Update Calculators to work with ASE v3.23 Profiles

[gelzinyte]

In the the v3.23 release ASE has changed how the file-based calculators are interfaced. In general, that means there's less to do in wfl as users can provide an ase configuration file or a CalculatorProfile as a keyword argument. To stay backwards compatible, wfl can check if CalculatorProfile can be imported (or should it instead check if ASE's version is 3.22 or 3.23?) and default to the old behaviour.

Overview:

• [x] Aims: #313
• [ ] Orca: ASE-3.22 was lightly broken, so I would only update to support the Profile update.
• [ ] Castep: It doesn't look like much has changed. @stenczelt would you be able to run the castep unit tests locally with the latest ASE release?
• [ ] Espresso: Similar update to Aims
• [ ] Mopac: No "Profile" changes, to be re-tested locally.
• [x] Vasp: No "Profile" changes, @noambernstein could you test it with ASE v3.23 locally? #317

[bernstei]

I recently tested VASP, but not sure if it was pre or post 3.23. Let me make sure.

[bernstei]

@gelzinyte do we need calculator tests with various ways of specifying the executable (argument vs. env var vs. profile)?

[bernstei]

espresso is currently very messy. I'd love to find a way to simplify. Maybe we should make a more conscious decision of what to support.

[bernstei]

There is a small bug in vasp. command works, but calculator_exec does not. I have a fix. Should I add it to the existing aims PR?

[gelzinyte]

@gelzinyte do we need calculator tests with various ways of specifying the executable (argument vs. env var vs. profile)?

That would help with future ASE updates 🙃

There is a small bug in vasp. command works, but calculator_exec does not. I have a fix. Should I add it to the existing aims PR?

Let's keep different calculators' updates in separate PRs?

I'll move non-Aims discussion from #313 here:

I agree in principle. In that case, can we avoid doing anything with the keywords, and assume the user is passing the right ones (consistent with whatever ASE versions they have installed)? Or does that conflict with, e.g. the fact that we want each job to run in a separate subdirectory (e.g. for VASP)?

What do we think about doing nothing to the keywords, then, and leaving it up to people to pass the keywords that make sense for their ASE version? Is that feasible, or does the fact that we want to run each job in a separate subdirectory make that impossible?

I think running jobs in separate directories introduces extra keywords (keep_files, rundir_prefix, workdir, scrachdir) without needing to mess with any of the ASE Calculators' keywords, no? I've never worked with VASP, is that different?

I would be up for leaving the keywords alone, to be worked out by the user. Should we remove any changes to the calculator kwargs? That would break some of wfl's current interface (e.g. calculator_exec wouldn't be used anymore). In ASE 3.22, as far as I can tell, most of messing with ase's kwargs was because ASE wasn't internally consistent, so wfl was allowing for "calculator_exec" and then were parsing that into the correct format (e.g. for orca command = claculator_exec + PREFIX.inp > PREFIX.out, but user can give command themselves). I'll update the checklist above with what the consequences of removing calculator_exec (or any other such updates) would be

[bernstei]

I think that we have few enough users that breaking the interface is OK. Maybe we can check for neither "command" nor "profile" in kwargs, and give a warning (or even an error, but that would break if ASE ever switches again) that we no longer modify kwargs and you need to figure out what works with your ASE version. We can even summarize the simplest way to get it to work in the warning message.

[bernstei]

@gelzinyte do you want to use the Aims PR as a test for this approach, or should we just drop that and do all of them in a single PR, simplifying by dropping the kwargs modification code.

[gelzinyte]

I think that we have few enough users that breaking the interface is OK. Maybe we can check for neither "command" nor "profile" in kwargs, and give a warning (or even an error, but that would break if ASE ever switches again) that we no longer modify kwargs and you need to figure out what works with your ASE version. We can even summarize the simplest way to get it to work in the warning message.

Sounds good. Note that neither command nor profile are necessary, because it seems that ase prefers a configuration file anyway and raises an error if it's not present. So I think even not raising a warning is ok, I'd simply add a note in version changes and update docs.

@gelzinyte do you want to use the Aims PR as a test for this approach, or should we just drop that and do all of them in a single PR, simplifying by dropping the kwargs modification code.

I'd rather not mix different calculator updates. I'll do Aims.

[bernstei]

I'd rather not mix different calculator updates. I'll do Aims.

you really want to do [edited: 6] (?) PRs? OK by me, but I'll make you set them all up :)

[bernstei]

Looks like the fact that we're using a random, latest ASE version is now breaking unrelated tests (e.g. #316). It'd be nice to fix this so we can specifically test with 3.23.0

[jungsdao]

I have modified espresso.py to make it compatible with new ASE version. It's not much of modification, just deleting a few lines from existing file. But I don't think it will work with previous version. I'll be happy to make PR or contribute in some way if this will help reducing overall workloads.

[bernstei]

I updated wfl.calculators.vasp to simplify in the way we decided (#317), but since Vasp can use a different executable for gamma-point only, there's still some of the kwargs mangling code left. When I run the tests locally, it fails some quantum espresso test (in test_remote_run.py), but I'm hoping that once those are xfailed as part of the Aims PR #313 and merged into this branch, all the tests will pass.