Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: windows installer

[David Grant]

Karsten Hilbert wrote:

> > > ACK. However, "GnuMed" is not a "Python program". It is an
> > > application package consisting of - among other things -
> > > Python scripts. python setup.py isn't suitable.
> > >      
> > Please elaborate.  I looked at the source and it looks like there are a 
> > bunch of python scripts which talk to the database on the server side, 
> > and the current client seems to be the python/wxPython one.  What else 
> > is in there, which isn't Python?  I think usually this is still easily 
> > handled by the main setup.py script, if there are other binaries or 
> > files to be installed.
> >    
> There are shell scripts (wrappers) and data files (i18n).
> There are also log file locations (/var/log/gnumed/) and
> config file locations (/etc/gnumed/) to be set up. Also, some
> structure (~/gnumed/) in users' home directories (eg. add it
> to /etc/skel/) is needed.
>
>  
From Gentoo's perspective, we would do something like:

src_install() {
DOCS="README TODO LICENSE ...."
insinto /var/log/gnumed
doins <all-the-log-files>
insinto /etc/gnumed
doins <all-etc-files>
insinto /etc/skel
doins <template files>
distutils_src_install (this calls distutils, everything is done 
automagically)
}

I've attached a sample ebuild for a python package I built, for scipy.  
Actually there is a function called src_compile() which isn't shown.  
That runs "distutils_src_build" automatically, if the function isn't 
declared which in turn calls "python setup.py build" with any necessary 
arguments.

Using this kind of setup saves package makers and maintainers a lot of 
time.  It means shifting the bulk of the installation job onto the 
upstream developers which is smart.  I've seen a lot of software not get 
packaged because it is just too hard to maintain.  And software that 
doesn't get packaged will not get installed.

I find what I see here, 
http://people.debian.org/~tille/packages/gnumed/debian/gnumed-snapshot-common.install
pretty ridiculous.  And this 
http://people.debian.org/~tille/packages/gnumed/debian/gnumed-snapshot-client.install 
as well.  If that must be done, then do it once, in some distutils 
setup, not 4 times, in gentoo ebuild, debian deb, redhat rpm, windows 
installer, and slackware package.

> > > > > One final suggestion: don't use environment variables such as PYTHONPATH 
> > > > > to tell gnumed where
> > > > > to find modules. 
> > > > >          
> > > > I don't get this.  All modules (like wxPython) should be in 
> > > > site-packages, so any python program should find them fine.
> > > >        
> > > ACK.
> > >      
> > When looking at the gnumed prerequisites, I don't see any of them being 
> > anywhere except for in site-packages.  So python finds them fine.
> >    
> The OP was probably also talking about GnuMed "modules" as in,
> say .../client/python-common/
>  
gnumed should find these no problem as long as there are in the path, so 
you could do

from gnumed.client.python-common import something

--
David J. Grant
M.A.Sc. Candidate in Electrical Engineering
a-Si and Integrated Circuits Lab
University of Waterloo
Room DC3707
519-888-4567 x2872
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~djgrant


# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $

inherit distutils

IUSE=""
DESCRIPTION="Scientific Algorithms Library for Python"
MY_P="SciPy-0.2.0_alpha_200.4161"
SRC_URI="http://www.scipy.org/site_content/downloads/${MY_P}_src.tar.gz";
HOMEPAGE="http://www.scipy.org";
SLOT="0"
LICENSE="BSD"
KEYWORDS="~x86"

S=${WORKDIR}/${MY_P}

DEPEND="virtual/python
        >=dev-lang/python-2.1
        >=dev-python/numeric-20
        >=dev-python/wxPython-2.4
        >=dev-libs/fftw-2.1
        >=dev-libs/atlas-3.2.1
        >=dev-python/f2py-2.23.190.1367"

src_install() {
        DOCS="FORMAT_GUIDELINES.TXT LICENSE.TXT PKG-INFO THANKS.txt"
        distutils_src_install
}