[Biopython-dev] [Bug 2711] GenomeDiagram.py: write() and write_to_string() are inefficient and don't check inputs

[bugzilla-daemon at portal.open-bio.org]

http://bugzilla.open-bio.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2711





------- Comment #24 from lpritc at scri.sari.ac.uk  2009-01-07 09:12 EST -------
(In reply to comment #13)

> I can not check this as I am away from my system. As I recall, the Python code
> for accessing this library is provided with the standard install as there is a
> renderPM.py file. But that is just a wrapper to some C code found in the
> rl_addons directory. So it is a big no that renderPM is available unless you
> actually build the C sources or download the binaries (only valid for Windows).

That's not really a big deal, as those are the only two ways to get ReportLab,
from reportlab.org!

>From the website (http://www.reportlab.org/downloads.html):

"""
We provide precompiled binaries for Windows, but not for any other platform.
Many Linux distributors and other UNIX-like OS vendors provide their own
binaries for download
"""

The installation procedure for me was to issue:

python setup.py install

at the command line while in the top directory of the source download, which
isn't any harder than installing Biopython itself.  This installed ReportLab
2.2, including compilation of renderPM.  

> According to the website
> http://www.reportlab.org/subversion.html
> "
> It will create subdirectories for reportlab, which is an importable
> python package, and rl_addons which contains the C extensions. The
> latter need building with the contained setup script, but can also be
> downloaded in pre-built form from our downloads page. They rarely
> change.
> "
> 
> What did you actually install?

Reportlab 2.2, stable build as ReportLab_2_2.tgz, downloaded on December 15th
last year.  From the checksum, it's the 11/9 build.

I've just checked the SVN trunk, and that also builds renderPM, on the same
machine.

> In particular where was _renderPM built?

Initially, in [download location]/ReportLab_2_2/src/rl_addons/renderPM

and the library was installed to 

/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_renderPM.so

by the setup script.

> Basically we need to document this as there appears to be different ways to
> install reporlab (may also be version or svn related).

I'm happy with this, but it's not exactly a complicated issue: either the local
Reportlab installation does or does not have renderPM; if it does not, then
raising an error before the user dedicates too much effort to something that
can't work seems at least polite.  Also, providing pointers in the
documentation to where renderPM can be obtained (at time of last writing) is a
good idea.  IMO, given the straightforward installation procedure that corrects
the issue - which ought not to affect *nix users that do not run precompiled
binaries, anyway -  I reckon that raising an error will be sufficient for most
of the few cases that renderPM is not installed. 

L.


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