install directory for add-on's

[Dan McMahill]

I have an open source package that I develop/maintain and among other
things I have a mex interface to it.  The package uses the usual
autoconf/automake build system.  The question is about the best way to
pick the install directory for the .mex files as well as the .m files
that have the help for the functions.

I've used the output of

octave-config --print LOCALVEROCTFILEDIR

and appended ${PACKAGE}-${VERSION} to it.  This works nicely if I
install the package as the same user as I installed octave.  However, if
octave were installed by a sysadmin into /usr/local or some such
location, it is more difficult for a single non-root user of the system
to compile my package and access it.  In that case, addpath()'s can be
added to ~/.octaverc but my real question is how should I make my
package honor --prefix while at the same time doing something reasonable
with LOCALVEROCTFILEDIR?

I suppose I could add a --with-site-oct= option for users who want to
ignore the octave-config output, but I really prefer that

./configure --prefix=${HOME}/opt

Just Work for folks.

Anyway, is there any sort of established best practice for this case?

Thanks
-Dan

p.s. If you wonder "why .mex instead of .oct" it is because the
limitations of mex are not issues for this package and mex let me
support octave, scilab, and matlab in one shot.