Bug#1053314: Depends: python3-h5py-mpi without python3-h5py

[Drew Parsons]

On 2023-10-09 08:30, Rafael Laboissière wrote:
> Thanks for this detailed explanation, Drew. I released version
> 3.1.0+dfsg2-5 of the xmds2 package before reading it. I added
> python3-h5py to Build-Depends and libhdf5-mpi-dev to Depends, as you
> suggested (even though there is a typo in the debian/changelog entry,
> stating eroneaously that libhdf5-serial-dev has been added; I will fix
> this in the next release).
> 
> I also used H5PY_ALWAYS_USE_MPI=1, as you mentioned.
> 
> As regards adding also python3-h5py-serial to Depends and putting a
> fallback code in place, I will have to give it a little thought.
> Maybe, I should discuss this with the upstream authors, to know what
> they thing. Let us see how things evolve. At least, I hope that
> version 3.1.0+dfsg2-5 will really fix Bug#1053314 and the h5py
> transition will be completed.


Keep in mind when I discussed the fallback mechanism, I meant the way it 
is handled in the h5py package (h5py/__init__.py), not xmds2 directly.

If xmds2 itself doesn't really care which variant of h5py it uses, then 
(in terms of xdms2 runtime) it can just import h5py as normal and let 
h5py figure out which variant it's serving up.
(although it might need to Depend on both variants to ensure they're 
both available)

But it would be helpful to hear from xmds2 upstream what their 
intentions with h5py and MPI are, especially given that xmds2 links to 
libhdf5 directly.

Drew