Re: Setting output dir for support files

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Robert,

* Robert J. Hansen wrote on Fri, May 01, 2009 at 07:07:02AM CEST:
> I've used Autotools in a few small projects before, but nothing which
> required auxiliary files to support the binaries.  Typically, I've seen
> these auxiliary files stored in /usr/share/package-version/, and would
> like to do the same thing for my own package via Autotools.

You can use the predefined directory variable pkgdatadir which is
  ${datadir}/$(PACKAGE)

or you can define your own directory variable, for example based upon
another existing one:

  foobardir = ${datadir}/bazbaz
  foobar_DATA = some not distributed files that will be installed \
                below foobardir
  dist_foobar_DATA = likewise but distributed

  dist_pkgdata_DATA = likewise but installed in pkgdatadir

Of course, instead of "foobar", you can use another name that is more
fitting to describe the directory purpose.

The "Uniform Naming Scheme" is explained further here:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Uniform.html>

> 3.  How can I, programmatically within my C code, find the dirs in
>     which my auxiliary files have been placed?

This is explained here:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Defining-Directories.html>

> I apologize for the elementary question, but Google has been pretty much
> no help, and studying how other projects have done it has been less than
> informative.  :(

There is a good tutorial at:
<http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~adl/autotools.html>

Hope that helps.  :-)

Cheers,
Ralf