Re: GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 9 Oct 2006, at 16:17, Nicola Pero wrote:

> I'd like to propose a new option for gnustep-make ...
>
> GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN
>
> which could take the values SYSTEM / LOCAL / NETWORK / USER.
>
> This option can only be set on the command line, or before including
> common.make ...
> but using it in GNUmakefiles should be discouraged as all packages  
> should
> install by default
> in the default locations ... except for maybe gnustep-base :-)

How would the default locations be defined ... I don't think we want  
the default location for the stuff currently installed in /usr/ 
GNUstep/System or /usr/GNUstep/Local to suddenly be ~/GNUstep

> The meaning of the option is obvious ... it would determine if we  
> install
> into
> System/Local/Network/User (currently you use  
> GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DIR for
> this).
>
> The advantage of this option is that it could work with the Unix (or
> generally 'native')
> filesystem support ... eg, on GNU/Linux,
>
>  make GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN=SYSTEM
>
> would install stuff in /usr, while
>
>  make GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN=LOCAL
>
> would install stuff in /usr/local.

How would that behavior be defined ... eg how do we specify whether  
the SYSTEM domain is /usr rather than /usr/GNUstep/System?
Simply by a configure-time option to gnustep-make to define the  
filesystem layout make is to use?

> We'd still keep GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DIR, but only in the  
> situations that
> used to work
> (ie, GNUstep or Apple filesystem layout), and it would be  
> discouraged to set
> GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DIR inside GNUmakefiles themselves.
>
> In general, GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DIR doesn't work well with the more
> flexible directory layout.
>
> Most of the times you want to set GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DIR to
> GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT, for example,
> but that variable is no longer defined until later inside the  
> GNUmakefiles
> (you're no longer
> supposed to have sourced GNUstep.sh!), and moreover, it might not even
> have much sense if the
> filesystem is not the GNUstep one.
>
> GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN would let you do the same things, but  
> could be
> made to work in
> more general contexts. :-)

I'm  not sure I understand ...
Your examples are setting the domain from the command line, but I  
would have thought that doing it inside the makefile would be common.

That is to say, most packages would want to be installed in the LOCAL  
domain, core packages in the SYSTEM domain, and new code that users  
par developing would probably want to be in the USER domain by  
default ... but you wouldn't want to have to remember to set a  
command-line option to control that every time you typed 'make'.

Is the idea that makefiles would contain code to set the domain if it  
had not already been set at the command line?
eg in the base library makefile something like

ifeq ($(GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN),)
GNUSTEP_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN=SYSTEM
endif

or perhaps
GNUSTEP_DEFAULT_INSTALLATION_DOMAIN=SYSTEM

?