Re: Nested packages

[Nick Bowler]

On 2012-09-26 12:50 -0600, Gallagher James wrote:
> I have some nested packages that are optionally built by my code. For
> these nested packages, I would like to configure, compile and install
> (in a prefix my package sets) them before my main package compiles.
> I'm familiar with AC_CONFIG_SUBDIRS and using SUBDIRS to build nested
> packages, but it's getting these nested packages to _both_ build and
> install before the main package builds that I can't figure out. I want
> the packages to install because they have includes and libraries
> spread over several directories. Does anyone know how to do this?
>
> As a work around, I'm running the (optional) build and install from
> inside the main package's configure. I could also set CFLAGS/CPPFLAGS
> and LDFLAGS as a long list of -I and -L options...

This is unlikely to work as the user running configure (or, for that
matter, the user building the package) does not necessarily have
permissions to install the packages.  It also seems impossible to
support VPATH builds or DESTDIR installs in any kind of sane manner
with this setup.

My suggestion is to rethink your decision to use subpackages.  It seems
like it would be both easier (for you) and more conventional (for your
users) to just require that the necessary packages are already installed
if the user requests these optional features.

Cheers,
-- 
Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)