Re: Default for libexecdir

[Bill Moseley]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, Russ Allbery wrote:

> Bill Moseley <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Our project wants to install some helper scripts that are called from
> > our main program.
> 
> > We want to use libexecdir so that it can be overridden with --libexecdir
> > option to configure.  But, we want the default to be in
> > ${prefix}/lib/${PACKAGE}/, or I guess really ${libdir}/${PACKAGE}.
> 
> Please, don't do this unless you absolutely have to.  I say this as
> someone who installs lots and lots of software that uses Autoconf, and
> whose software installation scripts would break on this setup because they
> reset --libexecdir under the assumption that it will have it's standard
> meaning of the root directory for such things, and that packages will
> handle installing things into a subdirectory.  If you do this, it breaks
> that assumption and your helper programs would get installed directly into
> the site-wide libexecdir and make a mess.

I think I'm missing the point.  Are you saying that you rely on $libexec
to be $prefix/libexec?

I don't want to override libexecdir, I just want to set the default, yet
still allow use of the --libexecdir switch.  

The RPM building for our
package actually specifies:

   --libexecdir=/usr/libexec

But under debian the script is installed under 

   /usr/lib/${PACKAGE}/

If I use in Makefile.am:

libexec_SCRIPTS = helperscript

then it ends up in $prefix/libexec/swish-e.  I don't even have
/usr/libexec or /usr/local/libexec on my machines running Debian.

I don't absolutely have to do change it, but we would prefer $libexec to
default to .../lib/$(PACKAGE).  I guess it's just where I'm expecting
things to be installed.

> Please instead install your programs into $(libexecdir)/$(PACKAGE) in your
> Makefiles and look for them there in your source code rather than changing
> the meaning of --libexecdir to mean the package-specific subdirectory.

Oh, that brings up another question:

I use acconfig.h (generated by autoheader).  Can I get $libexecdir (or
$(libexecdir)/$(PACKAGE) into acconfig.h so I can use it in my C code?  Or
should I use @libexecdir@ in something like foo_CPPFLAGS when building
foo?  Seems like acconfig.h would be a good place to define that.

Thanks very much for your help.

-- 
Bill Moseley address@hidden