bug#41037: documentation for application developers?

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

Hi Bruno!

Bruno Haible 写道：
> Hi Ludo,
>
> > > I would expect to find these issues discussed, at least:
> > >   - hard-coded program names like /bin/pwd
> >
> > These should be avoided; it’s not Guix-specific, but the 
> > problem is
> > obviously more acute here.
>
> /bin/pwd exists on all other Unix systems; so de facto it _is_ 
> Guix
> specific.

Perhaps.  Well behaved portable programmes use $PATH anyway, so 
it's a non-issue.

A handful hard-code directories at their peril and suffer the 
consequences — usually, by being patched to respect $PATH. :-)

This is deliberately not supported.  Users *could* ask Guix to 
create a /bin/pwd for them.  Nobody does.

> So, the consequence is that a Guix user cannot send an 
> executable
> to another Guix user and expect it to be runnable on the other 
> machine.

s|Guix|GNU/Linux|g

> This too is Guix specific; maybe it is already documented?

It's not Guix-specific at all.  It's universal to all unix systems 
(and beyond): when you send someone a binary that's missing 
external dependencies, it will not run.  If you give them the 
dependencies (for example, using ‘guix pack’ which includes the 
correct linker, not someone else's random copy with the same 
name), it runs.  Guix is no different.

> ldconfig and shared library caches

Guix uses neither, since there's nothing to cache: once linked 
(using rpath and absolute /gnu/store file names), libraries do not 
move around in space and time.  It's not the cause of or the 
solution to your problem.  I hope Ludo's suggestion was!

Kind regards,

T G-R

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