View source for GEPS 026: Replace 'make' for Gramps build

{{GEPS-Finished}}
{{man menu|Finished completed in 2012 for the release of Gramps 4.0}}

Move Gramps away from using [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_%28software%29 Makefiles] and change to using Pythons setup.py and/or Distutils {{bug|2621}} {{bug|5743}} [http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=28984484][http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=28969888][http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=27984817]

==Purpose==

# The core Gramps developers do not know [http://www.gnu.org/software/make/ GNU Make], which was the case also in the past. Somebody of a company with expertise contributed the make system to Gramps.  ([http://gramps.1791082.n4.nabble.com/prepare-gramps-3-4-tp4329757p4613312.html Actually, I'm pretty fluent with autotools. John Ralls])
# With GNU Make developers need to update makefiles when adding and changing files.<br />*With setup.cfg/ DistUtils2, developers only need to worry about is creating quality Python code.  Searching and adding files to Makefiles is no longer needed as it is handled dynamically now.
# With GNU Make from time to time it happens that a new file is forgotten to be added in a release, causing maintainance overhead for the release manager.
# Gramps is pure python, we don't need a makefile  system checking for a lot of things it is checking for now.
# We need less dependencies for installing Gramps in linux.<br />*''Already on windows makefiles are not used.''
# An increasing number of projects that need GNU Make switch to [http://www.cmake.org/ CMake], ..., we should not stay with old technology just because it was already present

==Posibilities==
===Distutils===
Common way of distributing python. This is currently in gramps40 and trunk.  It uses the setup.py and MANIFEST.in files.

To create a source distribution run:

 python setup.py sdist

It creates a tar file in dist directory.  It also creates a MANIFEST file that contains files in distribution.

To build run:

 python setup.py build

Files are created in build directory.

To install run:

 python setup.py install

For testing it is convenient to install to a different root directory and disable execution of post-install mime processing.

 python setup.py install --root ~/test --enable-packager-mode

===Packaging (Distutils2)===

The way of the future. At this time it seems not ready yet for use in Gramps.
We need to create a setup.cfg file which defines the following:

*packages

A list of packages that should be installed in the gramps directory under python site-packages.  This should be a list of all packages, but excluding test and experimental packages.  We can generate this dynamically to ease maintenance.  There is a function provided to do this.

Note:  Issue [http://bugs.python.org/issue14549 14549] requests an enhancement to this functionality.

*package_data

A list of file specifications of all non-package files that should also be installed in the gramps directory under python site-packages.  This should specify all files under the data, glade, images and plugins directories.

Note:  Issues [http://bugs.python.org/issue5302 5302] and [http://bugs.python.org/issue13463 13463] cause a problem with this at the moment.

*resources

A list of file specifications of files that need to be installed outside the gramps directory under python site-packages.  Targets for files include 'categories' which are OS independent.

Note:  Issue [http://bugs.python.org/issue12393 12393] requests support for extensible categories which could be useful to us.

*scripts

A list of scripts. Just gramps.sh in our case.

*extra_files

A list of file specifications of files that need to be included in the distribution, but should not be installed.  This provides an alternative to the MANIFEST.in file, and should be easier to maintain.  Another alternative would be a 'manifest-builder', which we should investigate.  This could automatically include all files that are under version control.

Note:  Issue [http://bugs.python.org/issue14691 14691] prevents specifying a manifest builder in the config file.  There is a patch available to fix this.  This issue has been resolved/ closed on 2012-04-29.

distutils2 provides support for customisation via command hooks.  Our translation build code, compiling manual page, and XDG files (gramps.desktop, gramps.keys, and gramps.xml), and (holidays.xml and tips.xml) files will be created by these command hooks in the correct sequences.
* They are being handled by the setup_custom.py file under:
# build_intl()
# build_trans()
# build_man() functions.

====Issues====

* [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0345/ PEP 345]: Metadata for Python Software Packages 1.2
* [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0376/ PEP 376]: Database of Installed Python Distributions
* [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0386/ PEP 386]: Changing the version comparison module in Distutils
* [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0390/ PEP 390]: Static metadata for Distutils

====Bugs====

* [http://bugs.python.org/issue5302 5302]: Allow package_data specs/globs to match directories
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue8501 8501]: --dry-run option doesn't work
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue12830 12830]: --install-data doesn't effect resources destination
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue12393 12393]: Packaging should provide support for extensible categories
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue13463 13463]: Fix parsing of package_data
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue14549 14549]: Recursive inclusion of packages
* [http://bugs.python.org/issue14651 14651]: pysetup run cmd can't handle option values in the setup.cfg file.  Patch is available at the bug tracker.

====Details====
This now works in trunk.  Installation instructions can be found [http://www.gramps-project.org/bugs/view.php?id=6093 here].

To create a source distribution run:

 pysetup run sdist

To build run:

 pysetup run build

This will fail without the patch (bug #14651).

To install run:

 pysetup run install_dist

Testing is a pain because of a bug with --dry-run and a bug with --install-data.  I suggest using the --home option.
Also, there is not an --enable-packager-mode option for distutils2 yet.

=== Distribute (Setuptools)===
We don't consider this.

== Decision ==
For now, we will use distutils and deprecate autotools.


[[Category:GEPS|D]]