Re: AW: prefix

[Keith Marshall]

A further thought:

On Thursday 01 December 2005 1:54 pm, I wrote:
> On Thursday 01 December 2005 6:40 am, Roesner Thomas wrote:
> > thank you for the replie, "make DESTDIR=`pwd` install" works fine, but
> > i´d like to omit the naming of the installpath in all commands. I´d
> > prefer setting it within the configure.in or Makefile.am.
>
> You _could_ just say `prefix=""', in configure.in -- today, you should
> really be using configure.ac, with autoconf 2.59 -- just before the
> AC_OUTPUT.
>
> However, you really should not do this, as it completely breaks the
> standard behaviour of the entire autotools system -- you are _supposed_ to
> use configure's `--prefix=' option, to achieve what you are trying to do,
> while still giving other users of your package the flexibility to do it as
> they prefer.

OTOH, if what you really want is a personal default setting for prefix, which 
differs from the normally assumed `/usr/local', then add the following to an 
appropriate config.site file -- either your own, specified in the CONFIG_SITE 
environment variable, or the host's central default file (which is normally 
/usr/local/share/config.site):

  ac_default_prefix=`pwd`

(Or specify any suitable absolute path in place of `pwd`, if preferred).

See the `Site Defaults' node, in autoconf's texinfo manual:
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.57/html_node/autoconf_138.html

Regards,
Keith.