[Users] environmental variables in Cactus configuration files

[ian.hinder at aei.mpg.de]

> On 21 Nov 2018, at 14:45, Miguel Zilhão <miguel.zilhao.nogueira at tecnico.ulisboa.pt> wrote:
> 
> hi all,
> 
> i'm compiling ET on a local cluster that uses the module system. on this system, once one does 
> "module load <...>", the respective path is added to an environmental variable. for instance, doing
> 
>  $ module load HDF5
> 
> sets the environmental variable $EBROOTHDF5:
> 
>  $ echo $EBROOTHDF5
>  /home/share/easybuild/software/HDF5/1.8.20-GCC-7.3.0-2.30-generic
> 
> so i was trying to use these in my configuration file, by adding the lines
> 
>  HDF5_DIR       = $EBROOTHDF5
>  HDF5_LIB_DIRS  = ${EBROOTHDF5}/lib
>  HDF5_INC_DIRS  = ${EBROOTHDF5}/include
> 
> etc, to it. however, these environmental variables don't seem to be correctly expanded, as i get 
> things like the following:
> 
>  Running configuration script for thorn HDF5:
>  Additional requested language support:  Fortran
>  WARNING in HDF5 configuration:
>  None of H5pubconf.h H5pubconf-64.h H5pubconf-32.h found in ${EBROOTHDF5}/lib ${EBROOTHDF5}/include
>  Automatic detection of szip/zlib compression not possible
>  Finished running configuration script for thorn HDF5.
> 
> but if i look into the folder ${EBROOTHDF5}/include, these files are clearly there. the compilation 
> later fails because of this.
> 
> when i specify the full path explicitly in the config file:
> 
>  HDF5_INC_DIRS  = /home/share/easybuild/software/HDF5/1.8.20-GCC-7.3.0-2.30-generic/include
> 
> i get no such warnings, and the code proceeds to compile just fine. is this the expected behaviour? 
> shouldn't the environmental variables be correctly expanded? if not, what would be the typical 
> procedure to compile the code on systems with such module tools?

Hi Miguel,

No, environment variables are not expanded in that way, because optionlists are not evaluated by a shell.  Yes, it would be nice if they were, however :)  You can do it in parameter files, but not in optionlists.  Usually, in this case, we either set the paths explicitly, resulting in a multitude of almost-identical optionlists, or let the external library automatically detect the location by finding an executable on the path (MPI does this, but I don't know if any others do). 

I've never used it, but it looks like simfactory provides a solution.  In simsubs.py SubAll, it looks like you can use @ENV(EBROOTHDF5)@.  Let us know how you get on with that.

-- 
Ian Hinder
https://ianhinder.net

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