Re: Proposal question.

[Pascal Bourguignon]

> Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 13:03:01 +0100 (BST)
> From: Nicola Pero <nicola@brainstorm.co.uk>
> 
> > > The general idea is that that is done via unix-like configuration files,
> > > basically a very simple ~/.GNUsteprc.
> > 
> > What's wrong with:
> > 
> >        . /usr/local/GNUstep/System/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
> >        export GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT=$HOME/GNU-I-prefer-it-named-such-STEP 
> 
> Good question :-) - it's technical and I suppose there must already be a
> long thread archived about that somewhere.
> 
> I'm likely not good at explaining that - anyway, basically, to support
> properly the API and programs changing user, gnustep-base needs to be able
> to determine the gnustep user root dir of a generic user (particularly, of
> a user which is not the user the library originally started as).
> 
> If the generic user customizes his own gnustep user root dir by setting a
> shell variable in his ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile ... there is no way we can
> get it from inside gnustep-base running originally for another user.
> 
> Setting it inside a ~/.GNUsteprc solves the problem.
> 
> It's not particularly more complicated than setting GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT ...
> actually maybe even easier - and likely much easier to be changed/setup in
> a reliable but automatical way by software.

May be I should object to such programs, then.

Do you realize  that a given user may  have several GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT,
and that his .profile may select automatically one or the other (along
with  different GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT and  GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT) depending
on various circumstances.  The simpliest  of which may be a NFS-shared
home   directory   mounted   on   various   systems   with   different
architectures.


Please, tell me what can of action these programs would do?  

Why can't they work only on GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT and GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT?

What good reason may have them to mess with one user's environment?



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