preferred place for system-wide config files

[Matthew Seaman]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 18/05/2010 12:56:11, Wesley Shields wrote:
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 07:29:22AM +0400, Anonymous wrote:
>> a little confusion arised from ports/146627.
>>
>> The Porter's Handbook defines PREFIX as the place where port should
>> install its files including config files. However, it doesn't say where
>> the port should try to read its config files that may not exist:
>> LOCALBASE/etc or PREFIX/etc? Until recently I assumed such files as
>> installed together with the port unless they belong to some other port.
>>
>> For example, many GNU_CONFIGURE ports look for config files under
>> SYSCONFDIR that's usually under PREFIX/etc and some of them don't
>> install config files nor samples. A few examples: xorg-server,
>> subversion, git. Should such ports be modified to use LOCALBASE/etc?
> 
> PREFIX/etc is the correct place. Very few ports touch LOCALBASE at all,
> and when they do it's explicitly requested. I'm thinking of bind here as
> an example.

The principle is that PREFIX is where *this* port is going to be
installed, but LOCALBASE is where you should assume any prior dependency
ports have been installed.  PREFIX and LOCALBASE are virtually never set
to different values although I do find doing that useful for tesing
ports etc. during maintenance work.  I know there have been Qat port
building experiments setting both PREFIX and LOCALBASE to a non-standard
value, but I don't think there have been any tests trying to install
each port to a PREFIX different to the LOCALBASE used for all its
dependencies.

It's also the case that some ports have to match the PREFIX/LOCALBASE of
certain dependencies: for example various of the RT extension modules I
maintain are like that.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

- -- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
                                                  Kent, CT11 9PW
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkvyhHAACgkQ8Mjk52CukIynWQCeIDkrr2KdqHNyOrCiw+LJeGWp
wWAAnjSxQVZXeVLgb+odWC5vEEX9qFPx
=Tz87
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----