Re: DESTDIR vs `make install exec_prefix='

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Harlan,

a post-scriptum to this:

* Harlan Stenn wrote on Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 10:48:50PM CEST:
> Ralf wrote:
> > 
> >   ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
> >   make
> >   make install exec_prefix= DESTDIR=/tmp/dest
> > 
> > most likely copies executable files into the /tmp/dest directory, which
> > doesn't seem desirable either.  So, for both of these cases, Automake
> > 1.11 will not install executable files at all.

> Reading the doc pages for automake, it looks like automake should not
> install *anything* if either prefix or exec_prefix is the empty string,
> under any circumstances.

Well, of course my last message on this wasn't completely correct
either.  Sorry about that.

A better description is: for any installation directory variable, when
that variable is set to the empty string, then Automake 1.11 will not
install any files destined to that directory.

In what way is this different from previous?  Well, if you
  make install exec_prefix=

then bindir will will be `${exec_prefix}/bin', thus `/bin', thus
nonempty.  And the code currently only checks for nonemptiness of the
final variable, not intermediates.  So bindir will be populated unless
you also
  make install bindir=

This seems a bit awkward, but I can't see a way to easily distinguish it
from the case where the user typed
  make install bindir=/bin

and meant for files to be installed there.

> So if one was trying to effect some interesting local policy described
> above,
> 
>    make install exec_prefix=/ DESTDIR=/tmp/dest
> 
> or
> 
>    make install prefix=/ DESTDIR=/tmp/dest
> 
> would be the way to do that, right?

Sorry, I fail to parse this, but I guess it will do what you think it
does, namely install files in /tmp/dest/{bin,lib} etc.

Cheers,
Ralf