Deprecated functionality

Some of the functionality that was available in previous EasyBuild versions is deprecated, and should no longer be used.

This functionality will be removed in a future version of EasyBuild (see Removed functionality for more information about functionality that has been removed already).

This page:

Overview of deprecated functionality in EasyBuild version 2.6.0

The different section below document the functionality that is deprecated in EasyBuild version 2.6.0, for which support will be removed in EasyBuild version 3.0.

For EasyBuild users:

(nothing yet)

For authors of easyconfig files:

(nothing yet)

For developers of easyblocks:

For EasyBuild framework developers:

Report errors by raising EasyBuildError rather than using log methods

Use of the error() and exception() log methods is deprecated.

  • deprecated since: EasyBuild v2.1.0 (April‘15)
  • removed in: EasyBuild v3.0
  • alternative(s): use raise EasyBuildError(...) instead

The error() and exception() log methods defined by EasyBuild (in the easybuild.tools.build_log module) do not match the semantics of the standard Python log methods, in the sense that they also raise an exception next to logging messages.

This may cause problems when 3rd party libraries (e.g., gc3pie) are being used by EasyBuild, since they may be using these log methods without expecting an exception being raised.

The custom definitions for the error() and exception() log methods will be removed in EasyBuild v3.0.

Hence, these log methods should no longer be used to report errors since they will not raise an exception anymore once their custom definitions are removed. Note that this applies both to the EasyBuild framework and to (custom) easyblocks.

To report errors, an EasyBuildError should be raised instead. For example:

# make sure config.sh script is there
if not os.path.exists(os.path.join(self.builddir, 'config.sh')):
    raise EasyBuildError("config.sh script is missing in %s", self.builddir)

Deprecation policy

With every EasyBuild release, we try very hard to maintain backward compatibility. That is, EasyBuild version X.Y should still build software packages that could be built with EasyBuild version X.(Y-1), without requiring modifications to the used easyconfig file or easyblock.

However, every now and then a breaking change needs to be made to EasyBuild, because of design decisions or to resolve mistakes that were made in the past. These changes involve deprecating the behaviour or functionality we want to get rid of, together with supporting a better alternative.

Deprecating functionaliy:

  • using a log.deprecated("msg", 'X.Y') statement in EasyBuild version X.(Y-n) a certain block of code is tagged as deprecated, indicating that the corresponding functionality will no longer be supported in EasyBuild version X.Y; for example, to deprecate the use of the makeopts easyconfig parameter with EasyBuild v2.0:

    if self.cfg['makeopts']:
    self.log.deprecated("Easyconfig parameter 'makeopts' is deprecated, use 'buildopts' instead", '2.0')

  • until EasyBuild version X.Y, the deprecation log message will manifest itself as a warning, highlighting the use of deprecated functionality; for example:

    == 2014-12-16 16:29:07,906 main.easyconfig.easyconfig WARNING Deprecated functionality, will no longer work in v2.0:
Easyconfig parameter 'makeopts' is deprecated, use 'buildopts' instead;
see http://easybuild.readthedocs.org/en/latest/Deprecated-functionality.html for more information

Removing support for deprecated behavior:

  • starting with EasyBuild version X.Y, the deprecation log message will result in an error, indicating that the deprecated behavior is no longer supported; for example:

    ERROR: EasyBuild encountered an exception (at easybuild/framework/easyconfig/easyconfig.py:937 in process_easyconfig):
Failed to process easyconfig /home/example/gzip-1.5-goolf-1.4.10.eb:
DEPRECATED (since v2.0) functionality used: Easyconfig parameter 'makeopts' is deprecated, use 'buildopts' instead;
see http://easybuild.readthedocs.org/en/latest/Deprecated-functionality.html for more informatio

  • the code supporting the deprecated functionality is removed in EasyBuild version X.(Y+1) (i.e., the first non-bugfix-only release after version X.Y), see also Removed functionality

  • until EasyBuild version X.(Y+1), the code supporting the deprecated functionality will still be available; using the --deprecated command line option (or, equivalently, the $EASYBUILD_DEPRECATED environment variable), the deprecated functionality can be reactivated by specifying a lower version; for example, to avoid running into an error with EasyBuild v2.0 for functionality that was deprecated for EasyBuild v2.0:

    eb gzip-1.5-goolf-1.4.10.eb --deprecated=1.0

How to check for use of deprecated functionality

Since EasyBuild v1.16.0, the --deprecated command line option can be used to check whether deprecated behavior is still being triggered in your EasyBuild setup.

For example, using --deprecated=2.0 in EasyBuild v1.x will transform any deprecation warning for functionality that will no longer be supported in EasyBuild v2.0 into an error message. For example:

$ eb OpenMPI-1.8.1-GCC-4.8.3.eb --deprecated=2.0
== temporary log file in case of crash /tmp/easybuild-WWalWX/easybuild-aoL9Nd.log
ERROR: EasyBuild encountered an exception (at easybuild/framework/easyconfig/easyconfig.py:945 in process_easyconfig):
Failed to process easyconfig /home/example/work/easybuild-easyconfigs/easybuild/easyconfigs/o/OpenMPI/OpenMPI-1.8.1-GCC-4.8.3.eb:
DEPRECATED (since v2.0) functionality used: Magic 'global' easyconfigs variables like shared_lib_ext should no longer
be used; see http://easybuild.readthedocs.org/en/latest/Deprecated-functionality.html for more information

Tip

Define deprecated to the next major EasyBuild version in one of your EasyBuild configuration files (see Configuration file(s)) or by defining $EASYBUILD_DEPRECATED=2.0, to ensure you are made aware of deprecated behavior as early as possible.

You can (temporarily) still rely on the deprecated functionality by specifying a lower version via --deprecated to overrule that setting, until the functionality is actually disabled.