Re: looking for comments on this installation program

[Ulrich Drepper <drepper@cygnus.com>]

Zack Weinberg <zack@rabi.phys.columbia.edu> writes:

> In fact I was going to pull most of the installation code out of the
> Makefiles; instead, each subdir that wants to install things would
> have a short `Instfile' listing all the files to install.  make
> install would then glom all the files together, substitute the
> prefix and install_root, and call my program.

We must have dynamically generated files.  There is no single static
set of files.

I think generating a file containing the from- and to-names while
running through all the subdirs is ok.  This list is useful in many
aspects:

- of course the installer program uses it

- one can store it so that later installation processes remove those files
  which are gone

- we can implement the "install only if newer" in the installation
  program and don't rely on Makefile tricks.

- distribution makers can use the very same list to write the package
  spec files.

-- Uli
---------------.      drepper at gnu.org  ,-.   1325 Chesapeake Terrace
Ulrich Drepper  \    ,-------------------'   \  Sunnyvale, CA 94089 USA
Cygnus Solutions `--' drepper at cygnus.com   `------------------------