡ ⁡ ( r ) for interfacial density profiles.