Add conda-forge pacakge

[IslamAlam]

Hey 👋 JPY developer team,

I have created a PR for conda package to make it easier to install the JPY and later ESA-SNAP.

The PR has been built successfully:
conda-forge/staged-recipes#20862

Please let me know if you wanna add any of the contributors to the maintenance list.

FYI, I am working on SNAP conda package as well. As soon as, this PR is merged, I will push the SNAP package too.
conda-forge/staged-recipes#18709

[devinrsmith]

Thanks for the ping. I'm not very familiar with the conda / conda-forge building - the building process for jpy is pretty intricate, and has some architecture OS-specific concerns that I don't think are captured well by the default setup.py.

For example, to create a re-distributable wheel, certain workarounds are invoked during the build process:

• https://github.com/jpy-consortium/jpy/blob/master/.github/env/Linux/bdist-wheel.sh

Most of the process is captured https://github.com/jpy-consortium/jpy/blob/master/.github/workflows/build.yml, but there are some steps (macOS M1) that aren't fully automated yet.

Is it possible to simply repackage the existing wheel files from PyPi? https://pypi.org/project/jpy/0.12.0/#files

[IslamAlam]

@devinrsmith After merging it to conda, I can update it with the published wheel. 
Version 8 and 9 of SNAP is only compatible with the jpy v0.9.0. Hence, I need this version to pin for SNAP conda package.

Afterward, I will repackage the other versions' existing wheel files from PyPi.

[IslamAlam]

@devinrsmith

Regarding this comment: conda-forge/staged-recipes#20952 (comment)

What is the most appropriate way to test the package for a successful build?
Would this be sufficient to only import jpy?

jpy/src/test/python/jpy_array_test.py

Line 8 in 488fd4c

import jpy

Would you like to be added as a maintainer for the package?

[IslamAlam]

Do you think that it would be possible to build the wheel and publish it for an older version?

Hence, I could just use the published wheel for the older version, and would be a little work to update it to the latest version.

[devinrsmith]

@IslamAlam - sorry, I missed these questions.

I / we (https://github.com/deephaven) started maintaining jpy and publishing new releases (PyPi wheels) starting with 0.11.0, which includes non-trivial changes to the build process and CI. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the bandwidth to investigate what it would take to support doing the same for older releases.

Is it possible that you could update to newer jpy releases? I'd be happy to help with any migration concerns you might have. There are also other community members who would like newer jpy releases in conda, so I'm investigating what that would take right now.

[devinrsmith]

What is the most appropriate way to test the package for a successful build?
Would this be sufficient to only import jpy?

I think there are two tests that should be done to make sure things look correct:

1. Start java from python (jpyutil.init_jvm)
2. Start python from java (io.jpy.PyLib#startPython)

Of course, there is a lot of additional tests to ensure all the features and functionality work as expected (lots of details on the boundary crossings between java and c python).

[ilyanoskov]

I second this, it's very much needed