Re: make distcheck and the /etc dir

[Noah Slater]

> Sounds like my best solution would be to use the "sysconf_DATA" option.
> Any ideas how to take 'sysconfdir' and somehow import it into my program
> so it knows where the default configuration files are?

Well, I use Python and I have a file called 'lib/foo/__init__.py.in'
that is has the following lines:

def _expand_variable(composite_value, **kwargs):
   composite_value = re.sub('\{|\}', '', composite_value)
   value_template = string.Template(composite_value)
   value = value_template.substitute(**kwargs)
   return value

_GNU_PREFIX = "@prefix@"
_GNU_PACKAGE_TARNAME = "@PACKAGE_TARNAME@"
_GNU_DATAROOTDIR = _expand_variable("@datarootdir@", prefix=_GNU_PREFIX)

DEFAULT_CONFIGURATION_DIRECTORY = _expand_variable(
   "@pkgconfdir@", prefix=_GNU_PREFIX)
DEFAULT_DOCUMENTATION_DIRECTORY = _expand_variable("@docdir@",
   datarootdir=_GNU_DATAROOTDIR, PACKAGE_TARNAME=_GNU_PACKAGE_TARNAME)
DEFAULT_LOCALE_DIRECTORY = _expand_variable(
   "@localedir@", datarootdir=_GNU_DATAROOTDIR)
DEFAULT_LOG_DIRECTORY = _expand_variable("@pkglogdir@", prefix=_GNU_PREFIX)

Now, when ./configure is run this file is generated and placed at
'lib/foo/__init__.py' and hence is available to me a run-time with all
the user configured paths.

If you are using C I believe the recommended way is to use a header
file with a bunch of defines that gets customised at ./configure time.

> Or does somebody else have an algorithm
> to calculate where the configuration files are based on the location of
> the executable (relatively system portable).

Once your program has baked in configuration like above you can use
any method (like environment variables) to override the defaults.

Hope this helps.

Noah

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