dolfin team mailing list archive

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Barry Smith wrote:

>  Well knock me over with a sledge hammer; the one constant in my world
> is gone! From
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.57/html_mono/autoconf.html#SEC34
>
> By default, configure sets the prefix for files it installs to
> `/usr/local'. The user of configure can select a different prefix
> using the `--prefix' and `--exec-prefix' options. There are two ways
> to change the default: when creating configure, and when running it.

Yes.

> > Now, if the location of the binaries is hardwired into them at compile time
> > using --prefix as the location, which seems to be what is going on, then this
> > would explain my problems.
>
>  We are hardwiring into the libraries the location of the dynamic libraries
> that need to be loaded at runtime. The location is determined by --prefix
> as I understood --prefix to mean.

I'm not clear on what you mean. By 'the libraries' you mean the PETSc 
library files, I presume? Then, what do you mean by the 'dynamic 
libraries'?

As far as I can see, the information that is being hardwired into the 
PETSc library files is the installation location of the PETSc library 
files themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In general, hardwiring things is a bad idea because it makes things break 
when you want to move files around, which you invariably do when 
packaging.

If the idea is so that the linker can find the library at runtime, that is 
what standard locations like /usr/lib are for, and search paths for the 
linker can also be set in /etc/ld.so.conf.

There is nothing in the GNU standards about hardwiring things as far as 
I know, though I could be wrong.

>  How should we get the information to compile into the libraries? If we 
> cannot use --prefix do we have to make up our own option name 
> --with-install-directory=...?

I dunno. Why not ask around where technical people hang out? The various 
Debian lists are pretty helpful, and there might be some appropriate GNU 
list.

I don't claim to be an expert on any of this. I'm just trying to make a 
package of PETSc. I'm sure there are other people far better qualified to 
give advice.

>  Barry
>
> And I use to think that Windows sucked.

Oh, come now. That's uncalled for.                              Faheem.