spack · alalazo · Sep 7, 2021 · adamjstewart · Sep 7, 2021 · haampie
diff --git a/seps/sep-0002.md b/seps/sep-0002.md
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Support multiple build-systems per package using a directive
+
+## The problem
+
+There are multiple packages that are either changing their build-system during the evolution of the project, or using different build-systems for different platforms. Spack, at the moment, provides no support to model this use case. As a result we wrote some [documentation](https://github.com/spack/spack/pull/25174) to enumerate various workarounds that people adopted - each with its own drawbacks. What we would like to have in the long term is proper support for packages that can be built using multiple build-systems.
+
+## Proposed changes
+
+What we propose here to add support for packages using multiple build-systems is to __add another directive__ to the package DSL. If we take as an example `hdf5` this would look like:
+```python
+class Hdf5(Package):
+    build_system('cmake', when='@X.Y:')
+    build_system('autotools')
+```
+Each build-system can be subject to a constraint. In the example above, for instance, `cmake` can be used only if the version of `hdf5` is greater or equal than `X.Y` (while `autotools` is always available). 
+
+We can also assume that there is an __implicit preference order__ based on on the order of declaration in the class. In the example above this means that, if no other requests are made by the user, `cmake` is preferred to `autotools` when available.
+
+Build systems can be specified in specs using a key-value pair:
+```
+hdf5 build_system=cmake
+```
+__which requires the keyword `build_system` to be reserved by Spack__ (similarly to what is done for `dev_path`). It is interesting to note that modeling build-systems this way make them similar to signle-valued variants with the only difference that the set of allowed values is "dynamic" and subject to constraints.
-__which requires the keyword `build_system` to be reserved by Spack__ (similarly to what is done for `dev_path`). It is interesting to note that modeling build-systems this way make them similar to signle-valued variants with the only difference that the set of allowed values is "dynamic" and subject to constraints.
+__which requires the keyword `build_system` to be reserved by Spack__ (similarly to what is done for `dev_path`). It is interesting to note that modeling build-systems this way make them similar to single-valued variants with the only difference that the set of allowed values is "dynamic" and subject to constraints.
-__which requires the keyword `build_system` to be reserved by Spack__ (similarly to what is done for `dev_path`). It is interesting to note that modeling build-systems this way make them similar to signle-valued variants with the only difference that the set of allowed values is "dynamic" and subject to constraints.
+__which requires the keyword `build_system` to be reserved by Spack__ (similarly to what is done for `dev_path`). It is interesting to note that modeling build-systems this way make them similar to single-valued variants with the only difference that the set of allowed values is "dynamic" and subject to constraints.
+
+__Each package needs to have one and only one build-system__.
+
+### Overriding build-system phases
+
+Some packages may need to override phases of the build-systems they use and there must be a way to specify which phase for which build-system is overridden. What we propose to use here is a decorator to distinguish among multiple build-systems:
+```python
+class Hdf5(Package):
+    build_system('cmake', when='@X.Y:')
+    build_system('autotools')
+
+    @cmake
+    def build(self, spec, prefix):
+         pass
+
+    @autotools
+    def build(self, spec, prefix):
+         pass
+```
+Using a decorator permits seamlessly to override phases with the same name.
+
+## Implementation at a high-level
+
+Currently the build-system specific methods are grouped in base classes and each package uses them via inheritance. There's a fair amount of machinery with metaclasses that is used to have dynamic phases for each build-system.
+
+To support multiple build-systems we should probably add, as it happens in other directives, a dictionary of builder objects:
+```python
+hdf5.build_system = {
+    'cmake': cmake_builder_obj,
+    'autotools': autotools_builder_obj
+}
+```
+
+Each builder object will accept a _package object tied to a concrete spec_ as argument and contain all the methods that are relevant for building it. 
+
+The main idea is to:
+1. Move things like `phases` and other similar methods into a class of their own
+2. Use a different object for each package so that the package can override these methods if need be 
+3. Have decorators that can monkey patch the object to customize the install phases
+
+Dipatching to the correct build system object happens once we have a concrete spec associated with the package (since the spec coveys information about the build system, we know which one to select).
+
+### Backward compatibility
+
+Most of the packages are currently fine with a single build-system and they inherit almost all of the related methods from a base class:
+
+```python
+class OpenJpeg(CmakePackage):
+	pass
+```
+
+To be backward compatible, if we push the methods and attributes down to a "builder" class, we can maintain the directives in the same base class:
+```python
+class CMakePackage(PackageBase):
+	# Can be overridden if conditional in derived classes
+	build_system('cmake')
+	depends_on('cmake', type='build')
+
+class CMakeBuildSystem(object):
+    phases = [
+        'cmake',
+        'build',
+        'install'
+    ]
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def cmake(pkg, spec, prefix):
+        pass
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def setup_build_environment(pkg, spec, prefix):
+        pass
+```
+When we construct the package object we can check the methods defined on the package to see if there are overrides for the build-system being used, without the 
+need to employ a decorator. 
+
+We can special case this behavior to packages where there's only a single, unconstrained build-system and otherwise require the use of decorators for more clarity.