Re: [Nmh-workers] fmttest program - where to install it?

[Ken Hornstein]

>>   fmtdump, I think that's one that could go into $(bindir);
>>   I don't think there's much of a conflict there.
>
>It's effectively debug for format authors rather than an everyday
>command.  Is its functionality easily made available at the
>function-call level to commands that use formats?  Perhaps them having a
>-dump-format option that dumps the format used to stderr would be an
>alternative?  If I'm debugging my `scan -form scan.ralph' then
>-dump-format kind of makes sense.  Perhaps a -trace-format would be
>`such fun' too.  ;-)

I understand where you're coming from ... but I'm not sure where else to
put it.  $(libexecdir) is for programs that get run by other programs.
fmtdump isn't one of those programs; it's designed to be run by people.
We could just leave it where it is, but that just seems like a lousy
solution to me.  Would $(sbindir) be better?

Unfortunately, fmtdump has all of it's smarts in it; embedding it into
other programs would be hard.

But let me suggest a counter-proposal; I was thinking of making the
yet-unwritten fmttest program do all of the work that ap and dp currently
do.  Also, it could take care of the work that fmtdump does as well.
How about we leave fmtdump in it's current purgatory but have the
user-visible fmttest (or whatever we want to call it) in $(bindir).

--Ken