Re: System files and "make distcheck"

[cwr]

Quoting Ralf Wildenhues <address@hidden>:

> * address@hidden wrote on Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 01:08:29PM CEST:
> > It looks as if the standard GNU installation method would require
> > every user to run ./configure --sysconfdir=/etc, whereas most would
> > just try the usual ./configure && make.  Given the choice between
> > a convenient installation for the user, and a working distcheck, I
> > think I'll have to take the convenient installation.
>
> You can have both.  At the least, you shouldn't override explicit user
> wishes.
>
> configure defaults sysconfdir to '${prefix}/etc', so you could override
> it to /etc if prefix is /usr and sysconfdir has not been overridden by
> the user:
>
> AC_INIT
> if test "$prefix" = / && test "$sysconfdir" = '${prefix}/etc'; then
>   sysconfdir=/etc
>   AS_MSG_NOTICE([overriding sysconfdir to $sysconfdir])
> fi

Yup, that works.  The problem was that I didn't really grasp the way you can
merge Autoconf and shell code.  Finally I've got a setup which has reasonable
defaults, and which can be overridden by the user.

Many thanks - Will