Re: install location of Octave libraries in .debs

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 03:02:58PM +0200, Michael Creel wrote:
> Hello Dirk and others,
> In the packages for Debian Linux, the symbolic links liboctave.so, 
> libcruft.so, and liboctinterp.so are created in the 
> directory /usr/lib/octave-2.1.58 (or whatever the latest version is) rather 
> than /usr/lib/octave.
> 
> When linking against these, you need to know which is the latest version 
> installed. I'm wondering if the links can be made in /usr/lib/octave, or 
> using the /etc/alternatives framework, so that one can write a makefile that 
> will work without knowing the last installed version.
> 
> Or, if someone has an easy alternative solution, what is it please?

There is one:

$ man octave-config

which is used for example in all the build scripts I use:
address@hidden:~> head -16 debian/Octave/octave-forge-2004.09.09/debian/rules 
#!/usr/bin/make -f
#                                                       -*- makefile -*-
# debian.rules file for the Debian/GNU Linux octave-forge package
# Copyright 2000 - 2004 by Dirk Eddelbuettel <address@hidden>

package         = octave-forge
altname         = octave-forge-alternatives
debtmp          := $(CURDIR)/debian/tmp
debdoc          := $(debtmp)/usr/share/doc/$(package) 
octdir          := $(shell octave-config --oct-site-dir)
mdir            := $(shell octave-config --m-site-dir)
altoctdir       := $(shell octave-config --oct-site-dir)/$(altname)
altmdir         := $(shell octave-config --m-site-dir | \
                        sed -e +"s,/m$$,,")/$(altname)/m
octbin          := $(shell octave-config -p LOCALVERARCHLIBDIR)
                        
                
The real problem is that we need to rebuild all packages containing .oct
code for every new version. But then that is a price worth paying for new
features -- and there were tons of them lately -- which is somewhat
difficult with a frozen API.  That said, in an ideal world (where John,
David, Paul, ... can all code 36 hrs/day :) it would be nice to undo the
version-numnered paths for, say, a new stable version octave 3.0.

Dirk

-- 
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
                                                -- Groucho Marx