RE: [Axiom-developer] Axiom on Windows

[Bill Page]

On Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:10 AM Tim Daly wrote:
> 
> Bill,
> Minor correction. In fact, axiom does have a 'make install'.
> By default 'make install' will install the mnt subdirectory
> into /usr/local/axiom and the axiom command in /usr/local/axiom/bin.
>

Ok, that's great. I didn't know that existed.
 
> The configure process doesn't do anything yet but it will.
> The main reason it doesn't do anything is that there is no
> way to set a shell variable from a running program like
> configure that survives the program exit (as far as I know).

The usual procedure is that there is a file named 'Makefile.in'
that is modified by ./configure to create the actual Makefile
with the proper paths and choice of options (if any) embedded.
I don't think the Axom ./configure script necessarily needs to
be based on autoconf etc. But I think it would be less confusing
for most if the way it works is modelled after what has become
a gnu standard.

> If there were then the 'configure' script would ask you for
> the type of system and automatically set the shell variables
> for AXIOM and PATH.
> 

I think this is easily possible. Perhaps it would be best if
it were to emulate some of the options usually found in
configure such as --prefix, --host, etc.

Maybe (if I ever find time) I will try to change the
configure file to do this. One possible complication is the
interaction with the Makefile.pamphlet file when it extracts
the host specific version. I wonder if it would make more
sense for that to occur during the ./configure step?

Regards,
Bill Page.