[petsc-dev] Updating MOAB version during download

[Satish Balay]

On Mon, 16 Jun 2014, Barry Smith wrote:

> >>     My feeling is that ONLY a git OR a .tar.gz should be listed at any one time and not both at the same time (the other should be commented out). 
> > 
> > The issue is - that would require all users having git installed.
> 
>    Releases would ONLY list tar balls. Branches in petsc-dev (in git) could list either a tar ball or a git repository. Hence end users do not need git. 
> 
>    This would require that when making a release branch any git based urls would need to be replaced with tar ball ones. Which we kind of need anyways.

Either both are equivalent [and should work with both releases and dev
snapshots] - or its too combersome - so only tarballs should be used
for both releases and dev snapshots.

I don't see why one should use git urls for dev and change them to
tarball urls for release [which is error prone and fragile]


> >>   I think the correct fix is for the values in moab.py (for each package) are changed over time and may be different in different branches and then at a release they are “locked” into the correct value for that release. Yes, this may mean manually setting some of the values when the release branch is made. Tough, there is no way around it.
> > 
> > This is fine by me. This is what we do with every other package. We
> > could keep updating moab-snapshot-xxx.tar.gz as required.
> > 
> > Thei issue came with MOAB becase at some point we decided 'petsc-dev
> > should always use latest moab-dev’.
> 
>    well no. moab.py had hardwired some ancient git version of moab while the tar ball that it used was the nightly. So the git version did not match the tar ball version!
> 

I consider 'hardcoding' git version' a bug. It should match the url.

gitversion = 'HEAD' [or equivalent] would have matched moab-nightly  approximately.

If the match is not possible - one of them should be removed. [if git
was prefered - then the tarball wold not have been tested. Currently
tarball, git-clone have different install procedures - complexity that
I don't like - but someone insisted that we need both]

However there is a fundamental problem with 'petsc-dev should always
use latest moab-dev, petsc-release should use moab-release’

For one - releases should be synced - and then there is all this extra
manual change for every release - before and after [there is already a
bit list of manual changes required during release time].

Secondly we have some users who freeze old petsc-dev snapshots [and
upgrade at a different schedule]. They are likely to have inconsistant
moab.

[so I think its best to avoid listing moab-nightly as a default in
petsc-dev branches]

Satish