Orcus 0.19.0, Apache Arrow and CMake

[Ilmari Lauhakangas]

On 29.9.2023 4.16, Kohei Yoshida wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I just upgraded on the master branch the orcus library to the latest 
> version of 0.19.0.  This version includes an experimental support for 
> Apache Parquet format import, but it relies on an external library 
> called Apache Arrow[1].  The support for this file format is disabled in 
> the libreoffice build.
> 
> To enable support for Parquet, we would need to also build the Apache 
> Arrow library and its dependency libraries, all of which use CMake as 
> their build systems.
> 
> Now, it's my understanding that we still don't support use of CMake to 
> build our external libraries. My question is, what do people think of 
> adding support for CMake in our build system? Would that be too much 
> effort and not worth it, or would it be worthwhile to add support for 
> it, but so far it has not been anybody's priority, or ... ?
> 
> Please let me know what your opinions are.
> 
> As an aside, if someone wants to try out this experimental parquet 
> import filter, one can build orcus independently with 
> --with-parquet-filter passed to configure after also having built the 
> apache arrow library, apply this change
> 
> https://github.com/kohei-us/core/commit/ae1390947246e44a6cd3d9b8af8c46b60619a698
> 
> then build libreoffice with --with-system-orcus.  Then you should be 
> able to simply open a parquet file and Calc should open.
> 
> Kohei
> 
> [1] https://github.com/apache/arrow

Hi,

I would be happy to see work on Meson support continue and its CMake 
module should solve what you propose.
https://mesonbuild.com/CMake-module.html#cmake-module
"It also supports the usage of CMake based subprojects"

Ilmari