Re: execline-1.05 non-root installation problem

 (replying to skaware & package, MFT set to package)

[ Uffe Jakobsen wrote: ]

> I'm trying to install execline-1.05 using Paul Jarc's sptools/sp-install
> program (http://multivac.cwru.edu/sptools/sp-install/).
> I installing on a system (Sun Solaris) that I do not have root access on.
> That means that my location of /package is _not_ /package but instead
> indicated by the SP_ROOT env-var (again see
> (http://multivac.cwru.edu/sptools/sp-install/).

(snip messages and errors dues to skalibs not found)

> The above error is caused by the absolute path references in
> "admin/execline-1.05/conf-compile/import":
> 
> /package/prog/skalibs/include
> /package/prog/skalibs/library
> 
> 
> Now I know that the easy workaround would be to modify the
> "admin/execline-1.05/conf-compile/import" to my needs but it would be very
> nice if your execline-package was "compatible" with sptools/sp-install -
> that would make our (my) slashpackage install/maintenance "life-cycle" much
> easier...

 Good point.
 I think I could add support for SP_ROOT in package/compile ; but I'm
quite reluctant to do it.

 Supporting non-root installations would mean heavy changes in some
packages like conn-tools, where /package/... paths are hardcoded. The
whole point in slashpackage is to have reliable paths which _can_ safely
be hardcoded. I understand this is inconvenient for non-root users, but
I'm not willing to drop the main slashpackage advantage (for developers
and admins) because of that. If you want to install conn-tools under
a different path, you'll have to modify the hardcoded paths in the
source code. If you want/need to have skalibs under a different path,
you'll have to modify conf-compile/import by hand.
 And if you install execline under a different path, #!/command/execlineb
scripts won't work without patching, which somehow defeats the purpose.

 On the other hand, if slashpackage users can agree on a "standard" way
of specifying the /package root, while bearing in mind that only /package
is fully supported and anything else is the admin's problem, then I'm
willing to adapt. For instance, we could define a conf-compile/sp_root
file, containing /package by default, on which the whole build would
rely. sp-install could then perform "echo $SP_ROOT > conf-compile/sp_root"
before starting the build.

 What do you guys think ?

-- 
 Ska