Re: [Plplot-devel] "make check" support installed for c++, f77, and tk examples

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

I am quoting Joao in full below because apparently he cannot reach the list
yet.  I have some comments at the end of my own.

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
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On Sun, 8 Dec 2002, Joao Cardoso wrote:

> On Friday 06 December 2002 18:22, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
> > make check now builds all non-installed examples fine, but the current
> > situation is you will need some data installed to actually use the
> > examples. Fonts and drivers are the only things requiring installation for
> > the c, c++, and f77 examples.  (I checked this by removing the installed
> > libraries, but nothing else).
>
> Yes, I checked it too. Fixing this will be easy, but I have some reservations
> on this.
>
> As an user, not developper, I often download/configure/make some packages,
> just to evaluate them. Often I just "rm -rf the thing", after evaluating it
> without installing. Till now very few packages couldn't be evaluated without
> installing. This will not be possible with plplot, at least with the
> interpreted bindings like python, tcl, octave and probably java.
>
> As a plplot user, I would download/configure/make the release to see if it is
> worth installing it. Only after evaluation. This will not be possible
> anymore.
>
> As a developper, I dont find practical the new scheme, at least for
> interpreted languages.
>
> Lets see, if I (user/developper) have to install after make and before use, in
> order to not disturb my system, I will install in /usr/local/test. After
> everything looks fine, I will have to configure/make/install again to install
> in the final place. Why doesnt we install in the current location from the
> start? If we like, we will configure/make/install to the final place, but
> meanwhile we could evaluate/improve/debug in-place -- without the mess of
> never exactly knowing if we are running the installed or the just built
> library, as it recently happened with you.
>
> Joao

You should forget that e-mail from me.  It detailed what worked now and why.
But I don't think that is the ultimate solution if you want to work more on
this.

Here is what I suggest.  Make a configuration option (enable-original-data
or whatever better name you can come up with) that by default is disabled.
However, when the user enables it, the code searchs for everything (drivers,
fonts, tcl scripts) in the original location rather than the usual installed
location. Our code would have to be changed to pay attention to this option,
whenever searching for drivers, fonts, or tcl scripts, but at least with
such an overall option it would be either one clear location or the other.
The problem of searching both locations at once as in the old system is the
behaviour depends on whether there was an old install around or not.  Most
developers here have been caught by that problem with the old system.  At
least with a configuration option the user has made a clear choice, and it
is guaranteed (if you do the programming changes properly) that *only* one
location (either original or installed but not both) will be searched.

Comments?

Alan