Remove the need for the GDAL_DATA environment variable

[pelson]

It is causing us to have to workaround the problem elsewhere, and would be nice to avoid if possible (even if it means a patch).

Not a huge priority, but it would be helpful to keep a list of places that the GDAL_DATA information has leaked out of this feedstock:

• https://github.com/conda-forge/staged-recipes/pull/159/files#r59058552

[gillins]

Do we know why this isn't set in the _test environment? Should it be fixed in conda instead?
There must be other packages that have the same problem (ie requiring an environment variable to be set).

[ocefpaf]

Do we know why this isn't set in the _test environment? Should it be fixed in conda instead?

I just checked a fresh install and I notice that we have a bug

conda create --name GDAL --channel conda-forge python=2.7 gdal=1.11.4
source activate GDAL
echo $GDAL_DATA
/home/filipe/miniconda/pkgs/libgdal-2.0.0-0/share/gdal

That directory does not exist. I will take a closer look at this.

[gillins]

Seems fine for me. Do you have $GDAL_DATA set outside of Conda? The activate script won't change it if you have (perhaps it should?).

[ocefpaf]

Do you have $GDAL_DATA set outside of Conda?

Nope. As you can see installed gdal=1.11.4, but the env var is pointing to libgdal-2.0.0.

[gillins]

On my machine I get a different result:

conda create --name GDAL1 --channel conda-forge python=3.5 gdal=1.11.4
source activate GDAL1
echo $GDAL_DATA
/home/sam/miniconda3/envs/GDAL1/etc/conda/activate.d/../../../share/gdal
conda create --name GDAL2 --channel conda-forge python=3.5 gdal=2.0.2
source activate GDAL2
echo $GDAL_DATA
/home/sam/miniconda3/envs/GDAL2/etc/conda/activate.d/../../../share/gdal

Which seems correct, so that's why I was wondering if you had $GDAL_DATA set elsewhere maybe in your ~/.bashrc?

[ocefpaf]

Which seems correct, so that's why I was wondering if you had $GDAL_DATA set elsewhere maybe in your ~/.bashrc?

I was going to answer: I never set variables in my ~/.zshrc! But it seems that I forgot this

export GDAL_DATA=$HOME/miniconda/pkgs/libgdal-2.0.0-0/share/gdal

since last SciPy and the geo-processing tutorial!

So... Sorry 😳

@pelson I guess GDAL is OK setting the env var. The problem is really conda and the _test env.