On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Geoffrey Hutchison <ge...@geoffhutchison.net> wrote: > > On Jan 6, 2011, at 9:00 AM, Konstantin Tokarev wrote: > >> Isn't it better to load Python module manually from OB prefix? Any Python >> script or application using libpython can load modules from arbitrary >> locations. Also, environment variables may be used to extend module search >> path > > No. Then any Python script or application will need to know where OB has > installed the Python module. That presents a chicken-and-egg problem -- how > do you tell the Python script where to find openbabel.py without something > installed in the standard Python module search path. > > Python distutils makes this easy -- the "issue" here in the bug report is > that there's currently a mismatch between CMake and distutils IMHO. > > John's suggestion to use --root is a good one. > As a Linux packager for many years, we considered any install command that installed outside of the specified prefix to be broken. I can see where you are coming from in terms of making things easier, and Python never made this easy. It does create a conflict between a package manager installed OB and a user built one in /usr/local - I would not expect my /usr/local version to overwrite the system package.
Mac and Windows generally have no agreed upon conventions, but if we are attempting to create relocatable binary trees for those platforms having at least one method that stays inside the install prefix would be preferable. The approach taken by VTK and ParaView is to supply a python interpreter that can be run on the command line that sets the PYTHONPATH and appropriate linking path variables - not sure if you guys want to go down this route, but it works well for those projects and allows multiple versions in different prefixes. Marcus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and, should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database without downtime or disruption http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl _______________________________________________ OpenBabel-Devel mailing list OpenBabel-Devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openbabel-devel
