[casacore] Add casacore port

[sjperkins]

• Changes comply with the maintainer guide
• The name of the port matches an existing name for this component on https://repology.org/ if possible, and/or is strongly associated with that component on search engines.
• Optional dependencies are resolved in exactly one way. For example, if the component is built with CMake, all find_package calls are REQUIRED, are satisfied by vcpkg.json's declared dependencies, or disabled with CMAKE_DISABLE_FIND_PACKAGE_Xxx
• The versioning scheme in vcpkg.json matches what upstream says.
• The license declaration in vcpkg.json matches what upstream says.
• The installed as the "copyright" file matches what upstream says.
• The source code of the component installed comes from an authoritative source.
• The generated "usage text" is accurate. See adding-usage for context.
• The version database is fixed by rerunning ./vcpkg x-add-version --all and committing the result.
• Only one version is in the new port's versions file.
• Only one version is added to each modified port's versions file.

[sjperkins]

Port of casacore:

• https://casacore.github.io/
• https://github.com/casacore/casacore

[bennahugo]

Any reason not to include the python build here? Without it it will not be possible to link python-casacore against this build

Should likely also set DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

[sjperkins]

Any reason not to include the python build here? Without it it will not be possible to link python-casacore against this build

This disables PYTHON 2 support by default -- I don't believe python-casacore is building python 2 wheels these days

https://github.com/casacore/python-casacore/tree/master/.github/workflows

Should likely also set DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

A vcpkg install casacore will install both Release and Debug builds.

[bennahugo]

Ah ok sorry I think I was confused. Yes this is the default:

option (BUILD_PYTHON "Build the python2 bindings" NO)
option (BUILD_PYTHON3 "Build the python3 bindings" YES)

While we are here it may be advisable to still include deprecated containers and functionality - I think the synthesis library from casarest and some of the classes in casacore are still in active use in Meqtrees / makems (the sarao version)
option (BUILD_DEPRECATED "build and install deprecated classes (such as Map)" YES)

[sjperkins]

OK, I'll add a feature option for BUILD_DEPRECATED

Also /cc'ing @rtobar so that someone from the casacore project can take a quick look at this.

[rtobar]

Full disclosure: I'm only a semi-regular casacore contributor, but not part of the core team (e.g., I don't have write access).

I agree with the BUILD_PYTHON* discussion, it should definitely be built against python3 and not against python2.7. And from what I know, BUILD_DEPRECATED is still needed by a number of packages that haven't been ported to the more recent casacore releases where this was implemented (3.1 I think, so ~4 years ago "only").

[rtobar]

Full disclosure: I'm only a semi-regular casacore contributor, but not part of the core team (e.g., I don't have write access).

I agree with the BUILD_PYTHON* discussion, it should definitely be built against python3 and not against python2.7. And from what I know, BUILD_DEPRECATED is still needed by a number of packages that haven't been ported to the more recent casacore releases where this was implemented (3.1 I think, so ~4 years ago "only").

[rtobar]

Leaving a few comments after being summoned here

[sjperkins]

I did some investigation around making the Python builds work. Briefly when asked to compile Python3 support, casacore will link against Boost.Python and a specific Python ABI. This is primarily for building the python-casacore wheels. it seems there are three options here:

1. Using the vcpkg python3 (3.10) port, install numpy in a virtual environment and build the casacore python3 against this. The downside here is that this restricts any builds to the py310 ABI. It may be possible to add, for instance python38, python39 and python310 features so that the developer can choose which ABI to build against, but the default python3 port is still 3.10 and it doesn't seem possible to override the python version in the features, only globally for the port with the overrides directive. Related issues:

   • How can I control Python version while building OpenImageIO binding? #13403
   • [pybind11] Python version selection does not work #23796

2. Depend on an external python3 installation, with numpy appropriately installed. I've tried this but vcpkg_find_acquire_program(PYTHON3) still seems to find the vcpkg python3.10 port, rather than, for example, the system python.

3. Disable python3 support for the moment and create a vcpkg feature request issue for this to be added in future.

I don't need python3 support at the moment so I'm happy to go with (3).

@FrankXie05 can you suggest any improvements on (1) and (2)?

[sjperkins]

1. Using the vcpkg python3 (3.10) port, install numpy in a virtual environment and build the casacore python3 against this. The downside here is that this restricts any builds to the py310 ABI. It may be possible to add, for instance python38, python39 and python310 features so that the developer can choose which ABI to build against, but the default python3 port is still 3.10 and it doesn't seem possible to override the python version in the features, only globally for the port with the overrides directive. Related issues:
   @FrankXie05 can you suggest any improvements on (1) and (2)?

Ah, according to this, overlays should be used (and not separate python3y features as I suggested above)

Do not use features to implement alternatives

Features must be treated as additive functionality. If port[featureA] installs and port[featureB] installs, then port[featureA,featureB] must install. Moreover, if a second port depends on [featureA] and a third port depends on [featureB], installing both the second and third ports should have their dependencies satisfied.

Libraries in this situation must choose one of the available options as expressed in vcpkg, and users who want a different setting must use overlay ports at this time.

[sjperkins]

Official builds only run linux: https://github.com/casacore/casacore/tree/master/docker

I'm primarily interested in a linux casacore port

[sjperkins]

Regarding Python builds, it looks like they'd be a fair amount of work to get right. I don't personally need them right now, so I'd provide to disable this feature and log an issue for it.

Similarly for other non-core features like ADIOS2