Allow running Sage with a temporary DOT_SAGE directory

[jdemeyer]

Version which deals with matplotlib issue: apply

• attachment: trac_11932-root.v2.patch to the Sage root repository
• attachment: trac_11932-scripts.patch to the local/bin repository
• attachment: trac_11932-doc.patch to the Sage repository
• attachment: trac_11932-sage.v2.patch to the Sage repository

Depends on #11926

CC: @jhpalmieri

Component: scripts

Author: John Palmieri

Reviewer: Jeroen Demeyer

Merged: sage-5.1.beta0

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/11932

[jdemeyer]

comment:1

I copied some patches from #11926 (and make some small changes to John's patch).

[jdemeyer]

Dependencies: #11926

[nexttime]

comment:3

I'd rename the function (as it creates a temporary directory), and not use a global variable for the "return value".

The function could either take the variable name as its parameter (such that sage_make_tmp_dir DIR assigns the directory name to DIR), or just "echo" the result (as mktemp already does), such that one writes DIR=sage_make_tmp_dir or whatever.

[nexttime]

comment:4

Replying to @nexttime:

or just "echo" the result (as mktemp already does), such that one writes DIR=sage_make_tmp_dir or whatever.

DIR=`sage_make_tmp_dir` of course.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:5

Here's a version in which the function echoes the path of the temp dir.

This works best with the patch from #11924: without applying the patch there, the parent directory of the temporary .sage directory gets polluted with pickle cache files.

[jdemeyer]

Milestone sage-4.7.3 deleted

[jhpalmieri]

comment:7

Rebased to #11073. Documentation added.

[jdemeyer]

Reviewer: Jeroen Demeyer

[jdemeyer]

comment:8

The following seems to be portable:

mktemp -d ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/dotsageXXXXXX

so I would use this instead of sage_mktempdir.

sage-sage needs to be replaced by sage.

Finally, why not simply run

./sage --norc </dev/null >/dev/null 2>/dev/null

in spkg-install?

[jdemeyer]

Author: John Palmieri

[jdemeyer]

comment:9

I meant "in spkg/install".

[jhpalmieri]

comment:10

Fixed. The patch to spkg/install is no longer valid; instead, we need to patch the sage-starts script.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:11

This is not working, and I'm probably making some bash error in the sage script. When I run

sage -c 'print "hello"'

it works as it should: no banner, just "hello", then a new shell prompt. When I run

sage --norc -c 'print "hello"'

it starts up Sage, prints a banner, prints "hello", and then gives the Sage prompt. As a consequence, the sage-starts script is not working right. What am I doing wrong?

[jdemeyer]

comment:19

On an entirely different topic: I don't like the --norc option name. In the light of #12647, I would expect that option to suppress the reading of the sagerc script (and/or the init.sage script). I would only support --nodotsage.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:20

Here are new patches which just use --nodotsage. (I also considered --tmpdotsage, but it doesn't matter too much, as long as it's documented.)

[jhpalmieri]

Attachment: trac_11932-scripts.patch.gz

scripts repo

[jhpalmieri]

documentation patch (Sage library)

[nexttime]

comment:21

Attachment: trac_11932-doc.patch.gz

It would be nice to also have --nosagerc, and let --nodotsage by default not bypass [$DOT_SAGE/]sagerc (if it exists; of course no directory should be created if it doesn't).

[jhpalmieri]

comment:22

Perhaps on another ticket...

[jdemeyer]

comment:23

Unfortunately, this doesn't quite work properly since DOT_SAGE is changed after reading sage-env. The following variables still refer to $HOME/.sage:

jdemeyer@arcanis:/usr/local/src/sage-5.0.beta13$ ./sage --nodotsage --sh -c env | fgrep "$HOME/.sage"
MPLCONFIGDIR=/home/jdemeyer/.sage//matplotlib-1.1.0
SAGE_STARTUP_FILE=/home/jdemeyer/.sage//init.sage
SAGE_TESTDIR=/home/jdemeyer/.sage//tmp

I suggest moving the --nodotsage check before the sourcing of sage-env.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:25

Okay, here's a new root patch.

[jdemeyer]

comment:26

Just one more issue: now that you don't source sage-env, the command sage looks for sage in the system PATH. I suggest to replace

command sage "$@"

by

command "$0" "$@"

If you make this change, you can give this ticket positive review.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that $HOME/.sage/matplotlib-1.1.0 is still created by sage-env when building Sage. But that shouldn't stop this ticket.

[jhpalmieri]

root repo

[jhpalmieri]

Attachment: trac_11932-root.patch.gz

[jhpalmieri]

comment:27

Attachment: trac_11932-root.v2.patch.gz

Here are two versions. If we want the easy root, the first version just makes the change

diff --git a/spkg/bin/sage b/spkg/bin/sage
--- a/spkg/bin/sage
+++ b/spkg/bin/sage
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ cd "$SAGE_ROOT"
 if [ "$1" = '--nodotsage' ]; then
     export DOT_SAGE=`mktemp -d ${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/dotsageXXXXXX`
     shift
-    command sage "$@"
+    command "$0" "$@"
     status=$?
     rm -rf "$DOT_SAGE"
     exit $status

The second version deals (I think) with the matplotlib issue, creating the config directory in sage.misc.misc, where other subdirectories of DOT_SAGE are created. It's not a very significant difference: the file attachment: trac_11932-sage.v2.patch and these changes to the root patch:

diff --git a/spkg/bin/sage-env b/spkg/bin/sage-env
--- a/spkg/bin/sage-env
+++ b/spkg/bin/sage-env
@@ -281,8 +281,9 @@ fi
 
 if [ "$DOT_SAGE" = "" ]; then
     # It is *not* an error if this directory does not exist, it will
-    # be created in spkg/bin/sage.  This also works if $HOME/.sage is a
-    # symbolic link to a non-existing directory.
+    # be created in spkg/bin/sage or devel/sage/sage/misc/misc.py.
+    # This also works if $HOME/.sage is a symbolic link to a
+    # non-existing directory.
     DOT_SAGE=`resolvelinks "$HOME/.sage"`
 
     # In theory, DOT_SAGE is not required to have a trailing slash.
@@ -340,8 +341,7 @@ if [ -f "$MPLINITFILE" ]; then
         MPLCONFIGDIR="$DOT_SAGE/matplotlib"
     fi
     export MPLCONFIGDIR
-    # Create the directory, because matplotlib doesn't seem to be happy otherwi
-    mkdir -p "$MPLCONFIGDIR"
+    # The directory is created when Sage starts (see sage.misc.misc).
 fi
 
 # Add some directories to $LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

If you have time to look at the second version, please consider it. If you would rather deal with just the first version here, we can move the other version to a new ticket.

[jdemeyer]

comment:28

For the Sage patch, what about:

try:
    # Create the matplotlib config directory
    sage_makedirs(os.environ["MPLCONFIGDIR"])
except KeyError:
    pass

I don't see a reason to create a directory when the environment variable doesn't exist.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:29

Since we set MPLCONFIGDIR in sage-env, there is no reason for it not to be set (unless someone does something risky and unsupported like try to import the Sage library using the system's Python). But I made the change anyway.

[jdemeyer]

comment:30

Attachment: trac_11932-sage.v2.patch.gz

Looks good and works well.

I'm currently running

sage --nodotsage -tp 2 devel/sage/sage

[jdemeyer]

comment:31

All tests passed!

[jdemeyer]

Merged: sage-5.1.beta0