Re: finish mode needed for plugins?

[Stefan Kost]

Ralf Wildenhues schrieb:
> * Stefan Kost wrote on Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:01:33PM CET:
>> Ralf Wildenhues schrieb:
>>>> project - we have several hundreds on modules and each has a single build 
>>>> directory.
>>> And each of them has a separate Makefile.am, as opposed to: just a
>>> fragment included by another Makefile.am, doing something like
>>>    pkglib_LTLIBRARIES += module42.la
>> that would work. good idea.
> 
> If that's sufficient for you, then we don't need the rest of the
> proposal.

Not really. It would be quite a effort and I already know that some developers
would not like it.

> 
>>> 2) add an option '--no-finish' to 'libtool --mode=install' to avoid
>>> finish_cmds.  This could be useful not only for modules, but libraries
>>> as well.  You could enable it in all but the last directory in which
>>> you install modules, for example (iff there is a fixed such last one),
>>> or manually add an install-exec-hook someplace run late, that does
>>>   libtool --mode=finish $(pkglibdir)...
>>>
>>> iff DESTDIR is empty (and only in that case!).  Hmm, maybe we should
>>> even transport DESTDIR to such a finish command, to allow libtool to
>>> output the warning for users.
>>>
>>> This change would have the added advantage that automake could, in its
>>> install rule, use -no-finish for all invocations but the last one within
>>> a single installation rule (this bit is only relevant if there is a
>>> directory with very many libraries/modules to install into the same
>>> directory.)
> 
>> I think you lost me a bit on the DESTDIR proposal. About "DESTDIR" you
>> mean the variable beeing empty or the directory beeing empty? I guess
>> its the var. This would still only help if we install multiple files
>> in one go.
> 
> I mean the makefile macro $(DESTDIR).
> 
> Well, maybe I should have expanded more.  What happens with current
> libtool is this: at the end of each
>   $(LIBTOOL) --mode=install $(INSTALL) libfoo.la... $(DESTDIR)$(libdir)...
> 
> execution, libtool executes finish_cmds for $(libdir), iff DESTDIR is
> empty.  (It uses extra knowledge gained from the .la files to find out
> whether DESTDIR is empty.)
> 
> If DESTDIR happens to be not empty, then it does not run finish_cmds but
> warns the user that she has to do this herself, once libraries appear in
> their final locations.

Got that now. Thanks for explanation.

> 
> 
>> I see two ways:
>>
>> 1) The project requests libtool to not run finish_cmds. Not so nice as this
>> might break on some platform. Atleast the project would need to be able to 
>> run
>> libtool --mode=finish manualy then.
> 
> Well.  I do not intend for projects to not run finish_cmds *at all*.
> However, they may know that they have 15 directories which install stuff
> into $(libdir), and wish to only run finish_cmds *once*, afterwards.
> 
> That's the lever I wanted to allow.
> 
> By giving this flexibility out to users comes the responsibility though
> to
> * ensure that --mode=finish is run afterwards,
> * but only once libraries are in their final location (i.e., the
>   makefile may not run it when $(DESTDIR) is nonempty, but should warn).
> 
> Your confusion is a good hint that we should not expose this
> functionality to developers, because the potential for wrong
> use is too high.
>

I see, this could easily become another way to screw up the build.

> 
>> 2) When configuring libtool for a certain platform, it could disable finish
>> commands for modules for platforms where its known to be safe. There could 
>> be a
>> configure option to --finish-cmds-for-modules={on|off|auto}, so that an admin
>> could turn it always on if its needed.
> 
> I disagree.  On systems where finish_cmds are unneeded, they should
> simply be empty.  There is no point the package developer could be
> smarter than libtool here, right?
>

That was what I meant to say. I want the know-how in libtool and not in the
package. When the libtool package is installed on a system, in that configure it
could already select empty finish_cmds for modules if those are not needed on
the platform (this could need a separate finish_cmd variable for modules in
needed in the libtool script).

> 
> Cheers,
> Ralf

Ciao
Stefan