Re: gettext

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> writes:
> Daniel R. Grayson writes:
> > For some reason libtool doesn't process your library libgettextsrc
> > correctly, and it ends up not getting installed.  The relevant error message
> > in the output below is
> > 
> >    libtool: install: error: relink `libgettextsrc.la' with the above 
> > command before installing it
> > 
> > Notice I'm using a different prefix with "make install".
> > make prefix=/opt/gettext-0.11.2 exec_prefix=/opt/gettext-0.11.2 -C 
> > /mnt/root/tmp/gettext-0.11.2-build  install
> 
> Hi,
> 
> One cannot give a different prefix to "make" or "make install" than
> was given to "configure". That doesn't work because the prefix is
> hardcoded in various locations (as shared library runpaths, as
> argument to bindtextdomain(), as directory where to search for
> auxiliary executables etc.)

The paths get hard coded at compile time, if `make install' recompiles
(or even compiles something) the program it is violating the GCS (GNU
Coding Standards).

Using DESTDIR is just a quicker way of supplying all the changed
variables.  For example, if you do something like:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --infodir=/share/info

And then want to install in a different directory, say ~/foo, you
would need to do this:

$ make install prefix=~/foo infodir=~/foo/share/info

With DESTDIR this can be accomplished with (because DESTDIR is
prepended to all installation targets):

$ make install DESTDIR=~/foo


> The recommended way (recommended by the GNU standards) is through the
> DESTDIR variable. Like this:

The GCS does not recommend anything like that, you are probably
referring to the GNU Stow info manual.  DESTDIR is an optional
variable according to the GCS.

Cheers,
-- 
Alfred M. Szmidt