Re: Including sysconfdir in CPPFLAGS

[Fredrik Tolf]

Guido Draheim writes:
 > 
 > 
 > Peter Eisentraut wrote:
 > > Fredrik Tolf writes:
 > > 
 > > 
 > >>How do I get the sysconfdir into a cpp macro if I use automake as
 > >>well? Should I do it through a config header, or should I do it via
 > >>some automake contraption? Should I just add it to CPPFLAGS? Please
 > >>tell me.
 > > 
 > > 
 > > The Autoconf manual tells the tale:
 > > 
 > >    A corollary is that you should not use these variables except in
 > > Makefiles.  For instance, instead of trying to evaluate `datadir' in
 > > `configure' and hardcoding it in Makefiles using e.g.
 > > `AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(DATADIR, "$datadir")', you should add
 > > `-DDATADIR="$(datadir)"' to your `CPPFLAGS'.
 > > 
 > 
 > A corollary to gnu coding standards, and a corollary with little
 > impact as `make` and `make install` are still two stages. In the
 > bottom line, it does not matter. - The reality however is even
 > different: do not use sysconfdir in your program sources! people
 > are still thinking to put config files in there but that's
 > inherently wrong. If you want runtime configs, you need to do a
 > lot of runtime checks and go for ${HOME} first, and some package
 > specific ${MYPKGCONFIG} second, and only as a fallback go for
 > a system directory. In that case, do not call it $sysconfdir but
 > a make/subst MYPCKCONFIG that has a configure.ac fallback to
 > ${sysconfdir}, with the effect that in all build stages the
 > _specific_ path can be overridden. And that makes for the thing
 > said above: do not use sysconfdir in your program sources!

Well, it is a system daemon that I'm writing on, so I think it would
be wrong to look in $HOME. Since I won't use sysconfdir in more than
one context (ie. to look for my config file), isn't sysconfdir the one
that should be used? Otherwise, where am I actually supposed to use
sysconfdir? I figure it must have some purpose.

Fredrik Tolf