Environment Modules Updates

Modules 4.3.1 released

2019-09-21T14:45:00.001Z

Modules version 4.3.1 is out. This new release provides fixes for the issues found recently on the 4.3 serie.

The changes introduced in this bugfix release are:

Contrib: add mb script to bench Modules versions.
Correct modulecmd.tcl script startup to correctly report error in case Tcl extension library fails to load. (fix issue #284)
Install: fix typo on CFLAGS definition in lib/Makefile. (fix issue #287 with contribution from Felix Neumärker)
Remove useless code in Modules Tcl extension library
Make URLs in README correctly rendered in HTML. (contribution from Per Persson)
Doc: clarify modulefile evaluation modes in modulefile.4 man page. (fix issue #289)
When looking at the closest match among loaded modules when switching module with just a single module argument specified, load the information on the currently set environment to get the alternative names of loaded modules prior to look at closest module match. (fix issue #290)
Doc: describe the way to determine the site-specific configuration script location in cookbook recipes implying the installation of such a file. (fix issue #266)
Doc: add Log module command recipe to cookbook. (fix issue #283)
Doc: add Expose procedures and variables to modulefiles recipe to cookbook.
Doc: add Make defined modulepaths persist over sudo recipe to cookbook.
Doc: add Ensure user fully qualify the modules they use recipe to cookbook.
Introduce the wa_277 configuration option to workaround an issue with Tcsh history mechanism. Default module alias definition for Tcsh hits an issue with shell history mechanism: erroneous history entries are recorded each time the module command is called. When wa_277 option is enabled (which sets the MODULES_WA_277 environment variable to 1), an alternative module alias is defined which fixes the history mechanism issue. However the alternative definition of the module alias weakens shell evaluation of the code produced by modulefiles. Characters with special meaning for Tcsh shell (like { and }) may not be used anymore in shell alias definition elsewhere the evaluation of the code produced by modulefiles will return a syntax error. (fix issue #277)
Doc: add Tips for Code Reuse in Modulefiles recipe to cookbook. (contribution from Tom Payerle)
Fix the whatis and paths sub-command results for module symbolic versions targeting a directory when implicit_default configuration option is disabled. No error is returned and same result is now obtained whether the symbolic name or its target is used as argument for those two sub-commands. (fix issue #294)
Fix the whatis and paths sub-command results for module aliases targeting a directory when implicit_default configuration option is disabled. No error is returned and same result is now obtained whether the alias name or its target is used as argument for those two sub-commands. (fix issue #295)
Rework all the ternary operator expressions in modulecmd.tcl that may result in a nan value (whatever the case used to write this string) as the expr Tcl command raises an error when it returns such a value, which breaks Modules as soon as a modulefile, an alias or a symbolic version is named nan. (fix issue #296)

The list of all changes made in this new version are described in the NEWS document. Details on the new features introduced in the 4.2 series are provided in the MIGRATING document.

http://modules.readthedocs.io/en/stable/NEWS.html
http://modules.readthedocs.io/en/stable/MIGRATING.html

The tarball of this new version can be downloaded at:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/modules/modules-4.3.1.tar.gz

If you encounter any issue, please let us know by creating a ticket on the project bug tracker at:

https://github.com/cea-hpc/modules/issues

I would like to thank Felix Neumärker, Per Persson, Tom Payerle, @benwanlin, @zzxtty, @cdorbell2 and @wenzler for their code contribution or bug report that helped to build this release.

Modules 4.3.0 released

2019-07-26T19:44:00.001Z

Modules version 4.3.0 is out. This new version adds bunch of new features to tailor module to your needs. It is backward-compatible with previous version 4 releases and primarily adds features and fixes bugs. Major new features introduced in v4.3.0 since v4.2 are:

Details on these features and all the others included in this new release are provided in the MIGRATING document. The list of all changes made in this new version are described in the NEWS document.

http://modules.readthedocs.io/en/stable/MIGRATING.html
http://modules.readthedocs.io/en/stable/NEWS.html

The tarball of this new version can be downloaded at:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/modules/modules-4.3.0.tar.gz

If you encounter any issue, please let us know by creating a ticket on the project bug tracker at:

https://github.com/cea-hpc/modules/issues

Special thanks to Felix Neumärker, Ben Bowers, Jacques Raphanel and Colin Marquardt for their code contributions on this release.

Control module command verbosity

2019-07-25T19:29:00.001Z

The ability to control message verbosity has been added so module command can be configured whether it should display more or less information. Available verbosity levels from the least to the most verbose are:

silent: turn off error, warning and informational messages but does not affect module command output result.
concise: enable error and warning messages but disable informational messages.
normal: turn on informational messages, like a report of the additional module evaluations triggered by loading or unloading modules, aborted evaluation issues or a report of each module evaluation occurring during a restore or source sub-commands.
verbose: add additional informational messages, like a systematic report of the loading or unloading module evaluations.
debug: print debugging messages about module command execution.

Default verbosity level can be controlled at configure time with the --with-verbosity option, which could be passed any of the above level names. This default verbosity level could be superseded with the MODULES_VERBOSITY environment variable, which could be set through the config sub-command with the verbosity option. Command-line switches --silent, --verbose and --debug supersede in turns any other verbosity configuration to respectively set module command silent, verbose or in debug mode.

This new feature will be included into the imminent v4.3 release.

Storing initialization config files in etcdir

2019-07-25T06:59:00.001Z

When initializing the module command in a shell session, initialization configuration files stored in the defined configuration directory are taken into account if present instead of the configuration files stored in the initialization script directory. When they are stored in the configuration directory, these configuration files are named initrc and modulespath instead of respectively modulerc and .modulespath.

This change gives the ability for package manager to move these configuration files from the /usr directory to /etc.

The location of the installation of those files can be controlled with configure option --with-initconf-in, which accepts etcdir and initdir values.