Sage won't start after moving or renaming the 4.6.alpha3 root directory

[mpatel]

This is a follow-up to #9920. The package extraction patch at that ticket makes an absolute link

ln -sf "$SAGE_ROOT/devel/sagenb-main" "$SAGE_ROOT/devel/sagenb" 

that should be relative. Also, it seems we need to rerun python setup.py develop in SAGE_LOCAL/bin/sage-location.

[mpatel]

Can we fix this within a day? I'd really like to release 4.6.alpha3 with this fixed. The current trial 4.6.alpha3, which is otherwise ready to go, is at

​http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/release/sage-4.6.alpha3

[jason]

Both good points. sage-location is seriously broken right now anyway. #9210 goes a long ways towards fixing sage-location, but is mired in some reports of it not working (and some reports of it working).

Shouldn't the setup.py develop create relative references to the sagenb repository, rather than absolute references? That would take care of the second point.

[jason]

Okay, it looks like the absolute reference in setup.py develop is in $SAGE_ROOT/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/easy-install.pth: /Users/grout/sage-4.6/devel/sagenb-main -- that should be a relative reference like the rest of the paths in the .pth file are.

The other absolute reference is the $SAGE_ROOT/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/sagenb.egg-link file: /Users/grout/sage-4.6/devel/sagenb-main, which should also be a relative reference.

It looks like we can set this path when we do setup.py develop:

sage -python setup.py develop --egg-path ../../../../devel/sagenb-main

[mpatel]

Replying to jason:

Shouldn't the setup.py develop create relative references to the sagenb repository, rather than absolute references? That would take care of the second point.

For the "topmost" link, we could use

cd "$SAGE_ROOT/devel"
ln -snf sagenb-main sagenb

in SageNB's spkg-install.

For example, sage-build does

if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
    # make devel/sage point to devel/$1
    cd "$SAGE_ROOT/devel/"
    if [ ! -d "sage-$1" ]; then
        # this will happen a lot because of people (=me) making typos.
        echo "No such branch '$SAGE_ROOT/devel/sage-$1'"
        echo "Use 'sage -clone' to create a new branch."
        exit 1
    fi
    ln -snf "sage-$1" sage
fi

[jason]

So we have solutions for everything except the easy-install.pth file. I can't figure out how to get setuptools to change that path to a relative path. I suppose we could just search/replace that one path after doing setup.py develop.

[jason]

Sorry, to set the .egg-link file to have a relative path, we need to:

cd $SAGE_ROOT/devel/sagenb
sage -python setup.py develop --egg-path ../../../../devel/sagenb

[jason]

I've posted a question to stackoverflow: ​http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3886667/how-to-get-setuptools-to-use-a-relative-path-in-easy-install-pth-when-doing-setu

Also, the solution might be in using the virtualenv feature of setuptools. There is a --relocatable option that might make things in Sage easier.

[jason]

See ​http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv for the virtualenv (search for "Making Environments Relocatable")

[mpatel]

What if we do

cd SAGE_ROOT/local/lib/python/site-packages
echo ../../../../devel/sagenb > sagenb.pth

? Does this effectively override the path in easy-install.pth?

[jason]

Replying to mpatel:

What if we do

cd SAGE_ROOT/local/lib/python/site-packages
echo ../../../../devel/sagenb > sagenb.pth

? Does this effectively override the path in easy-install.pth?

No. There is one easy-install.pth file, and that's it. I think we need to change the absolute pathname in it to be a relative path name (which should be a simple search/replace or sed command)

[mpatel]

Use relative paths. sagenb repository.

[mpatel]

I've attached a patch, which is part of

​http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/mpatel/trac/10097/sagenb-0.8.7.spkg

(I haven't used sed's -i option, because it does not work on Solaris.)

[jason]

Replying to mpatel:

I've attached a patch, which is part of

​http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/mpatel/trac/10097/sagenb-0.8.7.spkg

(I haven't used sed's -i option, because it does not work on Solaris.)

The effect looks good and spkg looks good. Positive review.

[mpatel]

Florent Hivert has reported ​on sage-release a problem starting Sage 4.6.rc0 built from scratch on openSUSE 11.3. Apparently, "sagenb" does not appear in easy-install.pth during the build, so the patch above does not insert the relative path we want.

[mpatel]

Replying to mpatel:

Florent Hivert has reported ​on sage-release a problem starting Sage 4.6.rc0 built from scratch on openSUSE 11.3. Apparently, "sagenb" does not appear in easy-install.pth during the build, so the patch above does not insert the relative path we want.

See Leif Leonhardy's replies for some suggestions.

[mpatel]

Replying to mpatel:

Florent Hivert has reported ​on sage-release a problem starting Sage 4.6.rc0 built from scratch on openSUSE 11.3. Apparently, "sagenb" does not appear in easy-install.pth during the build, so the patch above does not insert the relative path we want.

I've opened #10176 for this problem.

[leif]

Replying to mpatel:

Replying to mpatel:

Florent Hivert has reported ​on sage-release a problem starting Sage 4.6.rc0 built from scratch on openSUSE 11.3. Apparently, "sagenb" does not appear in easy-install.pth during the build, so the patch above does not insert the relative path we want.

I've opened #10176 for this problem.

I've uploaded a follow-up spkg patch (currently just for testing / debugging) at #10176, no idea if that fixes the problem. (Others can of course test it on other platforms to make sure it doesn't break anything. Works for me on Ubuntu 10.04.)

Florent reported he had the same failure on OpenSuSE 11.1, too, so it might be specific to his installations, since Sage 4.6.rc0 was said to work on Skynet's menas (which runs OpenSuSE 11.1, too), but perhaps just by good luck...

[leif]

Replying to mpatel:

Replying to mpatel:

Florent Hivert has reported ​on sage-release a problem starting Sage 4.6.rc0 built from scratch on openSUSE 11.3. Apparently, "sagenb" does not appear in easy-install.pth during the build, so the patch above does not insert the relative path we want.

I've opened #10176 for this problem.

#10192 (currently needing review) also solves this, but in a different way (by patching sage-spkg to get rid of "." in PYTHONPATH before installing an spkg).