[vtk-developers] VTK ExternalData default object store (was: vtk_common dashboard script)

[Bill Lorensen]

Since I use both ITK and VTK, I use the .bashrc approach that keeps all of
my external data in one place.




On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 10:59 AM, David Cole <dlrdave at aol.com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad King <brad.king at kitware.com>
> To: David Cole <dlrdave at aol.com>
> Cc: vtk-developers <vtk-developers at vtk.org>
> Sent: Tue, May 21, 2013 10:48 am
> Subject: Re: [vtk-developers] VTK ExternalData default object store (was:
> vtk_common dashboard script)
>
>
> On 05/21/2013 09:35 AM, Marcus D. Hanwell wrote:
>
>> The expectation is also that data is persistent if we don't change
>> the default perhaps we can at least add a warning at configure time to
>> advise that data will be downloaded multiple times (the default is
>> each build tree?) I would love to see a default parallel to the source
>> tree, like VTKExternalData or something, but it seems like you are
>> strongly opposed to that.
>>
>
> My original statement was about a general expectation of projects
> staying isolated in their source/build tree until "make install" time.
> CMake used to have tests that touched the $HOME directory and we got
> complaints so we changed the tests to run with a custom HOME env var
> pointing at the build tree.
>
> On 05/21/2013 10:34 AM, David Cole wrote:
>
>> Additionally, in favor of a parallel sibling directory to the source
>> tree... I think of this as a replacement for a VTKData checkout,
>>
> which
>
>> has traditionally always been recommended to be a parallel sibling
>> directory.
>>
>> Wasn't VTK and VTKData in the same parent directory the recommended
>> structure? And didn't the common script do a checkout of VTKData such
>> that they ended up that way?
>>
>
> Yes, but both of those required the user to do something local besides
> checkout and build VTK: either checkout VTKData manually or write a
> dashboard script referencing vtk_common.cmake.
>
>  Seems completely reasonable to me to say: the default is *here*, and
>> it's a cache setting... if you want it somewhere else, change the
>>
> cache
>
>> setting.
>>
>
> That requires reading the documentation.  A user or automatic script
> that is not familiar with VTK in particular may not do that.
>
>  What I don't want is *this*:
>> to have multiple build trees of VTK going on my laptop, and to
>> *accidentally* get multiple copies of VTKData and VTKLargeData just
>> because I left something at its default value.
>>
>
> Even with the sibling directory you could still end up with multiple
> copies if you have VTK sources in separate directories.
>
> A similar discussion a few years ago in ITK led to this feature:
>
> http://itk.org/gitweb?p=ITK.**git;a=commitdiff;h=d80e341a<http://itk.org/gitweb?p=ITK.git;a=commitdiff;h=d80e341a>
>
> Just add
>
> export ExternalData_OBJECT_STORES=$**HOME/.ExternalData
>
> to your .bashrc and all your new ITK and VTK build trees will use
> that for persistent data.
>
> -Brad
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>
>
>
> OK.
>
> But with your solution, *everybody* has to do work to achieve
> non-duplication of very large data files when they do multiple builds of
> VTK. *Everybody*.
>
> If you would just use a default value in $HOME or %USERPROFILE% instead,
> then *nobody* would have to to work to achieve non-duplication.
>
> And I thought the whole main point of ExternalData was to download each
> item needed *exactly* *once* and to enable non-duplication of each item.
>
> So I guess I'm puzzled by the default value.
>
> But if that's the way it is, I'll set up my machines so that at least I
> don't have duplicated data files.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> D
>
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