[AstroPy] Ubuntu packages and state of AstroLib

[Michael Droettboom]

In SVN, I've reverted the uses of wcsset_ to wcsset, so it should work with a system wcslib without patching.  On MS-Windows, some #define magic now happens to get around wcsset being a system function on that platform -- but that code path should not impact Linux.  You can continue to patch it during the build process, but I think it's easier for you for us to fix this upstream.

Also in SVN, I've documented how to run the tests.  As you point out will not work with the latest 1.9 release, but assuming SVN head works for you for your packaging purposes, I'm happy to make a new 1.10 release.

As for the library naming confusion:  libwcs is from SAO/NRAO and is shipped as part of wcstools [1].  wcslib is a standalone library by Mark Calabretta [2].  The latter is what pywcs uses.  But perhaps confusing is that wcstools will compile against either.  pywcs only supports wcslib.  I believe each of these has a common ancestor, but wcslib has been updated more recently and has more features.  You may end up having to call the package "libwcslib" to avoid confusion, though perhaps "libwcs" will only ever be installed as part of "wcstools".  For example, on Fedora, packages exist for Calabretta's called "wcslib", and for "wcstools", which includes libwcs.  I'm not familiar with the Debian/Ubuntu world on this.

Mike
________________________________________
From: astropy-bounces at scipy.org [astropy-bounces at scipy.org] on behalf of Ole Streicher [astropy at liska.ath.cx]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 10:21 AM
To: astropy at scipy.org
Subject: Re: [AstroPy] Ubuntu packages and state of AstroLib

Am 17.03.2011 15:00, schrieb Michael Droettboom:
> The wcsset_ issue is to support compilation on MS-Windows.  As wcslib
> did not accept the patch upstream, we have had to maintain it in our
> local copy.  But that could probably be improved using #defines or
> some such to make this easier for packagers to use a system copy of
> wcslib.

Is it OK if I patch this during the package build process?

> BTW -- be careful interchanging the terms "wcslib" and "libwcs" --
> they are different projects with different licenses.

Hmm, this has nothing to do with python, but can you shortly explain the
differences? When I started to search for the WCS library, I found
"libwcs" as part of wcstools (http://tdc-www.cfa.harvard.edu/wcstools/),
and they refer to Mark Calabretta's wcslib -- and this is the one I use.
Also here, to follow a bit the naming conventions (library packages
should start with "lib"), I choose "libwcs" instead of "wcslib". Are
there other packages to consider?

Regards

Ole
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