Re: guile & automake

[Robert Uhl <address@hidden>]

Marius Vollmer <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> I would say that it is not in general OK for a package to install
> things under a different prefix than it was configured with.

Yeah, there's that too.  It's a somewhat tricky problem, I think.  On
the one hand, guile wants all code in a convenient spot.  OTOH, admins
may have a real reason to install guile in /usr, another package in
/usr/local and still another in /opt/$(PACKAGE).

> I was arguing that just hardcoding $(datadir)/guile instead of using
> a fixed GUILE_SITE_DIR is OK.

That or using $(pkgdatadir) does the Right Thing, in terms of going
where the admin wants it.  But not necessarily the Right Thing
otherwise:-(

> Yes.  When Guile is installed by a distribution into /usr, I'd say
> it should have /usr/local/share/guile (etc.) in its search path by
> default.

My only problem with that is that those are not the _only_ locations
for installed software.  However, they're pretty much the only sane
locations therefor, so I'm not too concerned.

Incidentally, for a tool which combines the easy use of /usr/local and
the easy uninstallation of /opt, take a look at stow.  Not perfect
(e.g. handles info _very_ poorly--although that's partially info's
fault), but worth a look.

> I think the best a package can do is warn when the location where it
> is going to install its Scheme modules is not currently in the load
> path of Guile, and print instructions on how to fix that.

That's probably not a pretty good idea.  It'd be similar to what
libtool does.  Of course, those go scrolling by way too fast, but most
users, I think, scroll back the first time and after that know what
they mean.  So the guile version should be visually different, in
order to disambiguate what it is.

> This could be packaged into a autoconf macro, of course.

Is there a standard guile.m4 floating around somewhere?  I just pulled
mine out of some package...

-- 
Robert Uhl <address@hidden>
Those who beat their swords into ploughs will plough for those that don't.