[Box Backup-dev] Makefile.extra?

[Ben Summers]

On 24 Feb 2006, at 12:46, James O'Gorman wrote:

> Ben Summers wrote:
>>> b) If they're not automatically generated, is it safe to just  
>>> patch all
>>> these files?
>> Yes.
>> What should we do for the next release to tidy this up?
>
> One thing I did notice was some inconsistency - sometimes "perl"  
> was used, sometimes "/usr/bin/perl", sometimes "/usr/local/bin/perl".

Probably a result of lots of different people touching it! Although  
there shouldn't be a /usr/local/bin/perl there.

>
> I think on the whole, /usr/bin/perl is the safest to use, but  
> either way I am still required to make the FreeBSD port "PREFIX- 
> clean" if possible. So if someone decided to put perl in an obscure  
> place, they can change their PREFIX and PERL variables in /etc/ 
> make.conf and in theory the port should respect that. The pointyhat  
> build cluster tends to moan if files are installed outside of  
> PREFIX, which means I get emails from portmgr telling me to fix it :-)
>
> Does OpenBSD include perl in the base system?

Yes. And I think it will stay that way, because the ports system  
requires it.


> FreeBSD used to, but it is now a port, but it creates a symlink  
> from /usr/local/bin/perl (or wherever perl was installed) to /usr/ 
> bin/perl.
>
> I'm pretty sure most/all Linux distros install perl to /usr/bin/ 
> perl too?

Sounds like the best thing to do is to autoconf it, and use  
Makefile.extra.in instead, which allows the prefix to be included.  
Then change all the C++ to use a #define for the location too.

Are you up for doing that? I know it won't help your current porting  
work, but would make it easier for next time.

Ben