Makevars call buildinfo too often

I'm trying to run openCARP on Piz Daint. The main executable works well, and so many tutorials, also in parallel.

In another python script (not written by me, and rather dense) there are some calls to job.carp, which in turn calls settings.makevars very often. Now, makevars uses buildinfo that calls the main executable. On the node, this command doesn't work because it requires MPI (should be run with srun). Adding srun this is overkilling and very slow.

The best would be to avoid calling MPI inside openCARP, when evoked with -buildinfo (similarly to -help). Secondly, you could store makevars internally. For instance:

--- a/carputils/settings/settings.py
+++ b/carputils/settings/settings.py
@@ -75,7 +75,9 @@ class SettingsModule(object):
 
     @property
     def makevars(self):
-        return buildinfo.makevars(self.execs)
+        if not hasattr(self,"_makevars"):
+            self._makevars = buildinfo.makevars(self.execs)
+        return self._makevars
 
     @property
     def execs(self):