Patch Mathematica wrapper (RefpropLink) to better locate NIST REFPROP DLL

henningjp commented 8 months ago

Several changes made to the RefpropLink paclet to better locate NIST REFPROP DLLs when installed in a non-standard location. Changes in Mathematica paclet structure caused method of storing path locations as resources was failing.

Changes include:

Checking for RPprefix environment variable first (set by REFPROP installation)
Fixing SetDLL[1] and SetPath[1] functions to store alternate locations in paclet resource file using MM13+ paclet structure
Allowing SetDLL[-1] and SetPath[-1] to simply return current paths for DLL and Fluids location for debugging purposes
Fixed output diagnostics to user when REFPROP DLL is not found on loading RefpropLink and provide better instructions on mitigating actions
Update README and Mathematica documentation pages.
Update the RefpropLink patch release to 1.1.1

Testing

Re-installed REFPROP 10.0 and 10.0.0.2 to non-standard location on separate drive and successfully tested loading of DLL
Installed REFPROP 9.1 in non-standard location and successfully tested loading of DLL
Changed location of DLL, both temporarily and permanently, using SetDLL[]
Changed location of FLUIDS/MIXTURES files, both temporarily and permanently, using SetPath[]
Monitored paclet resource file for proper behavior in all of the above tests.

Additional Information

Updated documentation notebooks (*.nb files) will be difficult to review without Mathematica as there are many esoteric Wolfram language changes when small changes are made to the notebooks.
Main package RefpropLink.wl is python-like and should be easy enough to review
All testing is complete and ready to merge.

Related Issues

Fixes #581

henningjp commented 8 months ago

Hmm...

As in the comment above, the paclet will only load on Windows 64-bit and Mathematica 13+, for now.

Bitness

As of Mathematica 13, which the wrapper is limited to through the paclet, only 64-bit OS versions are supported. So we only need to search for the 64-bit REFPRP64 library.

OS Version

Mathematica 13+ supports Windows, MacOS, and various Linux versions. See MM13 System Requirements and MM14 System Requirements. I have no way to test MacOS or Linux versions (or Mathematica licenses to do so). However,

Care was taken to use the OS independent file operation commands in Mathematica, so that any path operations should work on MacOS and Linux as well. Mathematica handles this nicely.
The only pieces that could be problematic are:
- The initialization of the $dllPath and $NISTPath variables to a Windows path structure, but this should be overwritten by either the $RPprefix setting or the paths set in the paclet resource file as set by SetDLL[] and/or SetPath[].
- The inability to search the OS $Path for "REFPRP64.DLL" or "REFPROP64.so" (I'm relying solely on $RPprefix, which may not be set on Linux?)
- If on Linux, the file needed would have a ".so" extension (I think) and on macOS (some other extension?)

That said, there is a note in the README.md that states (under Prerequisites):

NOTE: Development and testing of this wrapper has been entirely on a Microsoft Windows 
installation using Mathematica 13 and REFPROP 10. This wrapper should work on a Linux 
installation, but will require testing and may require some code modification. Care has been 
taken to ensure that the paclet code uses Mathematica's OS-independent file manipulation tools.

However, I've actually tested it so far on Mathematica 13/14, Windows 10/11, and with REFPROP 9.1 and REFPROP 10.0.0.x. I'll update the README in a subsequent PR.

ianhbell commented 8 months ago

Shall we stop here with windows support and go for other platforms after?

henningjp commented 8 months ago

Yeah, maybe. If there's another patch needed, Windows is all I got.

I don't have a Linux box or a Mac to build and test it. I can probably set up a Linux box on some spare hardware, but I don't know if I can get a Mathematica license for it ($). I'll dig into it. I'm not getting a Mac anytime soon. We only use Mathematica at work on Windows, so that was the focus. So, unless we can find someone else to help out...

A NIST grant for hardware and licenses? 😆 🤣

ianhbell commented 8 months ago

Ok, I'll merge this one.

I don't think any additional support is forthcoming from my side because I think Mathematica is not one of the most popular interfaces of REFPROP.

usnistgov / REFPROP-wrappers