Hello Alfred, Eric, * Alfred M. Szmidt wrote on Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 02:49:30PM CEST: > > Hmmm. Would it be worth changing autoconf to make './configure > > --help' state something like the following: > > > > | Some influential environment variables: > > | ... > > | DESTDIR leave unset during configure; allows installation to > > | specify a staging area different than the final prefix Please, let's not bloat `configure --help' output even more. It is already very long for a simple help text, it should not document things that are not, in fact, settings for configure but for the makefile. > Not all packages follow GNU Coding Standards, therefore, DESTDIR is not > properly supported in a surprisingly large number of packages. > > We already enforce a level of GNUism on packages that use > autoconf/automake, I do not think it would be the end of the world if > we did it in this case as well. This case is different. DESTDIR has the important drawback that it does not work well with w32-style installation directory names like `C:/foo', because you cannot prepend to such a path. So for maximum portability you should support this in your package, too. BTW, why do you state that overriding just $prefix would be "almost always wrong"? DESTDIR can still serve as a more convenient way to override several installation directories at once (and it is necessary for a good experience for packages using libtool). And no, I don't like the idea of forcing more GNUisms, more so for *optional* features (the GNU Coding Standards do not mandate DESTDIR support). That's what things like the Automake option `gnits' and `make distcheck' are for, and they let you opt in to the pain. > > I do not think that users are confused about passing DESTDIR > > during configure time either. DESTDIR is and has always been a > > automake variable. Alas, the only useful place to put this > > information is in the output of --help. Maybe something more > > like this would be a bit more suitable (not to happy about the > > actual wording): > > > > `To install FOO in a different directory for the purpose of > > making a tarball, or similar pass DESTDIR to `make install'' > > Maybe the shorter: > > `To install FOO in a staging directory, use `make install DESTDIR=...'' > > I like that. However, this text may not be added by Autoconf as Autoconf cannot be sure that the package supports this. Pedantically, the package cannot even be sure that `make' is used at all. IMVHO the right place to document DESTDIR is along with documentation to the standard make targets. INSTALL documents a couple, but would grow too large if it documented all (and is also targeted at non-automake-using packages). Maybe the generic INSTALL file should provide pointers to more comprehensive documentation? Cheers, Ralf _______________________________________________ Autoconf mailing list Autoconf@xxxxxxx http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/autoconf
