Re: Feature request: setting env vars for binary wrappers

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Behdad,

* Behdad Esfahbod wrote on Wed, Mar 01, 2006 at 05:15:17AM CET:
> 
> This is a feature request for libtool.  Let me describe the
> problem as I face it, so you may have a workaround for it
> already:  I'm using libtool in the Pango text rendering engine.
> The Pango library accesses a file in $prefix/etc/pango/pangorc to
> find its modules at run-time.  Now all I want to do is to be able
> to run the examples in pango/example when Pango is not installed.
> 
> The easiest way that can be done is to set the PANGO_RC_PATH
> envvar to a special pangorc file.  Another is to pass the
> --pangorc path-to-pango-rc to the examples if they understand it.
> What I need from libtool is to let me do one of these things in
> the wrapper it creates for uninstalled binaries.
> 
> Do you think this can be done already?

No, not generally.  Well, you could build a(nother) wrapper around it,
or just call it with the command line option.

> Do you see adding support for something like this a useful feature?

I'm tending towards a "yes" here.

One thing you may not be aware of: libtool does not actually create a
shell wrapper for the uninstalled program in any case; this depends on
the system in question, on whether fast-install mode is desired or not,
also there is a TODO item to make no-fast-install mode work right on
more systems.

What should libtool do if it would not by default create a wrapper?
Note many users don't like the wrapper: it makes debugging more
cumbersome, adds runtime overhead, and potentially changes argv[0]
(for which, again, there is a TODO item to fix this).

If we can find an answer to this question to define coherent semantics,
I'm all for it.

Cheers,
Ralf