intermediate work on arbitrary types for pkg_attribute

lib/spack/spack/repo.py

@@ -33,6 +33,8 @@
 from llnl.util.compat import Mapping
 from llnl.util.filesystem import working_dir
 
+import spack.util.spack_yaml as syaml
+import ruamel.yaml as ryaml
 import spack.caches
 import spack.config
 import spack.error
@@ -1374,8 +1376,20 @@ def get_pkg_class(self, pkg_name):
         # sets attributes that it used to)
         new_overidden_attrs = {}
         for key, val in new_cfg_settings.items():
-            new_overidden_attrs[key] = getattr(cls, key)
-            setattr(cls, key, val)
+            if hasattr(cls, key):
+                new_overidden_attrs[key] = getattr(cls, key)
+            if isinstance(val, dict):
+                t = val.get("type", "string")
+                v = val["value"]
+                if t == "int":
+                    v = int(v)
+                elif t == "float":
+                    v = float(v)
+                elif t == "boolean":
+                    v = ryaml.load(v)
+                setattr(cls, key, v)
+            else:
+                setattr(cls, key, val)
         if new_overidden_attrs:
             setattr(cls, "overidden_attrs", dict(new_overidden_attrs))
         elif hasattr(cls, "overidden_attrs"):

lib/spack/spack/schema/packages.py

@@ -98,6 +98,21 @@
                                 "type": "boolean",
                             },
                         },
+                        "patternProperties": {
+                            r"\w[\w-]*": {
+                                "type": "object",
+                                "additionalProperties": False,
+                                "properties": {
+                                    "value": {
+                                        "type": "string",
+                                    },
+                                    "type": {
+                                        "type": "string",
+                                        "enum": ["int", "float", "boolean"],
+                                    },
+                                },
+                            },
+                        },
                     },
                     "providers": {
                         "type": "object",

lib/spack/spack/test/concretize_preferences.py

@@ -195,6 +195,27 @@ def test_config_set_url_for_package(self, mutable_mock_repo):
         spec = concretize("mpileaks")
         assert spec.package.fetcher[0].url == "http://www.llnl.gov/mpileaks-2.3.tar.gz"
 
+    def test_config_set_package_property(self, mutable_mock_repo):
+        """Test preferred providers of virtual packages are
+        applied correctly
+        """
+        update_packages(
+            "mpileaks",
+            "package_attributes",
+            {"x": {
+                "value": "1",
+                "type": "int",
+             },
+             "y": {
+                "value": "true",
+                "type": "boolean",
+             }
+            },
+        )
+        spec = concretize("mpileaks")
+        assert spec.package.x == 1
+        assert spec.package.y == True
+
     def test_preferred(self):
         """ "Test packages with some version marked as preferred=True"""
         spec = Spec("python")