Clarification on current state of `olefile` Python package

[follower]

TL;DR:

• Thanks for your work on python-altium.

• It seems the dependency installation situation can now be much simpler than in the past but to gain this:

  • A patch (linked below) to use olefile would need to be committed.
  • The ReadMe would need to be updated to simply instruct people to install olefile via pip.

Context

Thanks for your work on python-altium.

I encountered an issue during installation/first use that I thought I'd document here in case it was helpful for others.

Fork/version issues with OleFileIO/OleFileIO_PL package dependency

It seems that:

• "OleFileIO library. Version 2.4+ of the Pillow fork" no longer exists and Pillow now uses the upstream olefile package. (See: 1, 2, 3, 4)
• Additionally, "version 0.30 of the OleFileIO_PL fork," also no longer exists and has been renamed to be olefile.

Unfortunately the OleFileIO_PL package still seems to exist separately from olefile but presents itself as olefile when installed.

With Python3 in particular this situation seems to lead to problems when first installing olefile, uninstalling olefile and then attempting to install OleFileIO_PL (in part due to pip hiding an error.).

(Further details here: https://github.com/decalage2/olefile/issues/123.)

Use of renamed olefile dependency

Additionally, python-altium doesn't work out of the box with the now "standard" olefile but from looking at the project forks I noticed @martonmiklos has made a patch for this but hasn't yet created a PR for it:

• https://github.com/martonmiklos/python-altium/commit/be51f32908d589deb8c5cf8659b29b5e5e9b416b

I haven't tested the patch yet.

Solution

It seems the dependency installation situation can now be much simpler than in the past but to gain this:

• The patch (linked above) to use olefile would need to be committed.
• The ReadMe would need to be updated to simply instruct people to install olefile via pip.

Edited: Added Pillow-related links. Added link describing install issue.

[martonmiklos]

Hi folks, @follower @vadmium

If you want me to submit a PR just let me know.

[follower]

Thanks for your reply & offer @martonmiklos.

While I obviously have no ability to merge a PR, if what you have is working I think having a PR would at least be helpful for people to apply themselves and/or be more likely to be merged. :)

[vadmium]

I am happy to merge commits directly, but in this case I think I can simplify the change to one line, with no other code changes needed. I pushed a new branch olefile (https://github.com/vadmium/python-altium/compare/olefile), which I’ll merge when I get around to it unless anyone sees any problems.

[vadmium]

Merged the olefile branch, better eleven months later than never :)