Remove +with_default_names and use a specific path for unprefixed binaries

Ryan Schmidt ryandesign at macports.org
Fri Sep 18 04:40:34 PDT 2009


On Sep 18, 2009, at 06:20, Markus Weissmann wrote:

> On Fri, September 18, 2009 12:55, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>>
>
>> I'm not sure what "something" in ${prefix}/libexec/something should
>> be. I suggested ${name} because that's what other ports use. Mark
>> suggested "gnubin". "gnubin" would be convenient in that you would
>> only have to add one path to your PATH to pick up all installed GNU
>> utilities. On the other hand, might there be a reason when you would
>> want only specific GNU utilities and not others? Might you want to
>> only have the GNU sed and keep the BSD awk, say? If so, then putting
>> each port's binaries in its own directory would give you that  
>> freedom.
>> Heck, we could have it both ways: each port could create two symlinks
>> to each program, one in ${prefix}/libexec/gnubin and one in $ 
>> {prefix}/
>> libexec/${name}. Then the user can use whichever path they like.
>
> The logical extension to this would be, to have a separate libexec/$ 
> {name}
> directory for each port -- which imho is a bit excessive.

Yes, I did mean one libexec/${name} directory for each port that we're  
talking about here. I see this variant in coreutils, diffutils,  
findutils, gsed, gnetcat, gnutar, gwhich, and m4. gawk doesn't have  
this variant but whatever solution we come up with for the others  
could be applied to gawk as well. Whether having a separate directory  
for each of those is excessive depends on the purpose of having the  
directory in the first place. Since I am not a person who wants these  
utilities with their default names, I wasn't sure what those who do  
want that are wanting exactly, that's why I was asking.


> I assume that most people who select "with_default_names" variants are
> those who prefer GNU tools to BSD tools (Mac OS X respectively).
> In this case, ONE separate libexec/gnubin or libexec/gnu directory  
> with
> un-prefixed executables would do. I you want the power to select the  
> name
> for each and every executable, then for gods sake, make your own  
> directory
> with symlinks: Its the same amount of work then.

Ah, true, nothing is preventing anyone from making their own symlinks  
somewhere. In which case, there isn't even a problem with just  
removing the with_default_names variants entirely and not creating a  
replacement. But it would be nice to at least symlink them into one  
directory.





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