Re: [AUCTeX-devel] adventures with --prefix, TeX-data-directory and style files

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "RA" == Ralf Angeli <address@hidden> writes:

  RA> * Phillip Lord (2008-09-03) writes:

  >> In practice, I stopped bothering. I've never managed to get to grips with
  >> how emacs finds its info files

  RA> C-h v Info-directory-list <RET> C-h v Info-additional-directory-list
  RA> <RET>

  >> and found it unreliable;

  RA> Probably because you use a non-standard setup and haven't configured it
  RA> correctly.

No. I went through the entire code to try and work out what was happening
sometime ago. Essentially, there is some caching going on, so changes don't
necessarily get reflected immediately. 

Rather, I should say in past tense. I did this a long time ago and it may have
changed since. 


  >> I normally just open them with C-uC-hi in my ~/emacs/packages directory.
  >> Or more often these days, I type the name into google and use a web
  >> browser.

  RA> Sounds inconvenient.

Not hugely. I've been using most of the packages for years, so don't look at
the info. For new packages, you open once, and then *info* is in the right
place. After a day or two, you know the package, and you don't need info
anymore. 

If I found it a problem, then I'd come up with a better solution. The
disadvantages are more than saved by being able to move freely between
machines and operating systems. 

  RA> If you are talking about the lisp files not being put below the prefix
  RA> then you should use --with-lispdir in addition to --prefix. IIRC the
  RA> configure script will put the lisp files into a directory in the
  RA> load-path of Emacs. If it cannot find such a directory below the given
  RA> prefix, another available one is chosen.
  >> 
  >> Okay.
  >> 
  >> So I've tried
  >> 
  >> ./configure --with-lispdir=/home/phillord/emacs/package/auctex
  >> 
  >> This fails when the install tries to access /usr/local/share/info.

  RA> Because you did not specify --prefix.

Ah, yes. 

  >> The alternative in my .emacs is this....
  >> 
  >> (require 'tex-site)

  RA> This is outdated. Please look up in the documentation how to set up
  RA> AUCTeX.

Okay, auctex.el is new on me. I've tried this and it works fine. 

  >> (if (not (file-readable-p "~/emacs/packages/auctex-11.85/")) (error
  >> "Emacs auctex not where it is expected to be") (setq TeX-data-directory
  >> "~/emacs/packages/auctex-11.85/"))
  >> 
  >> which seems to work.

  RA> ... and voids your warranty.

Can I suggest an update to the "Installation for the non-privilleged user"
section. It says....

The main expedient is using the `--prefix' option to the `configure'
script, and let it point to the personal home directory.


Which I tried and which doesn't work. In the end, I did... 

./configure --prefix=/cygdrive/d/home/phillord/emacs/packages/auctex
       --with-lispdir=/cygdrive/d/home/phillord/emacs/package/auctex 
--disable-preview


which does (and on unix with appropriate path changes). 

I think it was this that confused me when I read it. I'll send a patch if you
want.

Thanks for all the advice! Don't worry about the warranty -- GPL specifically
excludes you from this anyway:-)

Phil