[GRASS-dev] dateutil dependency killing GRASS 7

[Sören Gebbert]

Hi Moritz,
i would like to share with you a conversation about this topic that i
had with Pietro offlist.

[snip]
>> Then it would become a /de facto/ mandatory dependency.
>>
>
> Is it illegitimate to propose basic functionality, thus allowing the user to
> use the modules, but forcing them to be more rigorous about date format,
> etc, but offer the user a way to more "comfort" by installing an additional
> dependency ?
>
> If the use of dateutil creates a whole lot of new, additional functionality
> (beyond increase in comfort) which you don't get without, then I agree with
> you.
>
> Moritz

Hi Pietro,
its not only about the simplicity how to handle imports in Python ...
well i wasn't aware that its so easy. :)

I had in mind to allow the user to select the dateutil dependency at
compile time so he is aware if grass is build with or without
dateutil, listed in the summary of the configure script. So i need to
add a configure check for dateutil ... . Besides of that, when we make
it optional, we will have the situation of users that have dateutil
and user that don't. This will result in help/tutorial/scripts that
work only with dateutil but not without ... IMHO a mess. Since
dateutil causes obviously so much trouble on Mac OS and Windows (i
wasn't aware of that since i am an ignorant Linux person) i will only
add it if it works on these systems out of the box.

Good night
Sören

ps.:
May i share your thoughts on the list?

2012/10/17 Pietro <peter.zamb at gmail.com>:
> Hi Sören,
>
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Sören Gebbert
> <soerengebbert at googlemail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>>> Do you really have to remove it completely ? Can't you check for its
>>> presence and if not present fall back on the basic date version ? And put a
>>> hint in the manuals about its installation being strongly recommended ?
>>
>> I was thinking about this, but skipped the idea because of my lack of
>> time to implement it.
>
> maybe I miss the point...
>
> I have written a small patch that check if dateutil is available
> prease have a look to the attached file.
>
> good night!
>
> pietro