|
From: R.K. O. Ph.D. <rk...@ow...> - 2002-01-12 12:04:50
|
On Fri, 11 Jan 2002, David C. Mores wrote: > "R.K. Owen Ph.D." wrote: > > > Hello Modules list: > > .... > > Therefore, I will start a new development line 3.2.x, and keep the > > the old line 3.1.x going for people that require the traditional style. > > The only changes to 3.1.x will be bug fixes, scripts, and tools that > > are equally applicable to 3.2.x. > > > > Any comments and discussion are welcome. > > > > Could you please give us a status update as to where you are with 3.2.x development and when we might see a release? > > Thanks, > Dave > Hello Dave and all: The 3.2.x version is in the CVS repository and I branched it off of the 3.1.4 version. Most of what I've done so far is to "clean-up" the code (from my perspective). Created some special string routines, and isolated nearly all the strdup() and malloc() to use a common modules routine. Along with this all the `memory free's to use a common modules routine too. I'm trying to reduce the code complexity due to all the exceptional conditions. As you may know the default configuration for 3.1.x is to not use "free()" and whenever I've tried the --enable-free config option, I usually get a wad of test errors. This is no longer the case with 3.2.x! I think it's pretty robust that way now. You probably wouldn't set --enable-free but these errors were troubling because they indicate loose code. I also modernized the configure script to have it get all the necessary Tcl-related env.vars from the tclConfig.sh script it finds. However, the focus of the new development is to eliminate the depth-2 limit for modulefile dirs ... this hasn't been done yet. I intend to make a big push on 3.2.x this spring after I finish the two software projects for my real life job. So now I've just been installing the patches folks have been sending in (for which I'm eternally grateful), and I take the time to write a pertinent test or two (I strongly feel that this is a requirement). Now, that I'm getting the hang of the SourceForge release mechanism, I think I'll release the current 3.2.alpha, which is still functionally identical to 3.1.6 since I've been applying the same patches and changes synchronously. However, It will give those who are interested a chance to try it out and improve upon the code. Now that modules itself has a versioning system its safe to try out these new development versions and leave the production version for the general users. What modules could use is a GUI tool for easily creating new modulefiles with a check list of some of the common env.vars. to prepend to, etc. My own thoughts are that it should be based on the Tk toolkit, but a web tool like that shown by Axel Belinfante may be a viable or even a better choice. Harlan Stenn has offered some excellent ideas for features and has sent some patches for collating versions numerically. This will be part of the 3.1.7 (and 3.2.alpha) version. I'm very willing to add any reasonable feature (especially if a code patch is included). Modules needs to grow and adapted to the current env. needs. It's getting late, and I'm probably starting to wander in my musings, but that's the state of 3.2.x. All are invited to join the party. R.K. +------------------+---------------------+ | R.K.Owen,PhD | rk...@ow... | | KooZ Software | Environment Modules | | NERSC/LBNL | rk...@ne... | +------------------+---------------------+ |
