Re: Directory names hard-coded in Texinfo Perl scripts

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 08:58:04AM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> No, I think this was before 6.7.  If I compare makeinfo between 6.6
> and 6.7, I see that these parts were modified:
> 
>     # To find Texinfo::ModulePath
>     if (!defined($ENV{'top_builddir'})) {
>       $ENV{'top_builddir'} = File::Spec->catdir($command_directory, $updir);
>       $ENV{'top_srcdir'} = File::Spec->catdir($command_directory, $updir);
>     }
> [...]
>   my $srcdir;
>   if (defined($ENV{'top_srcdir'})) {
>     $srcdir = File::Spec->catdir($ENV{'top_srcdir'}, 'tp');
>   } else {
>     $srcdir = $command_directory;
>   }
> 
> I'm not sure my understanding is correct, but it looks like makeinfo
> 6.6 was using the directory where makeinfo resides to find the other
> files and directories, and that enabled relocation of the installed
> tree to be rooted at a directory different from what was specified as
> the value of --prefix at configure time.
> 
> I hope I explained the situation; if not, please ask more questions.

This was a confusing part of the program and it's likely the changes
were to make it easier to understand.  Some of the code here was to support
running the uninstalled program.  The code there setting environment
variables based on the command directory was for the uninstalled case.
The installed case still refers to the configure-time values.

I've tried testing it with a custom installation directory, like

$ mkdir PREFIX
$ ./configure --prefix=/home/g/src/texinfo/GIT/PREFIX

After make install, with "cd PREFIX" and "find ." lists quite a lot of
installed files, the most important being the Perl modules themselves
as well as texi2any.  There are also loadable modules as well
as the locale translation files.

Then testing moving the installed files...

$ mkdir foo
$ mv PREFIX/ foo
$ cd foo/PREFIX
$ bin/texi2any --help
Can't locate Texinfo/ModulePath.pm in @INC (you may need to install the 
Texinfo::ModulePath module) (@INC contains: 
/home/g/src/texinfo/GIT/PREFIX/share/texinfo 
/home/g/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.28.0 /etc/perl 
/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.26.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.26.1 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.26 /usr/share/perl5 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.26 /usr/share/perl/5.26 
/usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at bin/texi2any 
line 84.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at bin/texi2any line 87.


I couldn't see from Texinfo 6.6 how texi2any managed to find its modules in
this situation.  I tried building and installing it the same way:

$ cd foo/PREFIX/
$ bin/texi2any --help
Can't locate Texinfo/ModulePath.pm in @INC (you may need to install the 
Texinfo::ModulePath module) (@INC contains: 
/home/g/src/texinfo/oldreleases/texinfo-6.6/PREFIX/share/texinfo 
/home/g/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.28.0 /etc/perl 
/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.26.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.26.1 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.26 /usr/share/perl5 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.26 /usr/share/perl/5.26 
/usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base) at bin/texi2any 
line 83.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at bin/texi2any line 86.
$ pwd
/home/g/src/texinfo/oldreleases/texinfo-6.6/foo/PREFIX


You see that the same error message is output.

Two questions:

* Is this what you need to work and is the error that you get that
Texinfo/ModulePath.pm couldn't be found?
* If so, when did this work. as you can see it doesn't appear to work
with Texinfo 6.6?