Allow defining and creating virtual OpenFOAM environments?

[petebachant]

For example, a specific version of OpenFOAM and a set of extension packages with their own versions, like a Conda or virtual environment in Python. This might be overkill since extensions will typically not interact/conflict with each other but seems like a logical next step.

Environments could be defined in YAML like:

name: of-2406-aco
openfoam: v2406
packages:
  - libAcoustics>=1.0

Questions:

1. Should these be stored system-wide with names or should they simply live in a simulation project folder? Conda does the former and venv does the latter.

[gerlero]

@petebachant

For example, a specific version of OpenFOAM and a set of extension packages with their own versions, like a Conda or virtual environment in Python.

I'd say some kind of venv-like environment creation is not out of scope for this package...

This might be overkill since extensions will typically not interact/conflict with each other but seems like a logical next step.

...even if it's not a priority for this exact reason.

Functionally, I believe this would require:

• Hijacking the $FOAM_USER_APPBIN and $FOAM_USER_LIBBIN environment variables (for installing packages)
• Updating the $PATH and $(FOAM)_LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables (for running installed stuff)

name: of-2406-aco
openfoam: v2406
packages:
  - libAcoustics>=1.0

Note that this (or even a simpler, txt-based requirements-like format) would require some kind of versioning support in styro (for the >=1.0 part, whereas styro currently functions as a rolling-release package manager with only the latest version of each package (sort of like Homebrew). We can (should?) take versioning, but that's a different issue AFAIC.

1. Should these be stored system-wide with names or should they simply live in a simulation project folder? Conda does the former and venv does the latter.

Both Pixi and uv (which are kind of the future iterations of those two tools, respectively) do the latter, so I guess we might want to do the same.