[HEADS UP] perl symlinks in /usr/bin will be gone

[Erik Trulsson]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 03:39:51AM +0100, Matthias Andree wrote:
> Oliver Lehmann <lehmann at ans-netz.de> writes:
> 
> > Anton Berezin wrote:
> >
> >> In practical terms this will mean a one-time sweep of your scripts in
> >> order to convert them, in a typical case, from #! /usr/bin/perl to
> >> #! /usr/local/bin/perl.
> >
> > Wouldn't that break most of the 3rd party scripts out in the world?
> 
> Hardcoded paths in scripts are a mess. What if I installed Perl into
> /opt/mumble on some other machine? /usr/freeware? /what/ever? Changed
> $PREFIX and/or $LOCALBASE?

Then you would have nobody but yourself to blame.


>From the Perl documentation:

   It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
   easily find it. When possible, it's good for both /usr/bin/perl and
   /usr/local/bin/perl to be symlinks to the actual binary. If that can't
   be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put (symlinks
   to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc, into a
   directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another obvious
   and convenient place.

   In this documentation, #!/usr/bin/perl on the first line of the
   script will stand in for whatever method works on your system.

> 
> I'd say let the ports patch the right location at install time and if
> they break after upgrading both perl and the port, they deserve no better.

And what about all the scripts that administrators and users write that
are not part of any port?  Scripts that were written according to the
de-facto standard that having '#!/usr/bin/perl' on the first line of
the script will work correctly.


No, the proposed change is a bad idea that will create lots of problems
for very little gain.



-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se