Developer Setup

This explains what you need to set up Vespa if you want to make changes to the code, GUI and/or database. It assumes you know a bit about Python, the command line, how to use SVN, etc.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites are described in the installation instructions. You can skip the prerequisites if all you want to do is look at the code (or run the dependency checker described below). But in order to run Vespa, you need to satisfy all of the prerequisites.

In addition, you also need a Subversion client.

When working out your dependencies, you might find Vespa's dependency checker useful –

python -m vespa.check_dependencies

If you've already installed Vespa the "normal" way on your machine, you need to uninstall it before creating a development setup. (If you don't, you'll have two copies of the Vespa code on your machine and both you and Python will get very confused as to which set of code is executing.) To uninstall, follow [SetupPy#UninstallingorUnwindingaBrokenInstall the uninstall instructions]. Removing the data directory is optional.

Getting the Source Code from SVN

1. Decide where your source tree is going to live. For this example, I'm going to install in /home/me/work
2. Check out the Vespa source code. If you have read/write access:

    svn co https://scion.duhs.duke.edu/svn/vespa/trunk  /home/me/work/vespa
   

   For guest (read-only) access, which everyone has:

    svn co http://scion.duhs.duke.edu/guest_svn/vespa/trunk   /home/me/work/vespa
   

3. Find your Python's site-packages directory and add a plain text file called vespa.pth that contains the fully-qualified path to your vespa/vespa directory (which contains __init__.py, the directories for analysis, simulation, etc.). Here's the contents of vespa.pth for this example –

    /home/me/work/vespa/vespa
   

   This command should tell you where site-packages resides –

    python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib())"
   

   It might be called dist-packages under some Linux versions.

4. Optional: If you're using Analysis, you might want some sample data with which to work. For now, that's in a separate Subversion repository from vespa. Vespa doesn't care where these files live on your local hard drive, so you can put this directory anywhere you like. In this example, I'm going to leave it under vespa.

    svn co https://scion.duhs.duke.edu/svn/sample_data    /home/me/work/vespa/sample_data
   

You're ready to start hacking!

Running Vespa Applications

To run any of the apps, type

   python /home/me/work/vespa/vespa/NAME_OF_APP/src/main.py

where NAME_OF_APP is one of pulse, simulation, analysis, or priorset. Depending on which Python you're using, you might need to use pythonw instead of python.

Debug Settings in vespa.ini

Developers usually want to add some [IniFiles#DebugEntriesinvespa.ini useful debugging settings] to vespa.ini.

User Interface Modifications (wxPython and wxGlade)

If you want to modify the GUI, you'll also need to install wxGlade.

wxGlade on WindowsIf you're a Windows user, be sure to

[InstallingWxGladeUnderWindows read this note about installing wxGlade properly].

All wxGlade UsersMake sure you

[WxGladeCustomControls read this note about configuring wxGlade] to use our custom controls, regardless of what platform you are using.

Note that the technical documentation has a whole section on wx-related topics, including [WxTipsBugsAndQuirks tips, bugs and quirks].

Database Modifications

Editing the database is described in ChangingTheDatabaseStructure.