#136: Don't rebuild external libraries so often --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: eschnett | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: review Priority: minor | Milestone: Component: Cactus | Version: Resolution: | Keywords: --------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
Comment (by bmundim):
Hi Erik:
The patch is missing the declaration of GSL_INSTALL_DIR in the
configuration.ccl file.
Or do you envision this to be a global environment variable instead of a
Cactus
configuration variable?
I thought more like an environment variable, but I am fine with declaring it in configuration.ccl. What is the advantage of doing so though? It seems to me that it serves only to document the environment or configuration variables used. Is there anything else? What is the idea or road map behind these options at configuration.ccl?
It's a somewhat dangerous options; e.g. we couldn't use it in our
standard simfactory option lists, >because there is no mechanism to clean these external locations.
I am not sure I understood why it is dangerous. Once you know the directory the external libraries were installed you know where to clean them. It is all in your GSL_INSTALL_DIR variables (or equivalent).
It's also dangerous because it doesn't take compiler compatibility into
account.
Yes, you are right about the compiler compatibility and it is the only problem I see at the moment. However, the user or simfactory option list can still use the default installation config/scratch directories. Those users that see the compatibility issue as a big problem would still be configuring the same way as before. Those that don't face this issue on a daily basis or it is happy to work around it (for example by having different external locations for different compilers) would now have at least a better alternative to do so (instead of simply moving the library away from its original installation directory).
Again, I am not advocating to change the default, I am only proposing to add an option such that we can install libraries in directories we choose to do so.