Re: Is it possible to set the permission bits used by the default install target in a Makefile.am?

[Nick Bowler]

Hello Craig,

On 2019-03-13, Craig Sanders <address@hidden> wrote:
> Is it possible to set the permission bits used by the default install
> target in a Makefile.am?
>
> To help try and illustrate what I mean, I present a code snippet from one
> of my Makefie.am files.
>
>>>>>>>>>>> Begin code snippet >>>>>>>>>>
>
> gimpdir = ${prefix}
>
> gimp_SCRIPTS = scaleAndSetSize.py \
>                ScaleAndSetSizeClass.py
>
> .PHONY: install
> install:
>
>     mkdir -p ${prefix}
>     ${INSTALL} -m 544 scaleAndSetSize.py ${prefix}
>     ${INSTALL} -m 444 ScaleAndSetSizeClass.py ${prefix}
>
> <<<<<<<<<< End code snippet <<<<<<<<<<
>
> My problem with this code snippet is - I don't like the fact that I have
> overridden the default install target to get the files installed with the
> permission bits set the way I want. Rather, I'd like to have the default
> install target do the install work for me, using permission bits that I
> would like to specify. Does anybody know if this is possible?

Automake uses INSTALL_SCRIPT to install scripts, which is normally provided
by AC_PROG_INSTALL from Autoconf (and is set to INSTALL).  You can set
this explicitly in Makefile.am to something different (or change the
value in configure).

However, that's probably a pain because you want different permissions
for different files.

One option would be to use both xxx_DATA and xxx_SCRIPTS, which are
installed by INSTALL_DATA and INSTALL_SCRIPT, respectively (this is the
only practical difference between xxx_DATA and xxx_SCRIPTS).  You can
then adjust those variables separately as desired.

Alternately you can use install-local[1] instead, to get more flexibility
but without replacing the standard "install" target.  Try to respect
DESTDIR as well, and prefer $(MKDIR_P) over open-coding mkdir -p.
For example (totally untested):

  544_scripts = scaleAndSetSize.py
  444_scripts = ScaleAndSetSizeClass.py

  install-local: install-my-scripts
  install-my-scripts:
        $(MKDIR_P) "$(DESTDIR)$(gimpdir)"
        $(INSTALL) -m 544 $(544_scripts) "$(DESTDIR)$(gimpdir)"
        $(INSTALL) -m 444 $(444_scripts) "$(DESTDIR)$(gimpdir)"
  .PHONY: install-my-scripts

Consider a corresponding uninstall target as well:

  uninstall-local: uninstall-my-scripts
  uninstall-my-scripts:
        test ! -d "$(DESTDIR)$(gimpdir)" && cd "$(DESTDIR)$(gimpdir)" && \
          rm -f $(544_scripts) $(444_scripts)
  .PHONY: uninstall-my-scripts

Something like that should be just as good as what you get from the
built-in "install" rule (be sure to test with 'make distcheck').

Hope that helps,
  Nick