[Ifeffit] Launching Problem (D)Athena and Co.

[Bruce Ravel]

Hi all,

I wanted to give an update on the issue Alfred brought up last week
for for which Matt suggested a solution.  I implemented Matt's
suggestion and Alfred tested my solution for me with positive results.

While that is, by no means, a exhasutive test, it seems as though the
next release of Demeter will coexist peacefully with things like
MinGW, cygwin, and other packages which install a different version of
perl.

I am hoping to make the next release soon.

Regards,
B


On Wednesday, August 22, 2012 11:29:35 AM Matt Newville wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
> 
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Bruce Ravel <bravel at bnl.gov> wrote:
> > Hi Alfred,
> > 
> > I am thrilled that you discovered the problem, because I was stumped!
> > 
> > Actually, you have uncovered a problem I have been worrying about for
> > some time.  I have been procrastinating on addressing the problem
> > because such a small fraction of Windows users will ever see the
> > problem.
> > 
> > As you have found, Demeter coexists poorly with other versions of perl
> > installed on the computer.  A partial list of software which will
> > 
> > trigger this conflict includes:
> >    ActivePerl
> >    CitrusPerl / Cava package manager
> >    Git for Windows
> >    MinGW (possibly -- one can install MinGW and not install perl)
> >    Cygwin
> > 
> > There are probably other, but that's the list of things I know of
> > which will install a version of perl that cannot be guaranteed to work
> > well with Demeter.
> > 
> > There are at least two work-arounds:
> >  1. The one you found is to edit your PATH so that C:\strawberry comes
> >  
> >     before all the other possible locations of perl version.  The
> >     problem with this is that doing so might break other software you
> >     have your system that is expecting to use a particular perl
> >     installation.
> >  
> >  2. If you are actually using perl on your windows computer, you can
> >  
> >     download the Demeter source code and install Demeter following the
> >     linux installation instructions.  You will need a proper
> >     development environment so that Ifeffit and various other
> >     dependencies can be built and installed.  Citrus, MinGW, and
> >     Cygwin can all, in principle, provide this level of support.
> >     
> >     Obviously, this can be done.  I had to do all of this in order to
> >     build the Demeter installer.  I know of at least one user of my
> >     software who opted to work this way.
> > 
> > If you or anyone else has any substantive suggestions for how best to
> > deal with this sort of conflict, I am very eager for good suggestions.
> > 
> > If anyone would like to help me package Demeter more effectively on
> > Windows -- that would make me deliriously happy.
> 
> I thought I reported such an issue earlier this summer, but it might
> have gotten lost in the shuffle.
> I think the solution is to either explicitly set the PATH to use
> C:\strawberry\perl\bin first in dathena.bat, etc,  or to replace
> 
>     perl -x -S %0 %*  > "%APPDATA%\demeter\dathena.log" 2>&1
> 
> with
>     C:\strawberry\perl\bin\perl.exe -x -S %0 %* >
> "%APPDATA%\demeter\dathena.log" 2>&1
> 
> or do something like
> 
>    @echo off
>    SET PERLEXE=perl
>    if "%OS%" == "Windows_NT" goto WinNT
>    %PERLEXE% -x -S "%0" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 >
> "%APPDATA%\demeter\dathena.log" 2>&1
>    goto endofperl
> 
>    :WinNT
> 
>    SET PERLEXE=C:\strawberry\perl\bin\perl.exe
>    %PERLEXE% -x -S %0 %* > "%APPDATA%\demeter\dathena.log" 2>&1
> 
> 
> You may want to consider setting other perl-related environmental
> variables (say, PERL5LIB) to explicitly point to the strawberry
> version --  I'm not sure that this is necessary.  In general, it might
> be reasonable to check  at startup of the Perl programs what PERL5LIB
> etc is set to and whether it matches the perl executable, perhaps
> generating a warning if things look out-of-sync.
> 
> I'll submit a github issue.  I looked very briefly just now for
> where/how you generate the batch files -- if I knew where that was,
> I'd attempt a pull request.
> 
> --Matt
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-- 

 Bruce Ravel  ------------------------------------ bravel at bnl.gov

 National Institute of Standards and Technology
 Synchrotron Methods Group at NSLS --- Beamlines U7A, X24A, X23A2
 Building 535A
 Upton NY, 11973

 Homepage:    http://xafs.org/BruceRavel
 Software:    https://github.com/bruceravel