meta_package_manager.managers.spack module

class meta_package_manager.managers.spack.Spack

Bases: PackageManager

Spack, the package manager built for supercomputers and HPC clusters.

A package is a spec: a package name carrying a version, a compiler, a target architecture and a set of build options, each combination installed into a prefix of its own. mpm keys a package on its id alone, so the spec is reduced to the name every verb accepts back.

Note

Every spec the tool’s database holds is reported, which is broader than what it built: packages pulled in as build dependencies appear, and so do externals like the system compiler it registers on first use. No flag separates them out.

Warning

A read bootstraps the host on first use: upstream clones the package repository automatically on the first run, so an inventory or a search on a fresh install fetches some twenty thousand objects into ~/.spack before answering.

Initialize cli_errors list.

operation_notes: ClassVar = {'installed': "The inventory repeats a name as many times as the host has builds of it, holding several builds at once being the tool's whole purpose.", 'outdated': 'The tool ships no comparison command at all.', 'upgrade': 'Installing an already-present package adds a second build rather than replacing the first, so an upgrade wired to it would report success and leave the old build in place.', 'upgrade_all': 'Installing an already-present package adds a second build rather than replacing the first, so an upgrade wired to it would report success and leave the old build in place.'}

Per-operation hints rendered in the Notes column of the manager page’s Operations table.

Keyed by the Operations member name, each value is a single short sentence explaining why the manager lacks the operation, or what makes its implementation partial: the pointer a reader needs to judge whether the gap is one they could help close. Each sentence starts with a capital and closes with a period, and starts on a word rather than a code span, so the cell reads standalone beside its row. A blank cell stays silent: a manager documenting nothing documents no gap.

The full rationale never lives here: it belongs in a comment beside the implementing method (or beside this declaration, for an operation with no method to hang it on), so the sentence on the page stays a hint and the code keeps the story. The class docstring follows the same split: it keeps only what a user needs to run the tool day to day, never how mpm wraps it.

Validated by test_operation_notes, which also checks every key matches a real operation: a key outside the enum’s vocabulary would never reach a page.

name: str = 'Spack'

Return package manager’s common name.

Default value is based on class name.

homepage_url: str | None = 'https://spack.io'

Home page of the project, only used in documentation for reference.

Left unset when the home page is the project’s repository, which repository_url names on its own, and when it is the project’s manual, which documentation_url names. Never inherited, like the other links.

documentation_url: str | None = 'https://spack.readthedocs.io/en/latest/'

Entry point of the project’s own documentation, or None when it has none.

The manual, the documentation site, or the man page of the CLI mpm drives: whichever page a user reads to learn the commands this manager wraps. Listed between homepage_url and repository_url in the links of the manager’s page, so a reader reaching for the tool’s reference finds it in the box of facts rather than in the prose below it.

Left unset where a link would state a fact twice or invent one: a tool documenting itself in its repository alone, whose README repository_url already reaches. A page about the ecosystem rather than the tool does not qualify either.

Where a project’s only site is its manual, that address belongs here and homepage_url stays unset: the slot names what the page is, and a reader reaching for the reference looks under the documentation link.

Never inherited, like every other link: the AUR helpers extending pacman each document themselves.

repository_url: str | None = 'https://github.com/spack/spack'

Repository holding the project’s code, or None when it has no public one.

Linked from the manager’s documentation page. Also what the weekly metrics sample reads: docs/docs_update.py writes it into the [tool.repomatic.metrics] subjects of pyproject.toml when its forge answers the sampler, through a mirror for a forge that does not.

Never inherited, for the same reason as wikipedia_url: the AUR helpers extending pacman each live in a repository of their own.

platforms: frozenset[Platform] | Group | Platform | Iterable[Platform | Group] = frozenset({Platform(id='almalinux', name='AlmaLinux'), Platform(id='alpine', name='Alpine Linux'), Platform(id='altlinux', name='ALT Linux'), Platform(id='amzn', name='Amazon Linux'), Platform(id='android', name='Android'), Platform(id='arch', name='Arch Linux'), Platform(id='buildroot', name='Buildroot'), Platform(id='cachyos', name='CachyOS'), Platform(id='centos', name='CentOS'), Platform(id='chromeos', name='ChromeOS'), Platform(id='clearlinux', name='Clear Linux OS'), Platform(id='cloudlinux', name='CloudLinux OS'), Platform(id='crux', name='CRUX'), Platform(id='debian', name='Debian'), Platform(id='endeavouros', name='EndeavourOS'), Platform(id='exherbo', name='Exherbo Linux'), Platform(id='fedora', name='Fedora'), Platform(id='generic_linux', name='Generic Linux'), Platform(id='gentoo', name='Gentoo Linux'), Platform(id='guix', name='Guix System'), Platform(id='ibm_powerkvm', name='IBM PowerKVM'), Platform(id='kali', name='Kali Linux'), Platform(id='kvmibm', name='KVM for IBM z Systems'), Platform(id='linuxmint', name='Linux Mint'), Platform(id='macos', name='macOS'), Platform(id='mageia', name='Mageia'), Platform(id='mandriva', name='Mandriva Linux'), Platform(id='manjaro', name='Manjaro Linux'), Platform(id='nixos', name='NixOS'), Platform(id='nobara', name='Nobara'), Platform(id='nutyx', name='NuTyX'), Platform(id='opensuse', name='openSUSE'), Platform(id='openwrt', name='OpenWrt'), Platform(id='oracle', name='Oracle Linux'), Platform(id='parallels', name='Parallels'), Platform(id='pidora', name='Pidora'), Platform(id='pikaos', name='PikaOS'), Platform(id='raspbian', name='Raspbian'), Platform(id='rhel', name='RedHat Enterprise Linux'), Platform(id='rocky', name='Rocky Linux'), Platform(id='scientific', name='Scientific Linux'), Platform(id='slackware', name='Slackware'), Platform(id='sles', name='SUSE Linux Enterprise Server'), Platform(id='slitaz', name='SliTaz GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='solus', name='Solus'), Platform(id='sourcemage', name='Source Mage GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='tuxedo', name='Tuxedo OS'), Platform(id='ubuntu', name='Ubuntu'), Platform(id='ultramarine', name='Ultramarine'), Platform(id='void', name='Void Linux'), Platform(id='wsl1', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v1'), Platform(id='wsl2', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v2'), Platform(id='xenserver', name='XenServer')})

List of platforms supported by the manager.

Allows for a mishmash of platforms and groups of platforms. Will be normalized into a frozenset of Platform instances at instantiation.

requirement: str | None = '>=1.0.0'

The release that moved the package recipes into a repository of their own, giving them a lifecycle Spack can refresh and spack repo update something to update.

pre_args: tuple[str, ...] = ('--no-env',)

Ignore whichever environment the user has activated, so every operation answers for the machine rather than for a project.

property installed: Iterator[Package]

Fetch installed packages.

$ spack --no-env find --format {name}@{version}
apple-clang@21.0.0
compiler-wrapper@1.1.0
gmake@4.4.1
zlib@1.3.1
zlib@1.3.2

search(query, extended, exact)

Fetch matching packages.

Spack matches a query as a substring of the package name, and --search-description widens that to the recipes’ descriptions, which is the extended search. There is no way to narrow it to an exact name, so mpm filters exact matches itself.

$ spack --no-env list --format version_json zlib-ng
[
  {"name": "zlib-ng",
   "latest_version": "2.3.3",
   "versions": ["2.3.3", "2.3.2", "2.2.5", "2.2.4", "2.2.3", "2.2.2", "2.2.1", "2.1.7", "2.1.6", "2.1.5", "2.1.4", "2.0.7", "2.0.0"],
   "homepage": "https://github.com/zlib-ng/zlib-ng",
   "file": "https://github.com/spack/spack-packages/blob/develop/repos/spack_repo/builtin/packages/zlib_ng/package.py",
   "maintainers": ["haampie"],
   "dependencies": {"build": ["gnuconfig", "cxx", "gmake", "ninja", "c", "cmake"], "link": [], "run": [], "test": []}}
]

Return type:

Iterator[Package]

install(package_id, version=None)

Install one package.

A version is pinned by appending it to the name after an @, which is Spack’s own spec syntax rather than a separate argument.

$ spack --no-env install zlib@1.3.1
[ ] 3iyb7mz zlib@1.3.1 staging (0s)
[ ] 3iyb7mz zlib@1.3.1 edit (0s)
[ ] 3iyb7mz zlib@1.3.1 build (1s)
[ ] 3iyb7mz zlib@1.3.1 install (2s)
[+] 3iyb7mz zlib@1.3.1 /opt/homebrew/Cellar/spack/1.2.2/opt/spack/darwin-m1/zlib-1.3.1-3iyb7mzv7ij3w2o43t4nb2pq25az6pt7 (2s)

Return type:

str

remove(package_id)

Remove one package.

--all is required rather than a convenience. Naming a package that the host holds more than one build of is refused outright, with Error: zlib matches multiple packages, so without the flag a removal fails on exactly the hosts Spack exists to serve.

$ spack --no-env uninstall --yes-to-all --all zlib
==> Successfully uninstalled zlib@1.3.1+optimize+pic+shared build_system=makefile platform=darwin os=tahoe target=m1/3iyb7mz
==> Successfully uninstalled zlib@1.3.2+optimize+pic+shared build_system=makefile platform=darwin os=tahoe target=m1/7ib3y53

Return type:

str

cli_names: tuple[str, ...] = ('spack',)

List of CLI names the package manager is known as.

This list of recognized CLI names is ordered by priority. That way we can influence the search of the right binary.

..hint::

This was helpful in the case of the Python transition from 2.x to 3.x, where multiple versions of the same executable were named python or python3.

By default, this property’s value is derived from the manager’s ID (see the MetaPackageManager.__init__ method above).

id: str = 'spack'

Package manager’s ID.

Derived by defaults from the lower-cased class name in which underscores _ are replaced by dashes -.

This ID must be unique among all package manager definitions and lower-case, as they’re used as feature flags for the mpm CLI.

sync()

Sync package metadata.

Pulls the package repository Spack clones on first use, which is where every recipe now lives.

$ spack --no-env repo update
==> builtin: Already up to date.

Return type:

None

virtual: bool = False

Should we expose the package manager to the user?

Virtual package manager are just skeleton classes used to factorize code among managers of the same family.

wikipedia_url: str | None = None

English Wikipedia article about the project, or None when it has none.

Listed last in the links of the manager’s documentation page. The article covers the project that home page names, or is a redirect Wikipedia keeps under the project’s name, landing on the part of a broader article that describes it: Cargo_(software) opens the Cargo section of the Rust article. An article that merely mentions the project does not count, nor does one about a related subject: lazy is a Neovim plugin manager, and the Neovim article is not about it.

Never inherited: the metaclass resets it to None on any class not declaring its own. A subclass often wraps a distinct project, like the six AUR helpers extending pacman, and would otherwise present pacman’s article as its own. Documentation-only, like homepage_url.

cleanup_orphan()

Remove every spec nothing depends on any more.

Reclaims the build dependencies an install pulled in, and the builds a later install superseded. Explicitly installed packages are kept.

$ spack --no-env gc --yes-to-all
==> Successfully uninstalled gmake@4.4.1~guile build_system=generic platform=darwin os=tahoe target=m1/x7otsag
==> Successfully uninstalled apple-clang@21.0.0 build_system=bundle platform=darwin os=tahoe target=aarch64/ti7wjie
==> Successfully uninstalled compiler-wrapper@1.1.0 build_system=generic platform=darwin os=tahoe target=m1/2eppidz

Return type:

None

cleanup_cache()

Scrub the build stages, downloads and caches.

Bootstrap software is deliberately left alone: --bootstrap would remove the concretizer Spack needs before it can resolve anything, so the next operation would have to fetch it again.

$ spack --no-env clean --downloads --misc-cache --python-cache --stage
==> Removing all temporary build stages
==> Removing cached downloads
==> Removing cached information on repositories
==> Removing python cache files

Return type:

None