Re: Enhancements

[Eric S. <bar...@kn...>]

Ed,

I'm not sure what you're asking here.  Are you referring to the
modulefile code snippet below?

If so, that's the way we've chosen to handle a software package not
being installed on the calling platform.  We prefer to have it fail
silently rather than annoy the user with warning messages.  That way
he/she can also have the same modules load command on every platform.

I have implemented a similar check in the ModulesHelp procedure which
will tell the user whether the package is available on the calling
platform when they issue a 'module help <modulename>' command.

With reference to implementing this suggestion, I do have some
development background and would be willing to give it a shot.

Eric

On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 01:22:20PM -0500, Edward Arthur wrote:
> That's a great suggestion, but I'm a modules user not developer.
> We have the same situation here (Linux and Solaris) and probably
> the same set of tools..
> 
> Would you want to "break" or have an error message?
> 
> /Ed
> 
> Eric Stanley wrote:
> > 
> > At our site, we have implemented modulefiles in such a way that there
> > is only one set of modulefiles across all platforms.  This reduces the
> > effort required to keep the modulefiles up to date.  In our case the
> > platforms are a couple versions of Solaris and a couple versions of
> > Linux.  This does, however, lead to a problem for which I'd like to
> > suggest a solution and get the list's feedback.
> > 
> > The problem arises when doing a 'module avail' command.  Since all
> > modulefiles are in the modulefiles directory, they are all listed as
> > being available even though not every version of software is installed
> > on every platform.  In the modulefile itself the presence or absence
> > of a particular software package is handled by checking for the
> > existance of the top level directory of the software package similar
> > to the following:
> > 
> >     if { [ file isdirectory /tools/gcc/2.95.2 ] } {
> >         set gcc_home /tools/gcc/2.95.2
> >         setenv CC gcc
> >         prepend-path PATH ${gcc_home}/bin
> >         prepend-path MANPATH ${gcc_home}/man
> >         prepend-path LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${gcc_home}/lib
> >     } else {
> >         break
> >     }
> > 
> > What I would like to suggest that the 'module avail' command check for
> > the existance of a special procedure with a reserved name in the
> > modulefile.  The procedure might be named something like 'Avail' and
> > would return TRUE if the package was really availble on the platform
> > on which 'module avail' was being run and FALSE otherwise.  If TRUE
> > was returned, 'module avail' would list the modulefile as being
> > available, otherwise it would not.  If no such procedure existed,
> > 'module avail' would use the presence of the modulefile as the only
> > indication that the modulefile was available.
> > 
> > I'd be willing to try to hack in this solution unless we come up with
> > a better one.  Perhaps there is already a good solution and I just
> > don't know about it.
> > 
> > Thanks for your feedback.
> > 
> > Eric
>