Re: make install not overwriting progname.conf

[Roger Leigh]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2002 at 12:42:03PM +0200, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> I've been unable to find out how to achieve this behaviour :
> make installs config file in a directory
> if a config file already exists then
>     write to progname.conf.new
>     warn the user about possible changes
> else
>     write to progname.conf
> fi
> 
> I don't want the config files to the installed in sthing like share/,
> and let the user copy them manually, because the program typically
> installs in $HOME/progname (I've already managed to use automake for
> that)

This is just my own opinion, but what you want is not the responsibility
of automake.  This get getting to the point where you should be thinking
about using a package management system, for example dpkg, which allows
configuration files to be upgraded without losing data (if you choose to
replace the old, the old one is backed up with a .dpkg-old suffix, and if
you keep it, the new copy has a .dpkg-new suffix, such that you can merge
differences by hand).

I package quite a few Debian packages, and more often than not, I add
automake support, purely for use with the package build.

As an alternative, you could always write your own install-local target to
handle this special case.  Just copy the install-data rule and customise
it.

-- 
Roger Leigh
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