ports/158179: some packages do not fully honor -P dir option in pkg_add(1)

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith]

The following reply was made to PR ports/158179; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen at missouri.edu>
To: Chris Rees <utisoft at gmail.com>
Cc: "current at freebsd.org" <current at FreeBSD.org>,
        "freebsd at sopwith.solgatos.com" <freebsd at sopwith.solgatos.com>,
        "bug-followup at freebsd.org" <bug-followup at FreeBSD.org>,
        Stefan Bethke <stb at lassitu.de>
Subject: Re: ports/158179: some packages do not fully honor -P dir option
 in pkg_add(1)
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:04:48 -0500

 On 07/16/2011 10:53 AM, Chris Rees wrote:
 >
 > On 16 Jul 2011 16:38, "Stephen Montgomery-Smith" <stephen at missouri.edu
 > <mailto:stephen at missouri.edu>> wrote:
 >  >
 >  > On 07/16/2011 04:26 AM, Stefan Bethke wrote:
 >  >>
 >  >> Am 16.07.2011 um 04:43 schrieb Stephen Montgomery-Smith:
 >  >>
 >  >>> I was looking through the source code of pkg_add.  Personally I
 > don't see how the "-P" or "-p" option could be made to work with
 > pkg_add. Many of the installation commands involve scripts which have
 > ${PREFIX} hard coded into them.  ${PREFIX} is often hard coded when trhe
 > package is created by the port.  In my opinion, the options "-p" and
 > "-P" should be removed from pkg_add.
 >  >>>
 >  >>> Either that, or provide the port a way to access "@cwd" in any
 > scripts it installs.  But this would require a major overhaul of the
 > whole ports system, and probably much of the software it installs as well.
 >  >>>
 >  >>> Am I missing something?
 >  >>
 >  >>
 >  >> Yes.  Not honoring the prefix is a bug in the port.  If you do need
 > to do prefix-specific things during install, use pkg-install, see
 > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/porters-handbook/pkg-install.html
 >  >>
 >  >> I suspect that many ports are not well tested outside of
 > "/usr/local", but the infrastructure is there and available.
 >  >
 >  >
 >  > You are correct, this needs to be done on a port by port basis.  In
 > some ports this is going to be a big job, because in some cases the
 > "/usr/local" is hard coded into certain binaries.
 >  >
 >  > For example, suppose the C source code contains something like:
 >  > char applications_dir = "/usr/local/share/applications";
 >  > and this is filled in by the ./configure script.
 >  >
 >  > How is that handled?
 >  >
 >
 > It's not.
 >
 > Remember what a package is, literally the files from the plist tarred
 > with some magic +FILEs and the pkg-*install files- if paths are
 > hardcoded in objects that's how it'll be installed.
 
 What if some of the installation programs are binaries, and "/usr/local" 
 is hard coded into installation binaries or scripts provided by the 
 software itself.
 
 > Don't touch the -p option! It's only useful for.... um.... someone help
 > here?
 
 I am thinking the same thing!