Re: Where to install files?

[Neil Jerram]

Greg Troxel <address@hidden> writes:

>> > My own view is that a package configured with --prefix=/usr/foo should
>> > install files only under /usr/foo.  This leads me with guile to want
>> > to extend load-path to include guile directories in other prefixes.
>> 
>> On this point I think I disagree with you.  I think there is value in
>> forcing all packages to be loaded - or at least bootstrapped - from a
>> known load-path that is defined by the Guile installation.
>
> To me it's not a question of value.  /usr/pkg belongs to pkgsrc, and
> to first order other stuff (meaning unmanaged and unrecord stuff)
> should not be there.

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing here.  My scheme would support
locations other than under /usr/pkg, so it doesn't conflict with your
last sentence.

That said, I've now modified my proposal to allow locations to be
added dynamically as you've suggested.  I'll post that a little later.

> It's an autoconf (configure script really) directive, or perhaps one
> that's commonly added, meant to specify where config files go,
> defaulting to $(prefix)/etc or $(prefix)/etc/PACKAGE, but commonly
> used to force things to /etc/PACKAGE, especially on systems where
> people want that.

Thanks.

> I kind of like having several standard places within a prefix, as seen
> on NetBSD now:
>
> guile> %load-path
> ("/usr/pkg/share/guile/site" "/usr/pkg/share/guile/1.6"
>  "/usr/pkg/share/guile" ".")
>
> Or rather, if that continues, I'd like to specify extra prefixes, with
> the load path being the cross product of within-prefix places and
> prefixes.  But perhaps also single dirs.

That sounds too complicated to me!  And my way already allows you to
have .../1.6 and .../site when you want them.

> I'd like a load-path directory, with files whose names are irrelevant
> but whose contets are dirs to add to the load path.  This is
> pkg-friendly since they can be deleted and added automatically without
> merge/editing issues, using the fs to represent set semantics.
>
>> > It might also be nice to have a run-time method to 
>> >
>> >   guile-configer --addsearchprefix=/usr/bar
>> >
>> > so that someone building another package to /usr/bar can invoke this
>> > on the system guile to hook in the new path.

My new proposal isn't organized exactly as you suggest, but it allows
the same operations.

Regards,
        Neil