Re: [Groff] Macro path and /usr/local

[P. Alejandro Lopez-Valencia]

At 01:52 a.m. 06/05/2002 +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> Now, I'm somewhat confused by this part of groff/Makefile.in:
>
>   # systemtmacdir says where to install platform-dependent macros
>   systemtmacdir=$(libprogramdir)/site-tmac
>
>   # localtmacdir says where local files will be installed
>   localtmacdir=$(dataprogramdir)/site-tmac
>
> Since I build with --prefix=/usr, libprogramdir is /usr/lib/groff while
> dataprogramdir is /usr/share/groff. I have to say that I can't think of
> any plausible reason for platform-dependent (does this mean
> architecture-dependent?) macros, and I think localtmacdir ought to point
> to something in /usr/local. Can anyone clarify the intent of these
> comments for me?

If you use a vendor unix there is a high probability that you already have 
a version of DWB installed, no matter how lobotomized it be. As your manual 
pages depend on that version of DWB, you don't want to foobar it blindly 
overwriting it with groff. Yet, you do want to wrap those macros for use 
with groff in compatibility mode.

For example, Solaris has a somewhat complete version version of DWB 3.2 (no 
pic, chem, gremlin nor grap). All DEC unices have a rather complete DWB 3.1 
minus ditroff. You can fork out 5 US grand and get DWB 3.4 for SGI/IRIX. 
And so on...

> What would people think about moving systemtmacdir to
> /usr/share/groff/site-tmac and localtmacdir to
> /usr/local/share/groff/site-tmac? This is consistent with how I
> understand the FHS, but, if any other packagers are reading this list,
> I'd be interested to hear what you do.

In my experience "share" directory hierarchies are those you put under 
automount control (or whatever remote file-system export technology you 
decide to use) for cluster sharing and the "lib" hierarchy is the 
appropriate place for system dependent files. A proposal to use the "etc" 
or the "var" hierarchies would have a better chance of flying.