Re: automake-1.11 test failure on darwin9 - instmany-python.test

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Matthias, Peter,

* Matthias Klose wrote on Thu, May 21, 2009 at 08:11:49AM CEST:
> Peter O'Gorman schrieb:
> > This patch works for me. Thoughts?

> > 2009-??-??  Peter O'Gorman <address@hidden>
> >         m4/python.m4: Ensure that pythondir and pyexecdir are below
> > ${prefix}.
> 
> why special case /usr and /usr/local? It undoes the effect that
> get_python_lib *can* return something on it's own, which was the
> intention of the original patch.

The logic is pretty intricate: the result of get_python_lib is taken
into account
- whenever it does not change the initial ($prefix) portion of the
  directory, or
- whenever it also changes the initial portion of the directory and
  the --prefix passed to configure was /usr, /usr/local, or /System...
  or defaulted.

That aims to ensure that if you do
  ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local

as non-root user, you have a chance to actually install your python
files below $HOME, too, even with the buggy python on that Mac OS X
release.  Similarly with other --prefix values that clearly point
outside of the normal system root: why should the python files be
installed in system directories in that case?  If that would really
be desired, then we should probably provide for a straightforward way to
override the choices done by the macro.  (There is such an override now,
but only at 'make all'/'make install' time, by overriding the related
make variables.

We could limit this patch to $am_cv_python_platform = darwin, but I'm
not sure whether that would be necessary at all.

However, I have a few questions to the patch myself:

How come you added that /System/Library* thingy rather than just
/System*?

What about --prefix=/usr/ and similar variants?  The stripping of
trailing slashes has only been added to Autoconf after 2.63.

BTW, would excluding /usr/local even be desirable?  Can't there be a
python hierarchy below /usr/local either?


I suggest a much more verbose ChangeLog entry, maybe something like

    python: do not install in system directories on Darwin 9.

    On Darwin 9, get_python_lib returns a path below `/Library/Python'
    regardless of the `prefix' argument it was passed, causing `make
    install' to target the system directories regardless of `--prefix'
    argument used.  Work around this Darwin bug by ignoring the result
    of get_python_lib if it points outside of the passed prefix, and
    the prefix was not a system directory.

    * m4/python.m4 (AM_PATH_PYTHON): If the prefix does not match the
    initial portion of the pythondir returned by get_python_lib, then
    ignore it unless the configured prefix is `/usr', `/usr/local',
    or starts with `/System/Library'.  Fixes instmany-python.test
    failure on Mac OS X 10.5.7.
    * NEWS: Update.

and maybe for a NEWS entry

* Long standing bugs:

  - On Darwin 9, `pythondir' and `pyexecdir' pointed below `/Library/Python'
    even if the `--prefix' argument pointed outside of a system directory.
    AM_PATH_PYTHON has been fixed to ignore the value returned from python's
    `get_python_lib' function in that case now.


WDYT?

Thanks,
Ralf