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Re: Calculating Perl module installation directory


From: Stefano Lattarini
Subject: Re: Calculating Perl module installation directory
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 20:16:36 +0100
User-agent: KMail/1.13.7 (Linux/2.6.30-2-686; KDE/4.6.5; i686; ; )

On Tuesday 06 December 2011, Adam Spiers wrote:
> Hi all,
>
Hi Adam.

> I have been struggling to make GNU Stow installable via both autotools
> and a more conventional CPAN-oriented process (since it's written in
> Perl).
>
Question: are the perl modules Stow comes with meant to be used only
internally by the stow script itself, or are they meant to be used by
third-party software as well?  (Given your questions, I suppose the
latter holds, but I want to be sure).

> I've largely succeeded, but I've realised that I currently
> have an unreliable method for calculating the path under which `make
> install' should put Perl modules (which my code refers to as `pmdir').
> Currently it naively defaults to ${libdir}/perl5 even though the
> correct default would be the directory given by:
> 
>   perl -V:installsitelib
> 
> Incidentally this varies significantly by distribution; a quick sample
> from my local systems reveals
> 
>   openSUSE: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.12.3
>   Fedora:   /usr/local/share/perl5
>   Ubuntu:   /usr/local/share/perl/5.12.4
> 
> But it's not good enough to simply take this value as the default,
> because if the user invokes something like
> 
>   ./configure --prefix=/opt
> 
> then `make install' must not touch any directory outside /opt.
>
I perfectly agree with this.

> Bearing that in mind, what should the default value for pmdir be?  For
> the Perl installations referenced above, I would suggest:
> 
>   openSUSE: /opt/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.12.3
>   Fedora:   /opt/share/perl5
>   Ubuntu:   /opt/share/perl/5.12.4
> 
> This can be calculated by stripping `perl -V:siteprefix` (which will
> be /usr on openSUSE and /usr/local on Fedora/Ubuntu) from off the
> front of `perl -V:installsitelib` to obtain a relative path, and then
> appending that to ${prefix}.  This means that the hierarchy under the
> ${prefix} chosen by the user mirrors Perl's siteprefix hierarchy for
> per-site installs.
>
This seems sensible, and in fact is similar with what the Automake builtin
support for installation of python modules does.  Still, I'm not sure
whether the nicety here would be worth the added complexity...

> In other words:
> 
> AC_ARG_WITH(
>     pmdir,
>     [  --with-pmdir=DIR        Perl modules are in DIR [[LIBDIR/perl5]]],
>     [PMDIR=${withval}],
>     [eval `$PERL -V:installsitelib -V:siteprefix`
>   PMDIR='${prefix}'/"${installsitelib#$siteprefix/}"])
>
Warning: the ${var#pattern} substitution is unfortunately unportable to
Bourne shells that lack full POSIX compliance, such as Solaris 10 /bin/sh
(and I guess many other vendor /bin/sh).  While almost all systems have
a (mostly-)POSIX-compliant shell installed somewhere (for example, on
Solaris 10 there is /usr/xpg4/bin/sh), and while autoconf-generated
configure scripts usually take care of re-executing themelves with a
such a better shell when /bin/sh is not POSIX, you can't be sure that
this will always happen.  If you still want to use POSIX shell constructs
not portable to traditional Bourne shells in your configure script, you
might want to ask on the autoconf list whether and how it is possible to
force configure to re-execute itslef with a POSIX-complant shell, or give
a clear error message when no one is found.

> AC_CONFIG_COMMANDS_POST([eval echo "Perl modules will be installed to 
> $PMDIR"])
> AC_SUBST([PMDIR])
> 
> except that now the default value in the help text is wrong, and I
> don't know how to fix it.
>
> Is this a reasonable approach, and if so, how can I dynamically
> generate the correct default value in the help text?
>

Maybe something like (untested!):

  eval "`$PERL -V:installsitelib -V:siteprefix`"
  pmdir_relative_path=${installsitelib#$siteprefix/}

  AC_ARG_ENABLE(
    [pmdir],
    [AS_HELP_STRING(
      [--with-pmdir=DIR],
      [Perl modules are in DIR [[LIBDIR/$pmdir_relative_path]]])],
    [PMDIR=${withval}],
    [PMDIR='${prefix}'/$pmdir_relative_path])

(note that I've also used the autoconf's AS_HELP_STRING macro here, that
should ensure a better formatting of the help message).

HTH,
  Stefano



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