conan build fails because of wrong [options] section

[pmiddend]

I was trying to build h5cpp (inside another cmake project that I'm working on) with conan and encountered the following error message:

ERROR: Error while parsing [options] in conanfile.txt
Options should be specified as 'pkg/*:option=value'
CMake Error at build/_deps/h5cpp-src/cmake/conan.cmake:567 (message):
  Conan install failed='1'
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  build/_deps/h5cpp-src/cmake/conan.cmake:918 (old_conan_cmake_install)
  build/_deps/h5cpp-src/CMakeLists.txt:35 (conan_cmake_run)

I was able to fix this by replacing the lines like hdf5:enable_cxx=False with hdf5*:enable_cxx=False. Not sure why I needed to do that. Maybe a newer conan version?

This section in the conan docs explains the syntax.

[jkotan]

Hello @pmiddend, yes. Currently, in tests we are using conanfile.py with hdf5*:enable_cxx=False . Have you had to fix it in conanfile_ess.txt or conanfile_macos.txt or in your conanfile ?

[pmiddend]

In conanfile_ess.txt. After doing that, I had to fix a bunch of other things as well and finally gave up on building it with conan for now. One of the things was the [generators] section which apparently also changed.

[jkotan]

The way to do it is to define your own conanfile.txt and pass it via H5CPP_CONAN_FILE variable or follow .github/workflows/cmake-build.yml configuration or https://github.com/pni-libraries/libpninexus/blob/00386a61326c2fba191a55c5cd9a3e551348a8c8/.github/workflows/tests.yml#L110 (to compile with a other project) . The conanfile_ess.txt file contains an old ESS configuration which may not work with the resent conan packages

[jkotan]

Hi @ggoneiESS and @milnowak ? Do you use the conanfile_ess.txt configuration?

[pmiddend]

The way to do it is to define your own conanfile.txt and pass it via H5CPP_CONAN_FILE variable or follow .github/workflows/cmake-build.yml configuration or https://github.com/pni-libraries/libpninexus/blob/00386a61326c2fba191a55c5cd9a3e551348a8c8/.github/workflows/tests.yml#L110 (to compile with a other project) . The conanfile_ess.txt file contains an old ESS configuration which may not work with the resent conan packages

As a "workaround" I'm now building h5cpp without conan. This works (except I had to explicitly add a compile definition H5_BUILT_AS_DYNAMIC_LIB as referenced here - this might be a separate issue?).

It would be perfect, of course, if building with conan "just worked". Let me know if I should test this another time.

[milnowak]

Hi @jkotan, @pmiddend,

We don't use conanfile_ess.txt config.

We maintain a conanfile.py for h5cpp in our internal repository. It's mostly in line with conanfile.py in this repo, but we’ve adapted it to fetch sources from GitHub releases and implemented the package() method so we can build a Conan package and consume it in other projects.

We’re still on Conan 1.66 for now, but the recipe should work with Conan 2 with minimal changes.

import os
from conan import ConanFile, tools
from conan.tools.files import copy, get
from conan.tools.cmake import CMake
from conan.tools.env import VirtualBuildEnv, VirtualRunEnv

class H5CppConan(ConanFile):
    name = "h5cpp"
    version = "0.7.1"
    license = "LGPL-2.1"
    url = "https://github.com/ess-dmsc/h5cpp"
    description = "C++ wrapper for the HDF5 C-library"
    settings = "os", "compiler", "build_type", "arch"
    options = {
        "shared": [True, False],
        "fPIC": [True, False],
        "with_mpi": [True, False],
        "with_boost": [True, False],
        "install_prefix": [None, "ANY"]
    }
    default_options = {
        "shared": True,
        "fPIC": True,
        "with_mpi": False,
        "with_boost": False,
        "hdf5/*:hl": True,
        "hdf5/*:enable_cxx": False,
        "hdf5/*:shared": True,
        "install_prefix": None
    }
    generators = "CMakeToolchain", "CMakeDeps"

    def configure(self):
        if self.options.get_safe("with_mpi", False):
            self.options["hdf5"].parallel = True

    def build_requirements(self):
        self.build_requires("catch2/3.3.2")
        self.build_requires("ninja/1.12.1")
        self.build_requires("zlib/1.3.1")
        if self.settings.os == "Windows":
            self.tool_requires("b2/5.2.1")

    def requirements(self):
        self.requires("hdf5/1.14.5")
        self.requires("catch2/3.3.2")
        self.requires("zlib/1.3.1")
        self.requires("szip/2.1.1")
        self.requires("bzip2/1.0.8")
        if self.options.with_boost:
            self.requires("boost/1.86.0")
        if self.options.with_mpi:
            self.requires("openmpi/4.1.0")

    def source(self):
        data = self.conan_data["sources"][self.version]
        get(self, **data, strip_root=True)

    def build(self):
        cmake = CMake(self)
        build_env = VirtualBuildEnv(self).vars()
        run_env = VirtualRunEnv(self).vars()
        with build_env.apply(), run_env.apply():
            variables = {
                "H5CPP_CONAN": "MANUAL",
                "H5CPP_WITH_MPI": self.options.with_mpi,
                "H5CPP_WITH_BOOST": self.options.with_boost
            }
            if self.options.install_prefix:
                variables["CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX"] = self.options.install_prefix

            cmake.configure(variables=variables)
            cmake.build()
            cmake.install()

    def package(self):
        cmake = CMake(self)
        cmake.install()
        copy(self, "LICENSE*", self.source_folder, os.path.join(self.package_folder, "licenses"), keep_path=False)

    def package_info(self):
        self.cpp_info.libs = ["h5cpp"]

The source URL for the GitHub releases is specified in a conandata.yml file placed alongside the conanfile.py.

sources:
  "0.7.0":
    url: "https://github.com/ess-dmsc/h5cpp/archive/refs/tags/v0.7.0.tar.gz"
    sha256: "741d7712bc9aaead5221afaf5851a794274179310e92141f4621b6f4419ad71b"
  "0.7.1":
    url: "https://github.com/ess-dmsc/h5cpp/archive/refs/tags/v0.7.1.tar.gz"
    sha256: "e832fb729aaf328d0f30b34e577645f33fdaccda0e1b0c06cb9a3d412a728ad3"