Re: Adding a --preserve= option to install

[Anthony G. Basile]

On 06/07/2013 07:53 PM, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Anthony G. Basile wrote:
> > Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > > I don't suppose you could use `cp` rather than `install` for this
> > > use case?
> > Using cp instead of install would be a long shot here for our
> > package manager people but I can talk to them.
> Why?  What makes cp scary?  (I would be inclined to use rsync.)
>
> > I'm bothered by the asymmetry between cp and install because I'd
> > like my "make install" to be able to have options to preserve
> > metadata selectively, ownership, perms and xattrs.
> But "make" reads a Makefile and performs the stated actions.  There
> isn't anything magical about "make install".  You can still type in
> "make install" and it will run whatever is in the Makefile.  It could
> be written up to use 'install' or 'cp' or 'rsync' or some combination
> of all of the above and it will still be "make install".
>
> Bob
You're thinking from the point of view of someone writing a Makefile.  
The point is Gentoo is a distro and we have to do this distro wide 
through our package management system on tens of thousands of packages 
with already written build systems where "make install" means running 
install.  We're thinking along the lines of either exporting INSTALL or 
setting ac_cv_path_install.

--
Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Gentoo Linux Developer [Hardened]
E-Mail    : address@hidden
GnuPG FP  : 1FED FAD9 D82C 52A5 3BAB  DC79 9384 FA6E F52D 4BBA
GnuPG ID  : F52D4BBA